Is Android XR a Vision Into the future?

Welcome to Pixelated Episode 75. I'm your host, Will Saddleberg. This week, Abner, Damien, and I talk through Samsung's launch of the Galaxy XR, an $1,800 VR headset that serves as our first taste of Android XR. It's a bit of a confusing product, though, so you're going to hear all three of us try to make sense of the vision Samsung and Google see with this product. Is it a fully-fledged device you should run out and buy right now, or the stepping grounds to a grander vision of computing?

So Android XR is out in the wild. We've seen Samsung just unveil their brand new headset, which was originally Project Wuhan and now is the simply titled Galaxy XR. Terrible name. Not sure how I feel about the whole AR thing, XR thing, but guys, tell me what you think about the future of this, because I feel like this is a stepping stone for something greater a little bit down the line.

This is not the first Google's first rodeo. This is not Samsung's first rodeo with headsets. Gear VR, was it? And Daydream a few years ago. So headsets aren't... are far from a new concept um app do apple and last year meta and oculus have been doing for years they just I guess I'll just boldly hot take, cold take, say headsets probably aren't a mass market device in the short term.

I think that's fine, though. Do you think that's fine? I don't know, Will. You were about to interrupt me, which I interrupted you first, but yeah, go ahead. I feel like you feel the same as me, right? I do. I guess I just have difficulty seeing... where the vision is so like like if i'm if i'm starting out on good things right like i was convinced that what we now know is the galaxy xr was going to be uh like

Apple pricing are maybe slightly undercut. And to my, you know, I'll give them this. $1,800 is not $3,500. In fact, it's basically half the price for fairly similar hardware.

you know if you liked the idea the the vision of the vision pro uh but didn't want to spend either didn't want to be in the apple ecosystem or didn't want to spend thirty five hundred dollars on it this is like a fairly you know comparable experience but on android and like i think a lot of the things that would make me want to have a vision pro are here as well like

movie watching for example like i do think this would be great for for a solo entertainment uh uh viewings i don't know how often i run into that anymore to be honest with you but you know 10 years ago i would have loved this um Otherwise, though, it's, you know, it does feel difficult to lock down. What is Samsung's pitch for this beyond being the first Android XR headset? And to that end.

That does make me wonder. It's like, okay, but you guys have a grander vision for Android XR, it feels like. Yeah. Do you think Samsung kind of... I feel like they've held back a bit. It's almost like they've...

And we talked a little bit about it with the S25 Edge. It's almost like they kind of... I know it's not run out of ideas or anything like that. It's almost like they've put something into production. They're kind of like, oh, damn, we've got to release this now. And the wheels have come off a little bit in the wider space.

If Apple can't make the Vision Pro work at scale that maybe they would hope it would work at scale, then Samsung are kind of like seeing it and be like, and maybe that's why they dragged their heels a little bit with MUHAN.

when it was originally the muhan uh development kit because that was available what i say available it was announced last december was it abner i don't know if that's correct i just wonder if there's a little bit of dragging the heels and this is why i'm kind of a little bit i don't know how to describe it i'm

I think the concept of VR is fantastic. And I'm old. I'm definitely showing my age here. I'm old enough to remember when VR was like tried to be pitched in the 90s as like a whole entertainment gaming thing. and seeing it everywhere and seeing it like kind of fairgrounds and like theme parks and stuff and everybody wanted VR. VR was this amazing thing and they didn't have the technology as it were or the power of the technology to do it justice. Now it feels like we have

And there still kind of hasn't been enough of a... We've had breakthroughs, right? I think MetaQuest 3 is... I mean, it's very popular in the gaming circles and a very, very small portion of gaming. But I just don't know where... Maybe Samsung kind of like... i don't know did they take the foot off the gas a little bit it just feels like that to me i don't know i don't know so what's what we know in google and samsung deciding to release this headset okay head

From a more fundamental level, headsets are what's attainable, what's possible in this form factor right now, in the augmented reality form factor. Google and Samsung start at the high end. They could have absolutely done a cheaper headset with less than 4K per eye resolution, but they didn't. So that in itself is revering in terms of... They think what they want to do is at the high end. What they want to do is that screen unlocks true productivity use cases in terms of being able to read text.

read crisp text and do other stuff versus others in the field. So they're going after the Vision Pro in that regard. Well, the way you do this, you start at the high end and then you hope that technology and displays becomes cheaper. but you need to start the high end to unlock all the capabilities and build from there. So the idea of headsets as

Absolutely an entertainment device. I have watched stuff in Vision Pro, hour-long shows. I haven't done a movie yet, but I have done hour-long shows. Gaming, a little bit. not so much um with the vision pro specifically i can be i can do everything i want on the mac on the virtual display that the vision pro offers so it is i can do everything I can use it as an entertainment, as a work device that's pitched by Apple and that Google and Samsung are trying to also offer. But I don't do it.

primary it's not a everyday device for me the vision pro is maybe a few times a week device at best most maybe once a week more realistically um so that's what this is possible for in the case of samsung and google we'll see what it's actually good for once it hits the market that albeit a very small market so that's the vision

I think the biggest question going in was when this launches, what are they targeting? What do they want this to be? And the answer that we got at launch is everything that Vision Pro has shown for the past year. Well, it's interesting. Abner, before we move too far away from it, I want to get your thoughts on this because you described kind of the grand...

scope of Samsung and Google having played in the VR XR space before. And I do think it's really interesting that the and I'm interested in both of your thoughts on this, that there are kind of three tiers. uh of vr right there's cheap there's mid-range and there's there's premium i would say that cheap basically died out but that was where you had the gear vr slot your galaxy s7 edge and do a phone yes right exactly you had cardboard

just slide your phone into some cardboard right and then on the other side on the expensive side which is where samsung and google are currently playing and like like eventually would like to move down market but are playing in the expensive side you have the vision pro you have the galaxy xr

But the space we've seen the most success for this, and I would say like maybe the only truly successful like headset is like the Quest, you know, the Quest line and specifically kind of the Quest 2, Quest 3, Quest 3S. Why?

Why didn't they start there? Yeah, other than the fact that Apple didn't start there. If there is success in this field, and it's not like Meta is a particularly... uh i was gonna say popular but also well-run company like i do think there is space for for competition against meta why not start there and say like look we we've like we have a vision or or even just make like

two headsets one you know in a way that meta has one for the premium do this galaxy xr you know we're competing against the vision pro but half price and then also do this headset that is you know a little bit more

Something that people are going to be able to buy and put under the tree this Christmas. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think the biggest problem with that is Android. And I don't mean that in a disrespectful sense. I mean that with... With Android XR, you are limited by what it's going to be able to do. In terms of productivity, it's very, very difficult for professionals. Because I do feel like this is aimed at professionals. Like as an entertainment device, I think that's a secondary device.

Entertainment is easy, absolutely. They just have to say YouTube. YouTube, which is still not on the Vision Pro as a dedicated app. YouTube is, it unlocks so much content and that's near it. I dare say it's solved just by putting YouTube on it. Yeah, I mean, it's like 90%, isn't it, of the entertainment value? I mean, it's tough. I keep coming back to the thought process that...

Most people are still better served with the value, like a $1,700, what was it, $1,799. You get, well, I don't... really know how your guys tax system works but i know you're taxed after the fact so you will pay what, $1,800? Let's just round up, let's say two grand. Let's just say two grand. Let's say two grand. For $2,000, you could get yourself an incredible LG OLED TV on discount.

which will serve you a decade. It won't be hindered by software updates. The image quality will be as good, if not better, than a VR headset in theory. Entertainment for everyone in the home. You could get yourself a fairly substantially... decent, and that's a terrible way to phrase it, a decent

tab s9 something like that you have entertainment on the go you still have access to all those android applications that you were on your phone anyway i just like that aspect to me maybe i'm too deep into it where i'm thinking that This new paradigm, and it sounds like I'm being overly negative about Android XR and I'm not, I think that this is a fantastic step towards what we're going to get to and we'll talk about later in the episode.

There is a limitation here as to what you can and can't do. Entertainment cannot be the sole reason that people are going to spend $1,800 on this. I just think it... It shows where we are in terms of the wider space because Vision Pro, for all of its foibles, for all of its problems, for all of its Apple-ness, does have...

a desktop class CPU in there, you can do the kind of things on that device that were never going to be possible on Android. I mean, they just updated it. It's got an M5 in there now. So, yeah. So you have a supercomputer almost of sorts, like you can do things in that machine that this Snapdragon XR2, whatever it is, VR profile, is just not capable of.

And that's a disappointing aspect and something that does worry me about where this is placed in the market. And to go back to your three-tiered approach, Will, it's kind of like at the low end.

Samsung could have done something, I think. I think they could have done something really, really impressive. And I feel like maybe that's what they're going to do. But again, it comes back to my thought process that they dragged the heels a little bit. Maybe they could have got this out the door early and that might have affected the current price point.

Maybe they were looking to do something a little bit closer to Apple, but because of the time delay, they've waited too long and they can't do that now. The vague rumor around it is that the display is that they saw the Vision Pro and then they upped the display.

to this 4K that we have now. That is the vague rumor around it. But yeah, it's coming a year plus since Vision Pro. Almost two, right? Almost two, yes. Around CES when the Vision... I think it was... maybe at ces when the vision pro like availability stuff was announced and that was 2024 so yeah like almost two years later and and abner i believe that rumor completely because it strikes with what we've seen

samsung doing lately right like it completely matches our conversation from last week about the the the edge series where it's like you guys are just like doing this thing where you follow apple on specific elements when like

That market might not exist. I feel like we recorded all that stuff about the Edge and the iPhone Air and then like... later that day or maybe the next day it was like oh by the way the iphone air might also not be selling well in this market it does not exist and it's like okay so so i don't know i don't understand why like

Even if this thing has downgraded displays and it's like a thousand dollars, I think that's a better like you were getting more people in the door. And and to be honest, it's like you go to the product page, you know, we want to talk about productivity, but it's like.

you have to scroll pretty far to get past all of the like entertainment focused stuff. Like they are pushing this and it kind of brings along like the foldable dilemma times 10, where it's like, you're buying this product that can be. you know, for the same price point, be filled by other things. Ensure maybe you're paying for the, the ability to combine a 75 inch OLED TV with a tablet, right? And make the productivity of a laptop.

Yeah, but but like you're asking, it's a big, you know, even more so than the foldable. It's like, OK, but this is this is a device in addition to your phone. So you're already, you know, have to get over that hump. And then it's like, plus it's. clunky and you're paying $250 for a case and like.

it $250 for the controllers if you want those it's it just becomes so difficult in the same way that the foldable does where you're like well here's a list of things you could buy for $2,000 that kind of tackle the same thing and maybe better I mean Damien, I bought an OLED TV this year. And to your point, like I paid less than what the with the Galaxy XR costs and I can watch it with my fiance. And that's not something you can say. Yeah, I think that's it.

I think with VR, it's very much like... And I'm kind of glad that it's here in this form factor over the last couple of years because I'm of the age where I grew up watching sci-fi films and everybody put a headset on and kind of like that was the cool thing that couldn't... i couldn't even conceptualize it as a child but now as an adult it's like wow these things exist this is science fiction in reality but at the same time it's like you

you're kind of, you're almost there. Like there's nothing that makes me think, ah, this is going to be so much better than the TV I have on the wall or the tablet I have in my bag or the foldable phone I have in my pocket. But then...

Let's get away from the negativity for a moment because I think there's some things that are genuinely very, very good here. I want one of these, to be fair, in the same way that I wanted a Vision Pro. It's just that the price tag becomes so... But I'm like, yeah, no, I do want to watch Avatar on this. Like, I do. So one thing I will say with certainty is that at least Google has a very good repository of content that you can tap into straight away, which I think is the...

The biggest thing that has hindered the Vision Pro to some extent, I think with MetaQuest it's a bit different because they align themselves with gaming a little bit more and game development is, well... It's closely aligned 3D worlds. You can get into them. I think one of the biggest benefits to this, price aside,

We have things that Google has been doing for the better part of, well, how long has Street View existed? For a better part of a decade. You now have the opportunity to get in person effectively with all of these things that have existed for a long time in a way that wasn't feasible before. So the Google Maps immersive view, that is something that I would love to try. I think that that as a tourist is a fantastic way to kind of...

Get your bearings before you visit a place. Maybe you could go to places you would never have the opportunity to go to. But for $1,700, you may be able to get a ticket to visit there. But that's another complaint. Do you think that that is going to be enough for people to say, I want one of these just to access these things that have existed for a long time in a different way?

The key question that we asked earlier is why didn't they start at the middle tier? Why didn't they start at $500 to $1,000 range? And... Again, entertainment and productivity. Entertainment as evidenced by the fact they include controllers. They want to do some gaming. They offer the ability to buy controllers. They want to do gaming stuff, which, okay.

The productivity, to me, it really comes down to the productivity use case. It's just... now we need to use it we need to see if it's desktop class chrome they showed a video editor application from adobe on there which again okay but they also showed uh flow which is google's ai generation thing which i assume prompting will be so much easier than timeline management um It's not like giving them a pass on this one. They do need to get something out the market. And I do wonder if...

in the grand scheme, the biggest customer of this will be Google themselves and developers to work on XR. If we're trying to... We're heavily trying to find a reason for why this exists, it feels like. And that presentation that Google made, when Samsung made, it was revealing. in terms of what they're prioritizing and all that. So I guess I think getting it into the market was necessary and making it powerful enough.

that it can be used as a test bed for other things. That is important. But the price is a disservice. That's why we're harping on it so much. It's... What if they use cheaper components, lower resolution components and got this out earlier, including last year or earlier this year? And the discount effect applied by now, at this point. It's something. It's not going to happen. That's not the world we're living in right now, so to speak.

But I guess they have to get it. It needs to be out there to understand what it is. And that doesn't breed confidence in typical. consumer electronics. But at the same time, this is the first of its kind for Google and Samsung in the modern era. I feel you're right. I feel right about the price situation as well, because this feels like a developer kit that's been pushed out publicly when it shouldn't have been. Yes, and it's so much money to ask, you know.

I mean, I mean, maybe larger developers. Sure. But like, if you're just like looking to make, if you're just one person, like it's all, it's a big buy-in to, to build. And then who are you building for? Right. You have to factor in. It's like, okay, if you're an indie dev. i want to make a a vr app for android xr but like who who like you're already putting up a lot of money up front and then who's your audience that's that's the thing that i'm thinking it's like am i okay

If Samsung could have kept this as Project Wuhan and said it was development-focused and it was priced at this and it was released at that point, I don't think we'd have a problem. I don't have a problem with it if it's developer-focused kit. However... Google and Samsung have partnered with this. There's barely any Samsung elements apart from the hardware, right? The software is...

It looks about as close as you can possibly get to streamlined Google experience from what I can see. There is a few Galaxy apps there, but not very many. It looks like something Google would have made. If they'd have put Nexus in front of it, see, I feel like there would have been a bit...

we would have been a bit different thinking about this. Absolutely. Probably not. Probably not, really. But I think if it had just said this is a developer-focused experience and we're ready for the next wave of hardware, which is... effectively what it feels like. I don't think, I don't think I would be, I'd be hypercritical. I think I'm hypercritical because this feels like a consumer focused launch. They want us as a consumer. Yes, exactly. They want us every, all the messaging.

They've not telegraphed in any other way that this isn't a consumer device. And I guess the thing that consumers are most sensitive about is the price. And we're treating it as such.

It keeps coming back to the price, doesn't it? And it's so odd. We've been talking about like, what is this? for and if you want more evidence that this is and maybe maybe we can talk a little bit about like the idea of glasses as opposed to this but like if you want uh any more evidence that this is kind of this really is a stepping stone and everybody involved thinks of this as a stepping stone towards lighter more everyday wear glasses if you scroll down on the

product page to the frequently asked questions section there's the top one what are the main features of galaxy xr and the one that it highlights is not entertainment it's not productivity it's It's Gemini. It's conversational AI powered by Gemini is the thing that it says is the main feature of Galaxy XR, which lines up with the idea of you wearing this all day or a headset.

some kind of something on your face all day glasses presumably i i just can't i i like have stumbled on this and now i can't see it for anything else other than like almost a proof of concept for for android xr But again, wrapped up in this consumer product with this ultra high price, it does leave me scratching. It leaves all of us scratching our head a little bit, it sounds like.

Do you think, I wonder if there is, I mean, they'll have investor pressure, right? There'll be pressure from big time investors to get this out there to basically say, okay, we have this product. This is that, like you said, a stepping stone. This is the first wave of hardware. And it's only going to get better. I...

Do you agree that the major reason a lot of people will be looking at this and wondering is Gemini is effectively the killer feature here? We finally get to see Gemini interacting with things in the real world with a headset kind of system, real-time cameras. It's Gemini Live video, but all the time, I'm guessing it can get more contextual. It's probably using the same models, I imagine. So the understanding and stuff like that, I think...

is going to be interesting. Obviously, it has that screen context awareness as well. And if you have multiple screens on at the same time, it's very much more aware of every single aspect of what you're doing, more so than Gemini Live Video can on your smartphone.

In that respect, if it works, I mean, I haven't been able to test this. I haven't been the only one who's been able to test something similar to this. That has to be a success, I guess. That is the main reason that this... is public and i think are we all in agreement and that i feel like that is the main the main component of of uh galaxy xr and android xr so far is

get Gemini out there in the world proper, seeing things, interacting with things, interacting with what you have running on the device, what else is in the background. Like, yeah, that I am very, very excited by. I think that is... that is the the mo of this um but just tell us a little bit about you you had the the pleasure i've been able to test this out at one point just tell us a little bit about how you feel this has developed since you saw it originally

A lot of it is the same since I saw it in December, 10 months, 11 months ago. The models, I'm sure, have come far. further I think we were at Gemini 2.0 then we're at 2.5 now and the optimizations that all that has improved in the past 10 months yeah it's i'm waiting for the final thing obviously but again i just have to go back to the idea of productivity in terms of at the problem is at 1700

$1,800, $2,000 a final, is it's not going to be a replacement productivity device. God knows tablets have tried to be that. but they're not everybody still sticks with laptops and at the same time i'm also happy they didn't do entertainment only because that is limiting that is just an entertainment device you get to consign it as a way as just entertainment and not the future of everything else but anyways in using gemini in that

Well, talking to things. You do have the benefit of primarily using it at home. And I think that is the most curious thing, whether the primary way you end up controlling this is with your voice versus hand gestures. on Vision Pro primarily. How much can you really get done in the work context or even in an entertainment context that you use Gemini as the launcher effectively? That is the question. But from my memory...

And from, I guess, the previews we got this week, on paper, they seem to have nailed down the basics. Same as Meta, same as Apple. That all appears to be refined and only gotten better since I used it in December. So I'm not worried about the basics here. It's just... what else can you do to differentiate it, even though differentiating something in this market is so early and premature in terms of how many people have actually used it. But yeah, Gemini comes back to Gemini.

how heavily google is emphasizing it in it was like the first part of their blog post it's the first part of everybody's announcements of gemini's key role I guess moving towards the future and when people actually experience this, it's not going to be on their headset, it feels like. It's going to be on the first glasses, which we got a tease from Samsung. They're working.

with Warby Parker and one other company to make glasses. So I think at this point it's obvious that these first glasses will be no displays, just a camera and voice and microphone input. that will be for people's first real interaction with gemini uh on this new form factor on having an always on world facing camera capturing the world and giving you help with it so this next phase is, in an ideal world, this headset and Samsung's glasses were announced at the same time.

I guess the best thing we can record right now is that it doesn't take until October of 26 for the glasses to launch. I really do think that needs an accelerated schedule.

given how far Meta is right now. Do you think as well with regards to those glasses are going to come without the visual element? Do you think this might, and I don't even want to say this, but... It's the only way I can kind of quantify it. Do you think that somewhat sets those glasses up for failure a little bit because we're going to get an XR device?

currently which will give visual elements you will get the visual feedback but then you will be expected to wear a pair of glasses which have all of it but the one thing that

I'm not saying somebody will buy the VR headset, the XR headset, and then buy the AR glasses. But if somebody does, there's going to be a little bit of a kind of a, I don't know, your brain kind of... quantifying it and being able to being confused i do wonder if that might do we potentially just see a huge uh i guess it's a technology jump where we get those visuals in glasses. We get that little tiny screen that's capable of almost, is it projecting an image, I guess?

Do we need that? We do need that, sorry, answering the question. But do you think that this is... Samsung are almost preempting themselves. I know we expect it to be... speaker and no visuals but i just wonder if that sets set some up for failure again a little bit i don't know it's i know metal lay bands have proven that people like just the audio only format they use them as headphones plus world-facing camera video specifically i i just if the state of the art is the the the

The Meta Ray-Ban display that was announced a few weeks ago. That is the state of the art. They're absolutely subsidizing that price, $800 something. It's no way that technology is that cheap. If that is the state of the art, the displays and glasses aren't ready yet. It's no. They all look bulky. And I don't think you're getting enough value for $800. Even if there's subsides in the technology, I don't think the display is a killer functionality. But this audio-based augmented reality is...

We haven't seen something as good as Gemini on this form factor from anyone because only Google has Gemini. That's a bit obvious, but... I do wonder how hard they push it when it launches. Like, yeah, you have a unique camera position that's always available to you. You have music, you have audio, you have a good, hopefully a good notification experience. You have a voice assistant on your face.

Gemini, it's really key that Gemini becomes the killer thing, the unique differentiating thing from what Matt is doing. And again, I just hope it's coming much sooner than later. And that it's not a full year between this Android XR launch and the next one. Where do we see... How do we see headsets fitting into, like, what would be successful for Android XR, right? If we're saying that, like, we don't think that the Galaxy XR as it exists right now is going to be...

particularly is going to sell at a lot of numbers. I don't know what success qualifies that, but I don't think any of the three of us are predicting high sales for this. And then we're envisioning the glasses in a year, hopefully, maybe two years from now, but hopefully sooner rather than later, as we're saying. Is that the successful product? Is there another successful product? Can a company...

Can a Lenovo come in and make a headset that is successful? Is this fully? I'm just I'm curious where your guys where you guys are at on this, because I have so many conflicting. I can't figure out what. people want do people want the screen do people just want like like as you're saying abner like audio and and a camera and uh gemini support like i like what what is the path to success here for for google really on android xr i think they want part if they get four or five partners to sign up

and make their own versions if Oppo do one, if OnePlus do one. But I don't think that's going to happen. Yeah, I can't feel it either. You mentioned Lenovo. I think Lenovo have been in computing for long enough to have already... probably toyed with this idea, right? The only reason I can envision Lenovo doing it is to really push the gaming element of it. Like I could see them making a Legion XR VR headset, right? That is, you know...

in the same way that they've made these gaming handhelds. But even then, I'm not convinced they would do it. And I still think it would have to be sub-thousand dollars to really have any success, especially... It's so interesting. This is like the one space where meta is like ahead on all fronts. It is, but it's still not a lodge.

No, it's not. But it's interesting that everything I'm envisioning, I'm like, oh, they just need to do what Meta's doing, which is not usually a sentence I think to myself. I'm going to pose a question then. Do you think that Google and...

Not so much Samsung. I think it's definitely Google here. Do you think they're happy to cede ground to Meta in that headset space? Because the headset space is not where Google sees this. I don't think Google sees this. That's not where the money is, realistically.

do you think they're happy to cede that ground to meta in the headset space and let them take that? And I wonder if that's one of the reasons why this has been held back a little bit. I do think some of it is definitely down to Samsung, and as Abner alluded to, potentially making those display changes. I think...

I'm just going to say, I think Google are very happy to let Meta do their thing with the gaming headsets and take all of that market, take as much market as they want, because this is just that, okay, we know we can do this. Like, we can give you the software that can run on these devices. When we get somebody out there who's making hardware running our AI software, nobody else is going to be able to compete. Obviously, I think Meta...

I don't know what their AI platform is called. So that just shows you how well they're doing. I can't see OpenAI. They're going to have to do it through a partner and they're not in the hardware game. Google have this vested interest to do so because they have so many big high-level partners who are just going to, I'm not going to say bend to the will, but they're going to do things that benefit everybody in a kind of different way.

Yeah, I think personally that, like I say, Google are happy to let Meta lead in the cheap VR headset space because they know that the end game is theirs for the taking if they do this correctly. Does that... dissuade developers from picking this up if that's like the clearest vision we can see from google like why why would you develop a game for the galaxy xr for android xr if like the vision

at the moment is like probably display lists or or maybe there's a hud but not 4k panels for each eye like that just makes this release even more confusing and i'm not i i know why it's here and i know why this you know why this is the path for it but

It's like every time I feel like I'm stumbling on the answer for like what the grand vision is. And I think I think you guys are right. I think it's Gemini. I think this is a Gemini play. But that does make this product and the first step of Android XR feel very. Out of step with what Google is probably building up to. Yeah. Out of step is probably the best way to describe it, isn't it, Abner? Yeah. Yeah, it's...

Again, it goes back to the price dictating people's expectations for it. I think so. As fans, if you can't buy... Well, people will talk about anything. They will absolutely have opinions about everything. But if the fact that they can't really use it, that is inherently a limitation and you... you do want word of mouth on this you ideally want positive word of mouth on this and right now everybody the comparison to meta i think on paper

Samsung and Google could have absolutely competed with them with a cheaper device, but they didn't do so because I don't think they see it as the future. I don't think... cheap entertainment devices, headsets are the future. The inherently limiting factor there is the isolation of it in households and that kind of stuff. It's... I'm sure they could have made a cheaper device, but I don't think their grand visions are served by it. Their grand visions in the long term are served by it.

they inherently decided to do the thing that is obviously more limiting. That is, I'm sure everybody involved here knows it's not a mass market device. They have to. Yeah. This feels like it's done just because it needed to be done. Like it feels like a product that exists because it has to exist, if that makes sense. And that makes me less... I am interested in it. It just makes me less enthralled by the prospect of it. I also think I want to ask you guys the question.

Which is a better comparison for this product? Do you think it's better that Google and Samsung, because obviously we know this is probably the tightest they've worked on anything since Wear OS, right? And obviously they do stuff with Android. It's inherently more complex. Yeah, I think this one's a little bit different. Do you think it's better for them to be compared to meta or better to be compared to Vision Pro? Because I think there's a lot more people comparing to meta and the Quest.

than they are compared to Vision Pro. Because the Vision Pro feels like a completely different product, even though it is within the same category. I think it's just the success. It's success versus... prestige i don't know what to call it like like just it's the vision pro is obviously like this this extremely high-end headset um you know

complete overkill. And Samsung was smart to cut around some of those corners. I am so grateful that I can't that Samsung doesn't have like a display on the front to show my eyes, which like there is a world where they do that and this thing costs an extra seven hundred dollars for no reason and and so i i there's they followed through on like some some smart ideas to bring the cost down and i think avoided some of the pitfalls apple had i think

the reason the the meta examples like ring so true is not just because that's where we've seen success in the headset space i think like

I can't think of another product I'd call successful outside of the quest line in terms of VR, really like maybe the first PlayStation VR, maybe, but I probably not. And, and, uh, you know it as we're saying if their vision is glasses well meta is also there apple's not there right now and so i think it's just natural to to look to meta at the moment and be like this is kind of what you're angling for except you know

with hopefully with the power of a much better assistant if if glasses are the vision um but it again you know circling back to to i feel like we keep coming back to like but that doesn't make this release make any more sense beyond just checking a box on a list which is which is frustrating i i i'm not against a headset to be honest with you like there are you know uh uh nights where where either maddie goes to bed early or whatever she's got plans but um

I would buy a $500, $600 headset with a better display than the aging Quest 2 I have now to watch movies on. I just don't want to do it for $1,800 and certainly not $3,500. Yeah, I don't know. I think Gemini's the play. I think you guys have convinced me on the path forward here. It just makes this release feel a little deflating. Yes, I think we've kind of stumbled.

a little bit onto Gemini being the play here. I'm excited to hear what you think of this, Avner. I know you have one on pre-order, so I'm very, very excited and we will be talking about that very, very soon because, again, we've been a little bit critical, but I feel like...

Sometimes you kind of have to be in this space. Not everything is going to be a success. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see AndroidXR be a success, and I want it to be because it means we're going to get... It is that bridge to... the future of computing that I think we all have wanted. Um, any science fiction fans out there, we kind of want that, that, that world facing camera that does everything and is like computer in your eyes. I think that would kind of be cool, but yeah.

Yes, we'll have much more to talk about next week once we see the final shipping thing. So look forward to that. Yes. I'm sure the hardware will be a lot better than it looks online as well because, like I say, with everything, renders don't always do things justice. But I want to say thanks for joining me, guys. I know we talked a little bit about our thoughts on...

Everything related to Gemini, related to headsets, related to eyes. And I love the fact that we've kind of stumbled upon us on what we think is the answer. Yeah. It's either what we said or it's Nintendo's $100 Virtual Boy reboot. It's one of those two. Yes. No in between. No in between. So, yeah. Thanks, guys. And we'll speak to you next week. Bye. Bye.

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