XREAL Beam Pro + XREAL Air 2 Pro AR Glasses Review

Written By Dilmer Valecillos

XReal Beam Pro & Air 2 Pro - My First Impressions!

I had the opportunity to review the new XREAL Beam Pro alongside the XREAL Air 2 Pro on my latest YouTube video, and I have to be honest—I was really surprised by how many improvements XREAL has made to their tech since I tried their original NREAL Light glasses back in 2020. For transparency, I own a lot of XR headsets, which has allowed me to experience many different devices, such as the Apple Vision Pro, Magic Leap 2, Meta Quest 2, 3 & Pro, Tilt Five, and many others. I’m not saying this to brag but to give you an idea of my background. I use these devices for development and teach about them on YouTube, so this review comes from someone who is actively building for XR.

XREAL Beam Pro

When I first heard of this device, I initially thought of it as a mobile Android phone. It reminded me of the Lenovo ThinkReality A3, which requires tethering to a Motorola Edge+ or a computer. However, the Beam Pro is a bit different. It doesn’t come with a SIM card slot, so it can’t be used as a mobile device replacement since it lacks cellular connectivity. Personally, this isn’t a big deal for me. Coming from the Apple ecosystem, I prefer to keep my iPhone and use its hotspot capabilities to provide internet access to the Beam Pro.

BUT what is the Beam Pro in my own words? I see it as a sleek, compact spatial computer or spatial media device. It’s beautifully designed, and I’d even say it’s super minimalistic. Honestly, it feels premium, and while it may not be a top-tier Android device, I think it’s more than enough for someone looking to handle typical productivity tasks. I’ll talk more about it and show you a few examples, but first, let’s take a look at some of its specs:

XREAL Beam Pro specs:

XREAL Beam Pro - 6GB RAM + 128GB storage

  • Display: 6.5-inch 1080 x 2400-pixel LCD

  • Refresh Rate: 60Hz

  • Front Camera: offers 8-megapixels

  • 2 x Rear Cameras: offers 50-megapixels per eye

  • Power: 27W fast charging port connection

  • Processor: Snapdragon 6 Generation 1, 8 cores

  • Models & Pricing:

    • 6GB RAM + 128GB storage ($199 USD)

    • 8GB RAM + 256GB storage ($249 USD)

  • Additional Disk Space: MicroSD Card slot with up to 1T

  • Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.2 & WiFI 6

  • Weight: 208 grams

XREAL Air 2 Pro

XReal also sent me these AR glasses, which I was initially skeptical to call AR glasses because, to me, AR is more than just screen mirroring. However, even though these could be seen as simply smart glasses with a display in front of your eyes, I would say they are much more than that. Yes, it's true—you can mirror your computer, console, or mobile phone screens, and as you rotate your head, the UI follows your movement.

The Air 2 Pro's OLED lenses, with a 1920x1080 resolution per eye, make everything you view through them incredibly crisp and beautiful. I watched a few Netflix movies and YouTube videos, and I was blown away by how great everything looked. I also had a few friends try them out—people who aren’t really into XR—and I noticed much higher retention (or usage) compared to many other highend XR devices that I currently own. I think this has a lot to do with how easy they are to set up. In my case, I just grabbed the Beam Pro, connected the USB-C DisplayPort, and within seconds, it was ready to go. This is in contrast to something like the Vision Pro, which requires a lengthy onboarding process to teach someone how to use it (e.g., no hand gestures or eye tracking required). It was just super easy for my friends to naturally use the Beam Pro as an input device.

Here’re the XREAL Air 2 Pro specs:

XREAL Air 2 Pro (AR Glasses when paired with The Beam Pro)

  • Display: OLED 1920x1080 resolution per eye (500 nits)

  • Refresh rate: Up to 120 Hz

  • Dynamic Dimmer (Opacity): 0%, 35% and 100%

  • Field of View: 46-degree FoV

  • USB-C DisplayPort

  • Weight: 75 grams

  • Accessories included:

    • 3x Zero-pressure Nose Pads

    • Prescription Lens Frame

    • Light Shield

    • Travel Case

  • Speakers with Spatial Audio

  • Price: $449.00 USD

Click to expand - NebulaOS + Spatial Video shot through the lenses

Using The XReal Beam Pro With Air2 Pro

I just talked about screen mirroring capabilities and how that feature alone is NOT the full picture when it comes to AR. A lot of companies today label certain devices as AR (Augmented Reality), even when all they do is provide an overhead display. To me, those are smart glasses, NOT true AR. True AR glasses are devices that offer a sense of spatial awareness—even if all they do is let you place objects in physical space, as long as they accurately track those objects relative to the device’s position and rotation. More advanced AR glasses, like the Magic Leap 2 or Meta Quest 3, take this a step further by including a variety of sensors that allow you not only to track the physical world but also to reconstruct it so that digital objects can be precisely positioned on generated surfaces.

Okay, but why am I explaining all this? How does it relate to the Beam Pro and Air 2 Pro? Well, it's important to know that the XReal Beam Pro adds the missing AR capability that the Air 2 Pro lacks on its own. The Beam Pro uses Qualcomm Snapdragon Spatial Sensors to provide 3DoF features to XREAL AR glasses. This is a big deal because now, instead of just having a screen mirroring device, we get a device that tracks in 3 degrees of freedom—your head rotation is now used to determine how 2D applications or games are presented spatially.

Here are a few things I really enjoyed while using the Beam Pro:

NebulaOS - Shot through the lenses

  • NebulaOS allows you to connect to Google Play. I downloaded Netflix, Spotify, Amazon Prime, and other apps. Yes, everything worked seamlessly.

  • Built on top of Android 14, NebulaOS not only gives you access to Google Play with millions of apps and games but also offers full integration with Google Apps. I only had to log in once with my Google account, and everything—Gmail, Drive, Calendar, Docs, and more—was already set up. This is one of the things I loved the most!

  • Connecting the XREAL Air 2 Pro to the Beam Pro via USB-C DisplayPort was super easy. It automatically launches NebulaOS, the spatial OS provided by XREAL.

  • The multitasking feature is pretty nice. You can have two apps open at once. I had X/Twitter open while reviewing a few emails.

  • Spatial videos and photos look great, and using the Beam Pro to record and take pictures felt very natural—way better than trying to do it with AR glasses which in our case Air 2 Pro doesn’t have, honestly I like that better.

  • The touch controls on the Beam Pro feel really good. There's room for improvement, but I'll talk more about that below. The touch controls let you use the Beam Pro as a cursor, and to select something, you just tap the screen. There are also gestures like swiping up or down to bring up a control panel or view currently running apps.

  • Follow vs. Body Anchor mode: This was a great feature. I used Follow mode when I was moving around my office and wanted the content to move with me. But when I was sitting down working on my latest YouTube video, switching to Body Anchor mode worked extremely well.

Click to expand - Spatial video (results were shot through the lenses)

What I didn’t enjoy as much:

  • If you buy the Beam Pro today, make sure to update your NebulaOS software. I initially didn’t do this and ran into all kinds of issues, from apps not responding to poor 3DoF tracking. But once I updated to the latest NebulaOS, all those problems disappeared.

  • The touch controls are great, but once in a while it loses notion of where the pointer is and you’ve to recalibrate it by holding the Home button on the Beam Pro. This is not really an issue with the Beam Pro, but the fact that we have 3DoF and not 6DoF so moving around could potentially cause problems which are solved today by recalibrating the pointer.

  • The Photos & Videos app has an inconsistent workflow. When you select the app, it takes you to NebulaOS, which is odd since you’re already in NebulaOS. I’m not sure if this is a bug, but it doesn’t flow as smoothly as the other native apps.

  • Multitasking only allows up to 2 apps running simultaneously. 2 apps is fine, but the current workflow needs improvements. If you try to open a 3rd app you get a pop-up asking you if you want to close one of the apps. I would rather have the 3rd app be placed as the one in the foreground and have the system minimize one of the previously opened apps.

Using the Air 2 Pro was a great overall experience; nothing out of the ordinary really happened. Here are a few things I particularly liked:

  • The Air 2 Pro features a dynamic dimmer / opactity button, allowing you to adjust the opacity level between low, medium, and high (0%, 35%, and 100%). This feature proved very useful when I took the AR glasses to the park on a sunny day around 1 PM. It made the experience more intuitive, as I could adjust the opacity to medium or high to prevent too much light from washing out the content. XREAL also provides a light shield, but honestly, I didn’t need it. I can see it being useful in situations where I’m sitting and want to block all incoming light.

  • Interestingly, I appreciated having the flexibility to switch between simple screen mirroring and a spatial experience. I like that we can do both.

  • The display looks super nice and crisp.

  • The glasses are incredibly light, and even with the Beam Pro connected, it felt like the perfect travel device combo.

Check out the image gallery below for a closer look at the Beam Pro and Air 2 Pro.

Overall, I’m very impressed with this tech. While there’s definitely room for improvement at the software level, it’s far from perfect, but having a much more affordable AR option is something that will make XR accessible to a broader audience and contribute to the long-term growth of the ecosystem. I really enjoyed using this device; the hardware feels premium and not at all cheap—honestly, it’s very similar in quality to what you’d find with DJI products today.

That’s my take on it for now. I’ll keep you updated on my experience as I plan to use this combo for my upcoming trips and conferences this month.

Also, if you’re interested in getting any of the devices reviewed today, check out the following resources.

(I am not getting commission on it whatsoever so feel confident that this is just me sharing information)

Have an amazing day, everyone!

Dilmer

Dilmer Valecillos https://www.learnxr.io/
Next

Is The QUEST 3 Good For MR Development? (Review & Dev Setup)