It has been five years since Samsung and Google stopped supporting their respective mobile virtual reality headsets. For a second try, the companies have partnered up with a bolder vision in the mixed reality space, starting with the new Galaxy XR. Announced last year as Project Moohan, it’s the first headset powered by Android XR, a new platform for smart glasses and headsets built on Android and Google’s Gemini assistant from the ground up.
The Galaxy XR is available today in the US and South Korea for $1,800. (You can finance it for $149 per month for 12 months.) That’s a leap over standard VR headsets like the Meta Quest 3, but a significantly lower price than the $3,499 Vision Pro, which Apple is refreshing this week with the new M5 processor.
Galactic Vision
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
I was able to demo the headset again last week at a closed-doors media event in New York City held by Samsung, Google, and Qualcomm—the Galaxy XR is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chip—but not much was different from my original hands-on experience last year, which you can read more about here. The official name and price were the two big question marks, but that has now been addressed.
The Galaxy XR purports to do nearly everything that Apple’s device does. Pop the headset on and you’ll be able to see the room you’re in through the pancake lenses and layer virtual content over it, or whisk yourself off to another world. Your hands are the input (controllers are available as a separate purchase), and it uses eye tracking to see what you want to select. You can access all your favorite apps from the Google Play Store; XR apps will have a “Made for XR” label.
Samsung’s headset is more plasticky and doesn’t feel as premium as Apple’s Vision Pro—I noticed the tethered battery pack on a demo unit looked well-worn with fingerprint smudges on the coating. But this general construction makes it feel significantly lighter to wear. I wasn’t able to try it for a long period, but it felt comfortable, with the only issue being a sweaty brow after a 25-minute bout with it on. The headset was warm at the top, but the battery pack remained relatively cool. Speaking of, the battery lasts 2 hours or 2.5 hours if you’re purely watching video. That’s on par with the original Vision Pro, though the M5 version extends it to 2.5 with mixed use.
