Hey, just a heads up: this video is sponsored by Nreal; however, they did not provide editorial
input on this video. Everything you’ll hear today are my opinions and mine alone.
I love the Steam Deck—like truly, I love it. It’s one of the geekiest gadgets to come out in recent
years. The fact that you can run games written for DirectX through a compatibility layer on a
non-native operating system better than you could on Windows, portably, is mind boggling. My time
for games is very limited, but the Deck makes it so easy to pickup and play if even for just a few
minutes. There’s really only one major complaint I have with it—and that’s the display. I understand
that Valve had a price target they needed to hit, but I’ve recently been playing Splatoon
3 on my Nintendo Switch OLED and it’s just… so much better. The colors are way more vibrant and
while peak luminance is similar, the massively improved dynamic range puts the Switch OLED’s
display in a whole different league. The Deck’s lousy screen is fine for little gaming spurts,
but when I want to mash out a longer play session, I’ve been using these: the Nreal Air.
In short, these are AR glasses designed to be used primarily with Snapdragon 888 Android phones,
but can also be used with iOS devices, the Steam Deck, or any HDMI-capable device. Here’s how they
work. The top of each lens houses a Sony OLED microdisplay with a 1920x1080 resolution. Now
at first glance, this doesn’t seem quite as high resolution as, say, the Oculus Quest 2;
BUT if you’ve ever put on a pair of VR goggles, you’ve most certainly noticed the screen door
effect, so called because you can actually the grid lines in between the individual rows of
pixels. The fix is to either: decrease the field of view, increase the density of pixels, or do
both. The human eye can’t perceive beyond about 55-60 pixels per degree but VR headsets aren’t
even close to that number. The Oculus, pardon me Zucky-boy, the Meta Quest 2 is one of the densest
VR headsets on the market at a mere… 21 PPD. Not great. The Nreal Air, however, clocks in at an
incredible 49PPD meaning that not only do you have to focus really hard to see a screen door effect,
but the glasses have a higher perceived sharpness and resolution than any VR headset ever made.
How? Well, the displays in the Nreal Air are TINY—just 1.8cm diagonal—so the pixel density
is huge. Furthermore, because of the reflective prisms that allow you to see through the glasses
into the real world, your eyeball’s minimum focus distance is tricked. It’s a really clever solution
to a very real technical problem. This does mean that the FOV is narrower than a VR headset,
but at 46 degrees, it’s still very respectable and you can achieve an up to 201” equivalent display
from 9 feet away. And the displays are GORGEOUS. They are insanely sharp and bright at an effective
focus-luminance of 400 nits making them usable even outdoors. Of course, your contrast ratio
will be dependent on ambient lighting conditions since these are AR glasses, but in a dark room
or with the included light shield you can achieve a bananas 100,000:1 contrast ratio.
We’ll come back to the “experience” wearing these, but let’s talk a little more about the
glasses themselves. You’re certainly still going to get double takes while wearing these from
people walking close to you, but they’re not as socially ostentatious as your average HMD
would be in public. They mostly look like normal sunglasses—dare I even say fashionable ones. More
importantly though for a product like this, they’re comfortable. Those that struggle with
PWM flickering from most OLED displays will be pleased to hear that the Nreal Air are the first
AR glasses to obtain flicker-free certification from German testing firm TUV (tuhf) Rheinland.
And physical comfort is enhanced thanks to flexible temple hinges, an adjustable rake
system to change lens pitch, moldable nose pads to modify nasal bridge positioning,
and their light 79g weight. They’re absolutely heavier than your average pair of glasses and I
found that the ear hooks struggled to reach on my big ‘ol noggin, but despite that, I could still
wear them for about an hour and a half before I needed a break. To reduce weight, the Nreal
Air don’t have internal batteries—they receive power from your device over a USB-C cable that
stealthily exits the left temple tip. You plug into your intended device and you’re ready to go.
It’s impossible to capture the sharpness, color, and immersion of the Nreal Air with a mere camera,
but I want to try my best… the headset is at its most capable when attached to a Snapdragon
888 Android phone running the Nreal Nebula mixed reality environment. The headset has 3 degrees
of freedom for head tracking and using your phone as a gyroscopic remote, you can utilize their AR
space to browse the web, play an extremely limited selection of AR games, work out with their AR
cycling app, and AirCast your phone’s display. It’s neat, and Nreal says they’re committed to
bringing new content into the future, but as it stands today, there’s just a lack of app support
and with limited input controls, it mostly just feels like a slightly gimmicky, content-deficient
Oculus Quest forcing itself to live in the real world. I think that Nebula is better suited for
their more expensive, more powerful Nreal Light and that the Nreal Air is at its best when
it’s in mirror mode. This, in short, turns your glasses into a static, massive, 130”-equivalent
16:9 display. On devices that support USB-C like the Steam Deck, you plug the headset in,
the Deck’s display shuts off to preserve battery, and you get the most gorgeous projection right in
front of your eyes. Even with a thesaurus, I can’t come up with words to describe how mind-blowing
the screen looks and that’s not a platitude. I’m not being paid to praise the screen. My opinion
is that it's GLORIOUS. The environment is vibrant, sharp, and HUGE. Playing Cuphead on my Steam Deck,
the hand-drawn characters spring to life with depth and definition not seen on the Deck’s LCD.
The response time is even better than the built-in display with more precise input realization,
and because the displays are tiny, they draw significantly less power than the built-in
screen and I’ve actually seen play time increase on my Deck’s battery as a result of using them.
My sole complaint is that because all of the processing and output is done by the host device,
you can only get head-tracking on Android. On the Deck, the display is fixed in front of your eyes.
Nreal appears to be really active with their community and they’ve acknowledged the demand
for head tracking on the Deck—even alluding to it being a work in progress. It's already a fantastic
accessory for the Deck, but having 3 degrees of freedom would make it a must-own companion device.
I was very skeptical when Nreal reached out and as with all sponsored content,
I require time to use and like the product before I move forward with agreeing to do a video. I did
not expect to like these as much as I did. They’re so good and so portable that I will be traveling
with them in the future. I’ve been using them to play a game for 30 minutes before bed, heck,
I may get a second pair to keep in my car so I can watch YouTube while I’m waiting on errands.
I’m also really excited about the prospect of using them as a Stage Manager display when iPadOS
16 releases. They’re not cheap at $379, but I also don’t think that they’re overpriced and you’ll be
hard-pressed to get a better display for $379—not just in glasses form, but period. If the budget
can accommodate such a luxury, I think these are PERFECT for dorm-bound students that don’t have
room for a TV but don’t want to watch everything on a laptop or phone. The Nreal Air are available
to order using the link below starting today. The first 500 orders will receive a special AR t-shirt
for free and by so doing you support Snazzy Labs. I really like these things—let me know what you
think in the comment section down below. Thanks so much for watching, and as always, stay snazzy!