Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
No one needs a TV they can wear on their face. But it’s fun. I’ve been living with viewing glasses for years now, and I’m pretty shocked at how good they are. It also made me curious about how good the different models are relatively.
Xerial and Vitor The latest glasses look like big-screen 1080p TVs floating before your eyes, with amazing clarity for their size. But there are competitors that offer more affordable options, too. TCL has a budget alternative: $299 Ray New Air 4 Prowhich is noticeably easier on the wallet than the Xreal ($449 and up) and Viture ($399 and up). Naturally, they also leave some key features out of the mix.
First, though: Viewing glasses aren’t exactly the same as other glasses “Smart glasses.” Unlike Meta Ray Banwhich take photos and act like headphones while also being integrated with camera-connected AI, the display glasses are really just wearable displays, with headphones built into the arms and largely AI-free. It works with any device that has a USB-C video output, from iPhones to laptops to PC gaming consoles like Steam surface.
I was curious to see how good RayNeo’s Air 4 Pros were — and whether they’d make me forget the much fancier Xreal and Viture glasses. The short answer is no, but these RayNeos have an excellent quality HDR-capable micro-OLED display, which means they can display images with higher contrast between the bright and dark parts of the image. If that’s all you care about, think about these things. But they’re missing the extras that make high-end glasses more useful.
I’ve added prescription lenses to my glasses, which you’ll need if you already wear glasses. They tend to cost around $50 to $60.
Similar design, impressive display
The design of the RayNeo Air 4 Pro is just like all the other glasses on the market, for the most part: Using “bird dove” shaped lenses, these glasses reflect tiny OLED displays in the upper edge of the frames all the way back to your eyes via angled, prism-like lenses. It’s a cheaper way to get great image quality versus trying to refract displays directly onto the waveguides on the lens (eg Meta’s Ray-Ban displays), but it also means a denser appearance and not really transparent. These are wearable monitors, not everyday glasses. But they also have optional prescriptions you’ll need if you wear glasses and don’t use contact lenses. These glasses do not fit into your frames.
On the one hand, I’m impressed with the display quality of these RayNeos, which shouldn’t come as a surprise considering TCL already makes great TVs. Technically, these are HDR10 ready, which is rare for viewing glasses. While watching movies and YouTube, it can be difficult to appreciate the difference sometimes. Colors pop and brightness is impressive, but overall these look on par with what Xreal and Viture offer.
The 1080p micro-OLED display operates at 60 and 120 Hz and can be adjusted to several color tones, including “Movie” and “Eye Comfort” modes. Brightness, at 1,200 nits, looks vibrant – but in HDR mode, it becomes noticeably dull.
I miss many of the extras that high-end viewing glasses include, such as lens opacity and more adjustable viewing settings.
Missing features
But what they lack is a sound hole and additional display configurations. The Bang & Olufsen speakers don’t sound as loud or as good as those in Xreal’s One series, but they’re fine for casual movie watching or gaming. (I recommend just putting in earphones instead.)
Also missing is any way to “hold” the display in place — which is what the newer Xreal and Viture glasses (Xreal One, Viture Luma Pro, Viture Beast) can do. I find that it makes using a floating screen for work more useful and natural-feeling, allowing me to move my head as needed while the screen seems to stay in one place in my room. However, with these Air 4 Pros, the screen is firmly glued to my eyes wherever I turn, and follows me around. The glasses also lack deeper controls to zoom in or out the screen or adjust virtual depth. However, you can set the refresh rate to 120Hz.
These glasses also cannot auto-darken. While other viewing glasses often have electrochromic lens darkening that activates different shades to help block light or let in more ambient light, these rely on simple sunglass-like overlays. You can also go completely dark with a pop-up plastic shade (without it, some of the room’s light will still seep in).
That’s pretty much it. These glasses show how good HDR can be over viewing glasses. monitoring Avatar: Fire and Ashes On it back and forth compared to Vitor’s monster In the glasses (which I’ll be reviewing soon), I preferred the Beast due to its larger screen size and more vibrant image, but the TCL glasses helped make dark scenes appear less bright.
In an ideal world, I’d want HDR on every pair of viewing glasses. But even so, I’d rather pay more for a more complete set of glasses than opt for the limited Air 4 Pro.