Tech reviewer Marques Brownlee has shared a hands-on experience of Project Moohan, a prototype of Samsung’s Vision Pro competitor.
Samsung has previously allowed other tech writers to try it, including 9to5Google’s Abner Li, but this is the first time the company has allowed video footage to be shared …
Our sister site got a 30-minute try-out last month, and Li was impressed, describing the OS as the equal of visionOS, but also incorporating AI features not yet available on Apple’s headset.
Everything Google has been working on in the past decade or so, including , come together in this headset that will be available next year. Android XR seems to be on par with visionOS, while offering something wildly new yet natural with Gemini and Project Astra.
MKBHD too said that the inclusion of AI features is the biggest current differentiator from Vision Pro, based on “deep collaboration” with Google.
This is the first Android XR headset so it’s a pretty deep collaboration between Google and Samsung; think of it as like the Nexus or Pixel but for headsets.
He says that the hardware is undeniably influenced by Apple, though the way it secures to your head is more similar to the Quest Pro.
The back borrows more from the now discontinued Quest Pro, I would say, with this sort of cup on the back of your head plus a dial to adjust how snug it is. I found that with this setup basically most of the weight or the pressure now is on my brow above my eyes, unlike what the Vision Pro was more below my eyes because of the way it sort of sagged.
Just as Vision Pro can run iPad apps, so too can this run Android phone and tablet apps, but spatial apps created for the platform are where each device comes to life.
The big difference, says Brownlee, is that Project Moohan has Google’s Gemini chatbot on board.
At any point you can just go home and and hit the Gemini button and just talk to it. Basically it starts running an instance of Gemini live in the background – you know, the live conversational version of Gemini that you can sort of talk back and forth with and carry on a full conversation with.
Also, Gemini is multimodal, which in the headset means that it can see everything that you’re seeing so you can ask Gemini about something that’s just in front of you and it can give you answers just like as if you’d taken a picture of it with your phone. So it can translate signs or answer trivia questions or just tell you about what you’re looking at […]
This is a massive difference versus The Vision Pro which has no apple intelligence features, no AI features at all and probably won’t be getting any anytime soon.
This is just a prototype at present, with Samsung promising it will launch later this year. There’s one rather crucial piece of information the company hasn’t yet revealed: the price.
Check out the 12-minute video below.
Screengrab: MKBHD
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