Samsung Galaxy XR launch LIVE — Samsung’s Vision Pro rival arrives

For example, within the Google Maps app, you can ask Gemini Live to take you to a certain location and then ask about restaurants you might want to visit. Or if you’re playing a game like Stardew Valley, you can ask Gemini for tips as you play along. You’re not pulled out of the game — Gemini will give you help without having to open up a separate app.

We’ve spent some time with the new Galaxy XR headset, and you can find our initial verdict in our hands-on review of the device.

Global Editor in Chief Mark Spoonauer feels that it builds on the Apple Vision Pro by delivering a much lighter and more comfortable design alongside AI that’s actually helpful. And it does it all for a much cheaper price.

Despite this, eye tracking and performance still didn’t feel as smooth as Apple’s option but at $1,700 less, will many people really complain about that?

Let’s look at some of the key differences between the Galaxy XR and Apple Vision Pro headsets in this video.

Here’s a look at one of the Google Gemini demos that was part of tonight’s Galaxy XR launch, courtesy of our own Kate Kozuch.

Here’s another Galaxy XR hands-on video, this time with Mark Spoonauer showing off the headset.

Galaxy XR Hands-On! Samsung Fixed Vision Pro’s Biggest Problems – YouTube

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While Samsung talks about some of the video-watching features on the Galaxy XR, here’s one of our videos — specifically a hands-on with the headset.

Google’s Sharham Izadi is talking about the efforts to optimize Google’s built-in apps for the Samsung XR headset and Android XR platform. (You can get more details in our Galaxy XR news story.) And Gemini on-board the headset is a big part of the Android XR story.

I don’t want to undercut Samsung’s presentation, but if you want to skip ahead for all the details — and some first impressions — here’s Mark Spoonauer’s Galaxy XR hands-on.

Oh, and here’s the news from last December when Samsung first confirmed it was working on this headset.

On the website formerly known as Twitter, posters think they have the price for the Galaxy XR ahead of the launch. And the good news is it’s on the lower end of that rumored $1.800 to $2.900 range.

We’ll find out just how accurate that claim is in a matter of moments.

Samsung doesn’t always globally launch products, especially if they’re kind of niche. Take last year’s Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition. That version of Samsung’s premium foldable phone only shipped in Korea, though some of its features like a 200MP main camera would find their way into the regular Galaxy Z Fold models.

The point is that Samsung sometimes tries out products in limited markets just to gauge the appeal. Will that happen with the Galaxy XR? I’m not certain, but it’s something to pay attention to in a half-hour when the launch event begins and Samsung discloses its plans.

At that same show, Xreal announced plans to team up with Google to build spatial computing devices on Android XR. Specifically, Xreal is working on a pair of smart glasses. You can read all about its Project Aura efforts — and what my colleague Jason England thinks about it — as you wait for the Galaxy XR to appear.

You’ve heard about Project Moohan. Now what about Project Haean? That’s the rumored pair of smart glasses reportedly in development at Samsung.

Unlike the Moohan headset, which has been a source of public knowledge since December, Project Haean has only been the subject of media reports. But if there’s any truth to this rumor, you might imagine that Samsung could hint about future XR plans after it officially launches the Galaxy XR.

When I demoed the Project Moohan headset at Google I/O, I used gesture controls, so I was a little surprised when leaked specs suggested that there will be physical controls for the headset too. And yet, some early pictures — apparently part of a preview that leaked out early — show controllers that you can reportedly use with the Galaxy XR if you are so inclined.

Assuming that’s a legitimate photo, I don’t know how central these controllers will be to the Galaxy XR experience. I found the gesture controls more than adequate for the tasks at hand, but maybe for gaming, having physical controls is a better option.

Back when reports of the first Project Moohan demos emerged, there was talk about how Google Gemini could be the differentiating factor for the headset Samsung ultimately shipped. After all, Google’s AI assistant plays a big part on Samsung’s phones, so it’s logical that the assistant would also be present on the headset, too, especially with that Android XR platform running the show.

Indeed, Gemini Live could be quite a bonus for the Galaxy XR headset as it would give you another way to both control the device while also getting answers to questions and having the AI see the same things you are. That’s something I’ll be watching for tonight when Samsung outlines the features on its device.

You could argue that this event has been 2.5 years in the making, as it was back in February 2023 that Samsung was joined by Qualcomm and Google at the Galaxy S23 launch to talk up XR plans. Specifically, that was the event were the three companies said they would team up to build a new mixed reality platform.

That led to Android XR’s unveiling last December, along with the first announcement that Samsung’s headset would ship at some point in 2025. And now here we are.

When it announce tonight’s Galaxy event last week, Samsung included a hype video for its mixed reality headset. And if you go through the video, you might find some hints about the experiences Samsung’s going to include with the Galaxy XR.

Invitation for Galaxy Event October 2025 | Samsung – YouTube

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Start with the dissolve into the opening shot and its three panels featuring a park, the Brooklyn Bridge and a fancy coffee. I imagine that’s a reference to the tiled interface you’ll see when you strap on an XR headset.

We also get a look at some typical apps we can likely expect to be front-and-center on the Galaxy XR. The mapping software includes swooping images of the city, dotted with virtual points of interest you can probably click to get more info. That morphs into a view of a stadium superimposed with real-time stats — I’m guessing Samsung is suggesting you can watch the big game and have key stats floating in your view.

We end with the “Worlds Wide Open” slogan, which hearkens back to the expansive view the Galaxy XR headset promises.

Perhaps I’m reading a lot into a 16-second clip, but a lot of the experiences Samsung is hinting at aren’t too far removed from my own hands-on with Project Moohan from earlier this year.

I’m old enough to remember one of Samsung’s last stabs at a VR product — the old Samsung Gear VR headset. If you remember. you’d strap a compatible phone onto the headset — in this case, a Samsung flagship phone — and you’d be transported into a virtual world.

It was somewhat cutting-edge for its time, but I think the Gear VR suffered from its reliance on the phone to do most of the heavy-lifting. Apart from the same general headset design and the Samsung name, the Galaxy XR shares very little in common with the Gear VR. But I think it’s fair to say, that the Gear VR walked so that the headset arriving tonight could run.

Here’s our look at Android XR, as well as a list of companies developing for the platform.

[Invitation] Samsung Galaxy Event: Worlds Wide Open — A New Era of Multimodal AI – YouTube

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Samsung’s Galaxy XR event is five hours away set to go live virtually at 7 pm PDT/7 pm ET (3 AM UK on October 22 and noon AEST in Australia), which will be 11 am in Seoul.

As a reminder, we’ll have impressions and news going up around that time to provide you more details during the digital launch.

Unlike Qualcomm’s smartphone chips, its XR chips haven’t received an annual release. Instead, we’ve known about the Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 platform since at least 2024.

It helps that it was built in partnership with Samsung and Google for this very device.

Here’s what it brings to the table. Support for up to 4.3K resolution in each eye, running at 90 frames per second. Increased performance compared to the XR2 Gen 2 in the Meta Quest 3 headset and support for up to 12 concurrent cameras (like in the Apple Vision Pro) for tracking.

We don’t totally know how Samsung and Google will leverage the Qualcomm chipset, but it should be a powerful system on par with the Quest 3 and Vision Pro.

Samsung Project Moohan XR Headset First Look! This Is Familiar… – YouTube

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During the Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event in January where the company launched the Galaxy S25 series, we also got our first glimpse at Project Moohan in person.

At the time, we were only able to see the headset. Hands on previews wouldn’t come until later.

During his hands-on at Google I/O, Philip Michaels didn’t find the headset overly burdensome, though the time with the headset was short.

The headset is rumored to weight 18.6 ounces, a little more than the 17.6 ounce Meta Quest 3 headset, and lighter than the refreshed Apple Vision Pro M5, which comes in at 21.2-22.9 ounces.

The Galaxy XR features one strap unlike the new strap for the Vision Pro, hopefully it’s not enough especially for longer sessions.

I fully expect the Galaxy XR to be the sole focus of tonight’s event, though I suppose Samsung could talk a bit more about other mixed reality plans — like many other tech giants, the company is said to be working on its own set of smart glasses, for example. But there’s always the possibility of Samsung ending the event with a surprise, like it did in January, when it teased the Galaxy S25 Edge launch just after introducing the other S25 models.

If there’s a likely candidate for a surprise appearance, it could be Samsung’s long-rumored triple-folding phone. After all, Samsung has indicated it plans to release the phone at some point before the end of the year, even if it’s in limited markets. And the timing of the event — late morning in South Korea — would line up with the idea that the Galaxy Z Tri-Fold — could appear first in that country.

If you’re wondering about what kind of apps will be available for the Galaxy XR — and other Android XR-based headsets — Google may have already tipped its hand. A Reddit user posted images pulled from the Play Store that tout “immersive experiences made for your XR headset.” The screenshots show off apps that have been optimized for mixed reality headsets, and the device featured on the main page looks an awful lot like the Project Moohan headset Samsung has shown off in demos.

The featured apps mostly look like games, including Asteroid and Vacation Simulator, but there’s also XR-ready versions of streaming apps and virtual desktops, too.

In his Apple Vision Pro M5 review, Mark Spoonauer praises the faster performance and comfier fit of Apple’s headset, but finds the lack of multi-modal AI to be a frustrating limitation. And the fact that price hasn’t changed from the original $3,499 is a bit of a bummer, too.

It’s not too late to save on the Galaxy XR headset — or whatever else Samsung announces tonight. In the spirit of similar promotions ahead of Galaxy Unpacked events, Samsung is promising a $100 credit if you register your name and email address with the company ahead of the 10 p.m. ET event. You aren’t under any obligation to pre-order the device, and you can apply any other pre-order offers that Samsung may make leading up to the release of its headset.

It’s rare that I’ve had the chance to try out a product before it’s announced, but that’s the case with the Galaxy XR. I attended Google I/O in May, and Samsung was at that event offering demos of its Project Moohan headset.

I was impressed by what I saw at the time, and I’m not really inclined to enjoy using headsets. I did appreciate the passthrough view on Project Moohan, which let me see the world around me, without that feeling of being cut off that I get when using Meta’s headgear.

As you might imagine at an event focused on Google’s software efforts, a lot of the demo focused on the Android XR platform and how Google apps will work on Samsung’s headset. Using gesture controls, I tried out apps like Photos, YouTube and Google Maps — the latter was easily my favorite demo, as I could get a bird’s eye view of a city and then dive in for a closer look at various points of interest.

Back in August, a publication called Newsworks listed a price range for Samsung’s mixed reality headset, claiming it could cost between $1,800 and $2,900. At the high end of that range, the Galaxy XR would cost less than the $3,499 Vision Pro headset. However, Meta’s top offering, the Meta Quest 3, starts at $499. So that’s quite a bit of a price gap.

Samsung hasn’t had much to say about the specs for its new headset. But leakers haven’t been so reticent, with a report claiming to detail the specs for Galaxy XR leaking earlier this month. Here’s what it listed:

Assuming a ship date sometime in the next month or so, Samsung’s Galaxy XR headset will arrive more than 1.5 years after Apple’s Vision Pro headset arrived. In fact, Apple has even updated the Vision Pro, releasing a new version that runs on M5 silicon.

Any time Apple and Samsung release products in the same category, you’re going to see comparisons spring up — especially since the Galaxy XR and Vision Pro have similar designs and seem to offer many of the same experiences (at least if we go by the demos Samsung has shown up until now).

Based on what we know so far about all the Project Moohan disclosures and augmented by leaked reports of the device’s specs, we’ve put together a Galaxy XR vs. Apple Vision Pro M5 comparison. But one of the biggest differences could be price as even if the Galaxy XR hits the higher end of its rumored price range, it would still cost hundreds of dollars less than Apple’s $3,499 headset.