Xreal Beam

5owners with an opinion

40%of verdicts positive

1/3positive/negative since 2024

0happy after 3+ years

Praised for ease of use and performance; criticized for reliability.

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XReal Beam Pro1

What people wrote

Doesn’t like it

I'd say take another look. The beam has a LOT of issues. The One basically says "give me a signal, I'll project it in 2D and track it with 3DoF." Its smooth, and while it can drift a little (it is only an accelerometer), it is stable for me. I wear glasses with mine, yet I still find it surprisingly crisp for text in ultra-wide mode. I'd say it is a fairly unobtrusive experience. It also helps that the nose pads don't dig into my skin. That said, if a Quest Pro isn't good enough, I hesitate to recommend it. The FOV is certainly smaller on the One.

Doesn’t like it

I tried it for a while with the best AR glasses I could find at the time, XReal Air 2 Pros with an Xreal Beam, and although I could see the potential, it wasn't good enough to get work done. The screen size was too small, the resolution too poor, and it was a little too jittery and unnatural feeling. Are the Xreal One's that much of a step forward that you can use it for serious work? Even on my Quest Pro I find it just on the edge of being too annoying to do coding-work. Web browsing is decent. And second question, worth buying the One or waiting for the One Pros?

Doesn’t like it

Ditto. I bought them because I travel a lot for work and TVs at hotels are always a mess when it comes to HDMI in. I use them on maybe 1 of 4 flights I’m on (usually on SteamDeck with XR plug-in in Decky), and rarely at the hotels. The only time they were really helpful for me was one flight when I had to work on some sensitive content and the person next to me was obviously trying to shoulder surf me. Maybe it would be more productive if I had a newer iPhone with USB -C or the XReal One glasses. But having to use all the dongles to get to go from iPhone to lightning/HDMI adapter to HDMI to USB-C cable to original XReal Beam (which is way underpowered), to USB-C to glasses, that’s a ton of cables. And some forget, you’ve now got to pair your AirPods with the Beam! Ughh. It’s a little better with the Beam Pro. It’s faster and generally a good experience, but it’s still another device and still doesn’t have a good way to stream 3D content from Plex/NAS. Ugh. That being said, when I put in the effort, the picture is very nice.

Neutral

By default they just work like a 1080p display. It’s okay, but bounces with head movement, etc. They work fairly well on Mac with their Nebula software, where you can have an extended display and control the distance if the screen and it accounts for head movements. The same software is not so great on PC, unfortunately. On Linux, Wayne Heaney created Breezy Desktop, which is almost as good as Nebula, except for some stuff around the edges during movement[0]. He’s also created a very nice driver for the Steam Deck. With a little bit of work you can also do 3D games and movies with them. Not quite easy enough for an elementary school kid, but not much worse. What I’ve found is that I don’t use them around the house, but do while traveling. Not sure if that justifies the price. I’ve also got both versions of the Beam. Overall, I’d say it’s a push. When I’m traveling, I’m glad I have them. When I’m not traveling, I wonder why I have them. [0]: https://github.com/wheaney/breezy-desktop

Recommends it

You can plug them directly into your laptop (as long as it supports DP Alt mode, which I understand is common - my Thinkpad does). But, the virtual monitor will be in a fixed position relative to your head. Which is really not comfortable. In order to get the virtual screen to stay fixed in space while you move your head, you need the Beam. I use the Xreal Air 1 with the Beam on my Thinkpad X1 and it's great. I really recommend it for flights. I don't understand why it hasn't gotten more popular. I can use my laptop comfortably for many hours, which makes long flights a lot more tolerable. I only use them for laptop productivity. Not sure about VR stuff.

Likes it

I've been messing around with an nreal air which although not a true VR/AR display it is a pretty good HMD for consuming pancake content. Most of the time I use it with a Steam Deck, which it's perfect for. I have had to use it for work once due to a screw up during a desk move that left me without a workstation for a day. The nreal worked fine, but I had a ton of trouble with software. Even with Dex, Android was still pretty clunky. Using Windows/Linux/Dex all leave me with the same hacky feeling that I get when I use a desktop OS on a large TV. Like the scaling feels all wrong, you know? I just got the nreal beam, which allows for more flexible placement of display feeds in the glasses. It helps, but I still find the clipping problem with low FOV displays crappy. Apple is probably the best positioned to nail the software side of this, but I think it'll be a couple years before the hardware fully catches up.