I'm also curious. I bought the cheap alternative: XReal One Pro and… it is kind of as expected. It is a cheap alternative. Don't expect to use it for coding for several hours a day, in spite of what people keep saying. The optics are not up to it: there are imperfections in the lenses resulting in blurry areas of the screen, very visible as you move your head around.

They are great for watching video, make for a fantastic travel accessory, and one can use them for coding in a pinch, but I honestly couldn't find a good reason to, when I have a perfectly good MacBook Pro screen right in front of me.

I would definitely pay more for glasses that would allow me to have a better virtual computer display. Perhaps not $3500, but $2000? The main reason why I didn't even consider Apple Vision Pro is because of its humongous size, weight and complexity — I don't want another computer with another (locked down) OS requiring updates and maintenance. I want things that do not require anything of me. This is why XReal glasses are so nice: they are just a display. No battery, no OS, no maintenance.

I've been using the XReal One Pros for coding work for a few months now, and have had a great experience.

For me, the ergonomic benefits are the selling point, not the display quality. Not having to sit hunched over a laptop screen for several hours means I can work almost anywhere. Sometimes I'll use it in a cafe. Other times I just lie down in bed. I also make use of speech to text, so I just need to be able to press a hotkey and reach the track pad.

On the topic of display quality, it's important to use Better display to upscale the output to the XReals to high DPI - that gives noticeably better quality when it's downscaled to the (lower) native resolution of the XReals.

That's a very interesting comparison thanks. Hard to believe one is 87g and the other is ~800g and there's not much in-between!