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Forget smart-looking carry cases, protective screens or docking stations – this is the best accessory for your ROG Xbox Ally X, and it’s none of those things. It’s actually just a pair of sunglasses.
I say sunglasses, but I’m just teasing you in. I’ve been spending a lot of time playing on my ROG Xbox Ally X since it’s arrived, and even though I have the very nice ASUS premium travel case, the item that I’m most glad to have on hand is my pair of XREAL One AR Glasses.
XREAL One’s are a pair of Augmented Reality glasses. It’s basically your own personal ‘wearable’ screen, packed into a pair of discreet and surprisingly comfortable shades. XREAL have been pioneers in this space, and while there are other models, including a ‘Pro’ version of the headset I’ve been using, today’s review is focusing on the standard (and cheaper) model – the XREAL One.
While they are a bit goofy looking when you’ve got them – despite earnest attempts at making them ‘normal’, they’re actually packed with tech. Embedded inside these fairly normal-looking sunglasses are two Sony 0.68″ Micro-OLED displays, with a FOV of 50 Degrees. The displays hit 600 nits in peak brightness, and they’re embedded in a prism of sorts, so that when you put them on, you’re treated to a massive display size of up to 147″. Even better, the display supports 120hz, which comes in handy, as I’ll get into.
Packed With Features
Besides the screens, the device itself doesn’t have a battery or anything particularly weighty inside, coming in at just 84 grams. Embedded within both arms attached to the frame are a set of ‘Sound by BOSE’ speakers that point directly over your ears – they works incredibly well, though may annoy someone if you’re sitting next to them. At the end of the left arm of the glasses is a USB-C slot, which is how you connect these glasses to a device – be it a phone, a laptop or indeed – an ROG Xbox Ally X.
Also hidden in the frame is the X1 Chip, specifically designed and developed for AR, and it has its own on-board operating system to adjust various settings. On the underside of the right arm of the glasses, you have several buttons with which you can control things. It’s not really possible for me to show you by capturing video or anything, so I’ll do my best to describe how it works.
By pressing the red button once, you can switch the screen from ‘follow’ mode (where no matter where you look, the screen stays centred to your vision) or ‘Anchor’ mode, where you can virtually ‘place’ the screen somewhere in the world, with the system chip tracking it’s location and keeping it there, even if you look away. It’s not perfect, and needs to be reset on occasion, but it works surprisingly well.
Double pressing the red button will bring up the menu, and you can adjust a bunch of other settings, from setting it to Ultra-wide mode, adjusting the brightness, lens transparency and colour, and the size of the image you’ll see, in addition to how far virtually you want to be from it. Next to the red button, is a rocker which I have set up to adjust the brightness of the screen. Lastly, on the top of the right arm is a transparency button, which is extremely useful for instantly hiding the screen so you can see the world around you.
Stay Connected
As I mentioned, the XREAL One Glasses are powered by a USB-C Cable you plug directly into whatever device you want to pair them with. While this makes them super versatile, it will mean that the device you use will have to power the glasses – and itself – so you may find that it’ll wear down the battery quicker than you’d like. Using it with my Samsung Fold 7 worked great, and I was able to get a couple 2-hour-ish movies out of it before the phone battery started getting low, but the phone screen stays on at the same time, so it’s understandable. Still, watching Dune 2 via my own personal cinema on a flight was a dream.
Where the device becomes something I truly adore though, is when paired up with my ROG Xbox Ally X. The Xbox Ally X screen turns off when the glasses are plugged in, so battery life isn’t as affected, so if you use touch in anyway by pure impulse, it’ll no longer work with the screen off. But that’s okay, because holy crap, you’re playing your handheld games on a giant screen and it looks amazing. It’s a little frustrating that I can’t actually show you how well this works, so I’ll have to rely on mere words to try and communicate how much I adore this thing.
The arrival of the ROG Xbox Ally X, in conjunction with the Xbox teams new ‘Xbox Full Screen Experience’ has been transformative to how I play games. As someone who covers the industry for a living, I’m often sat at my desk for lengthy periods of time, and while I’ll always love playing games on my PC in Ultrawide, or spinning my chair around to play on my TV via console, sometimes, I just want to get out of my office and be anywhere else.
While I really enjoy gaming on a handheld, some developers haven’t quite got the memo about all these different modes of play. While some cater for playing on a 7″ screen with UI scaling and other adjustments, many still don’t, and that’s going to take a while to sort itself out. But with the XREAL One’s attached to your ROG Xbox Ally X, this issue disappears entirely, and games that would have been difficult to play on a handheld become far more enjoyable.
A couple of examples for you. Ninja Gaiden 4, which runs superbly on the Xbox Ally X, is great to play, but I’ve found that on that 7″ screen, Team Ninja and Platinum’s UI choices make reading certain button prompts really difficult. That problem is completely eliminated when using my XREAL Ones, and the speed and scale of the game sings on a big screen.
Another game I’m currently working on a review for, Sektori, requires some serious precision, and gets a little tricky on such a small screen. Again, paired with my XREAL glasses, the game becomes an incredible experience – on a handheld. The only real downside I have is that after around 3 or so hours of play, the bridge of the glasses does become quite warm, and at that point, a little uncomfortable. That being said, spending three or more hours with a couple of small screens inches from my eyeballs probably isn’t a very good idea anyway.
The Perfect Companion Device
Forget fancy carry-cases or handheld docks – these XREAL One glasses are the real deal, and without a doubt one of my favourite gadgets to use with my shiny new Xbox Ally X. With Black Friday in full swing, you can pick up a pair of XREAL Ones for 31% off the RRP on Amazon – I’d wholeheartedly recommend picking up a pair if you can – you won’t regret it.
XREAL One AR Glasses
PROS
- Super Comfortable
- Versatile - works with your phone, laptop and gaming handheld
- Screen is bright, colourful and supports 120hz
- Surprisingly great sound
CONS
- The Bridge of the glasses gets a bit warm after hours of use
- A bit goofy looking
