Movie over Meta Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro, there’s a new mixed reality headset in town: the Samsung Galaxy XR, formerly known as Project Moohan, is here.
As you’ll see in Editor-at-Large Lance Ulanoff’s time with the Galaxy XR headset there’s a lot to like about it, from its stylish and lightweight design to its cheaper-than-the-Vision-Pro price tag.
But I’m here to dig into the tech fitted inside the headset – so without further ado, let’s take a look at the five key technologies behind the Samsung Galaxy XR.
1. A pixel-packing display
It might sound obvious, but displays are the most important aspect of a virtual, augmented, or mixed-reality headset – they can make the difference between you being immersed in a world or feeling queasy as you navigate a sluggish setting.
The Galaxy XR headset sports a micro-OLED display, which should deliver rich colors and deep contrast. Plus, it has a resolution of 3553 x 3840, which translates to a total of 27 million pixels; that has the 23 million pixels of the Apple Vision Pro beat.
While Apple’s headset sports a 120Hz refresh rate, the Galaxy XR has a slightly slower 90Hz panel, but that should be plenty to keep the nausea some can experience with VR headsets at bay.
The display also has a field of view that covers 109 degrees horizontal and 100 degrees vertical, which should make it rather immersive. Plus, it covers 95% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, so should offer a cinematic range of colors; that should be a boon for anyone who wants to watch a movie in a virtual cinema for one.
2. A supercharged chipset and cameras
The Galaxy XR is equipped with the Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 platform, meaning it has a chip tuned for mixed reality and AI (more on that later). On paper, it has a 20% faster CPU and 15% faster GPU than the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2, a chipset you’ll find in Meta Quest headsets.
Those numbers might not seem like a dramatic jump, but they give the Galaxy XR more scope to handle advanced virtual and augmented reality processing and graphics, and to suck in data from a host of cameras and sensors. The chipset should also be more capable of handling spatial audio and gesture tracking, all of which help with immersion.
Speaking of cameras and sensors, there are two high-resolution pass-through cameras that’ll let you see the real world around you when wearing the headset, six ‘world-facing’ cameras for mapping your environment, and four eye-tracking cameras. That’s a lot of cameras.
On top of that, there are five inertial measurement units that effectively serve as accelerometers and gyroscopes, a single depth sensor and one flicker sensor to help ensure that whatever you’re viewing is as free of distortion as possible.
With all this tech it’s no wonder a more powerful Snapdragon XR2 chip is needed.
3. Integrated AI
By working with Qualcomm and Google, Samsung has gone heavy with AI in the Galaxy XR headset.
It has Google’s Gemini embedded into it, meaning the headset can react to voice commands and queries in natural language and use computer vision to make sense of the world the headset’s cameras are seeing. And that means it can better serve up information about the things being viewed.
One feature that stood out to me is how Gemini can be used when gaming with the headset to serve up coaching in real-time, as well as to offer tips and what Samsung has dubbed ‘enhanced gameplay experiences’, although what those are aren’t clear yet.
In his hands-on time with the headset, Ulanoff found the Gemini integration to be slick and very usable, which could spawn a generation of mixed-reality headsets that embrace AI tech at their core.
4. The debut of Android XR
As the first mixed-reality headset to be powered by Android XR, the Galaxy XR headset comes with a whole load of features you’d expect to see in some of the best Android phones. For instance, there’s support for Circle to Search, which I can see being very smart in a mixed-reality setting.
You’ll also find access to Google Photos on Android XR, which lets Galaxy XR users take standard photos and videos and upmix them into spatial 3D versions, turning them into a form of immersive visual experience.
Much like with standard Android, Google Maps is present in Android XR, only it serves up maps you can fly around in and zoom in on 3D-rendered terrain. Gemini also comes into play here, responding to queries to take people to real-world locations, albeit virtually, and to serve up personalized suggestions and contextual information about nearby places.
Android XR isn’t likely to replace standard Android any time soon, but with the Galaxy XR headset it shows there’s a whole new way to interact with Google’s mobile platform.
5. A quick-swap battery
This might not seem like a big deal, but don’t underestimate the usefulness of the Samsung Galaxy XR headset’s ‘quick swap battery’ system.
This doesn’t mean that the headset’s main battery can be swapped out for another on the fly, but rather that there’s a proprietary external power bank that can be used to quickly juice up the headset for up to 2.45 hours of immersive video playback.
This is sure to be handy for people who want to use the Galaxy XR headset out and about for a lengthy amount of time. The power bank can also serve as a portable charger for other compatible devices, which is a nice little extra.
All in all, Samsung has given the Galaxy XR headset a good dose of tech to stand out against the various Meta Quest headsets and even to challenge the Apple Vision Pro, though it’s worth noting that these headsets use different software platforms, so the experiences can’t be compared like for like.
Make sure to check back with TechRadar for a full Galaxy XR review soon, and do let me know in the comments below what you think about this new mixed-reality headset – and if it’s one you’re keen to try.
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