EXPERT VERDICT
Apple’s Vision Pro far exceeded Britta Smith’s expectations, but will it be worth that exorbitant price tag?
DISPLAY
There are several elements of the Vision Pro that stand out, but nothing will quite prepare you for the brilliance of the all-encompassing micro-OLED display that transports you to an entirely different world – or worlds, as is perhaps a fairer assessment.
In my ten years as a technology journalist, nothing has rendered me speechless quite like this device did in my 30-minute experience with it. There are two individual lenses within the Vision Pro, behind which the 3D display system offers up 23 million pixels – more than the equivalent of a 4K TV in each eye – and the detail presented is nothing short of phenomenal.
The familiar apps are mere centimetres from your face and there wasn’t so much as a pixel out of place, with sharp and crisp lines making up the rounded icons we’ve come to know and love from Apple’s interface. The apps are only the beginning, however, with the true scale of what Vision Pro is capable of presented to me in an interactive spatial experience with a dinosaur.
In what is almost impossible to describe, the detail of the dinosaur’s scaled skin a matter of what felt like millimetres from my eyes is as vivid in my mind today as it was when I first experienced it. With each groove, ridge and slight variation in colour all creating such a magnificently realistic picture, I had to remind myself several times over in those brief minutes with the tyrannosaurus that dinosaurs had in fact not returned from extinction to consume me.
BUILD & COMFORT
If the incredible detail in the displays don’t do enough to impress, the quality of the materials used in Vision Pro will certainly play their part in convincing you this headset is worth the cash. There is absolutely no denying how expensive Vision Pro is, but every element of its build oozes luxury.
Yes, it could certainly be said the design is remarkably like a pair of exceptionally premium ski goggles, but everything from the aluminium alloy casing with its rounded edges, Digital Crown and capture button, to the soft-to-touch material Light Seal, delivers the kind of quality you would expect in designer goods twice the price.
The Light Seal – setup individually per user with an iPhone in a similar process to setting up Face ID – secures comfortably around your nose and eyes to ensure not a single ray of light from the real world beams through. Audio straps attach from the Light Seal to the ribbed material Head Band that holds the device in place and is adjusted with the Fit Dial on the right of the headset.
There’s also an optional additional strap that goes across the top of your head to take some of the 450g weight, but in 30 minutes of continuous wearing, I didn’t
