Meta VR Glasses: A 45-Minute Preview of Meta’s $1,299 Headset

TechRadar’s Lance Ulanoff spent 45 minutes trying Meta VR Glasses, a mixed-reality headset that Meta expects to arrive next spring, between April and early June. He found the 100-gram frames comfortable and said he did not feel a need to take them off when the session ended.

Meta moves computing, storage and battery components out of the headset and into a 300-gram puck that can be carried on a belt or in a pocket. The glasses do not block the wearer’s view of the outside world, though an optional light shield will be available. Ulanoff said the eye and hand tracking felt accurate, and the Micro-OLED display is listed by Meta as having 5K resolution. Prescription inserts may add about $150 to the final cost.

In a handful of apps, Ulanoff watched an 8K Billie Eilish concert, viewed an NBA Finals game from courtside and tried the puzzle game Dragon Grove. Meta expects to offer more than 75 hands-first games by launch. He also used floating desktop screens that could be moved, resized and made ultrawide, though one coding screen stretched text until it was nearly unreadable.

The preview used pre-release software, and Ulanoff noted that the experience was limited to a handful of apps. Meta sees entertainment and productivity as the glasses’ main uses.