GoKawiilis an editor covering deals and gaming hardware. He joined in 2018, and after a two-year stint at Polygon, he rejoined The Verge in May 2025.
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I’ve spent months in the lab testing the latest AR glasses from Xreal and Viture. By “lab,” I mean cozied up on my couch each night, playing my Steam Deck or Nintendo Switch 2 on a huge, virtual screen that only I can see through these glasses.
Using AR glasses as a portable display for your handhelds (and other USB-C devices, like phones, tablets, and laptops) is nothing new. However, the latest versions have one must-have feature in common: three degrees of freedom, or 3DoF, which lets you anchor the screen anywhere you’d like, as opposed to having it nauseatingly wiggle with every head movement. This won’t make AR glasses worth their $400-plus costs for most gamers. But this makes them more useful if you travel a lot, or if you want a more ergonomic handheld setup.
I tested three popular models — Xreal’s $449 1S, its $649 One Pro, and Viture’s $549 Beast — and there is no best pair that everyone should buy. Each does a few things well and a few things not so well, which leaves me no other choice than to list out the ingredients that would make for one perfect pair of AR glasses for gaming.
The comfort, sound quality, and ease of use of Xreal’s glasses
All of these AR glasses are heavier and thicker than regular glasses, but Xreal’s 1S glasses are the lightest model of the bunch. On my kitchen scale, they weigh 85 grams (for comparison, the One Pro glasses weigh 91 grams, while the Viture Beast glasses are 96 grams). A small thing that’s actually a big deal is that they (as well as the One Pro) have great weight distribution and thinner temple arms than Viture’s Beast, which helps me feel less strain on my ears. It’s great that Xreal’s most affordable AR glasses are just as comfortable as its most expensive pair.
Each pair comes with adjustable nose pads to fit different nose bridges. Viture’s Beast glasses (left) have thicker temple arms than Xreal’s glasses, particularly where they rest on your ears. Xreal’s glasses sound a lot better than Viture’s Harman-tuned glasses. An example of what the 1S’s electrochromic lenses look like with maximum dimming.
The 1S and One Pro glasses deliver better-sounding audio through their temple arms than Viture’s latest glasses. Xreal’s audio is tuned by Bose, and the glasses have balanced audio with surprisingly good low-end performance. Viture’s is tuned by Harman, and the Beast glasses pack considerably less oomph, with more emphasis on the mids and highs. Music, movies, and games are all more fun to listen to through Xreal’s glasses, even at low volumes.
The 1S and One Pro glasses have fewer buttons than Viture’s glasses, which lowers the learning curve. Xreal’s glasses have four buttons in total, all of which are along their right temple arm. To be fair, all AR glasses’ button layouts take a while to learn. But the Beast has six in total spread across both temple arms, two of which are a button rocker dedicated solely to adjusting the opacity of its electrochromic lenses — it’s overkill.
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