Samsung Galaxy XR Offers Comparable Vision Pro Specs & Features at Half the Price

I think, this device will be as relevant (or irrelevant) for existing vr users, as APV is. Better price, similar issues.

2k vs 3.5k does not place it in a significantly different price bracket.
I don't know if the SOC is the same level, specially not with the refresh of the vision pro with a M5.

(Way) TL;DR: Both AVP and Galaxy XR will only become relevant with future lighter and cheaper consumer versions, with the first iteration mostly targeting a small number of devs and first movers serving as guinea pigs; while Apple uses AVP to extend their existing ecosystem into XR, Google is mostly positioning AndroidXR as super-powerful smartglasses that currently can't be worn outside; both approaches, picked to utilize each company's strengths, are currently mostly impractical for price/weight/technical reasons, and again will only become viable with future consumer devices, but are already interesting due to their very different goals and ways to get there.

I doubt that at USD 1800 Samsung sees the Galaxy XR any more as a consumer mass device than Apple does with AVP at USD 3500. Both are very polished development kits to test their XR HMDs in the wild and see how the few first movers/buyers actually use them. AFAIR Samsung's sales projections were even way lower than Apple's. This makes the price comparison somewhat moot.

The more interesting part is how the devices are positioned, with Apple mostly counting on people already in their ecosystem to pretty much continue doing what they did before, only in a souped up way wearing a headset. AVP heavily relies on existing iPad apps, content from Apple TV and services like FaceTime that connect AVP users with users on other Apple device, often with extra content available/viewable only on the HMD. In that way AVP is much more evolutionary, aiming for a very smooth experience and integration into what users already know and use.

Samsung/Google on the other hand assume that users will use the HMD in very new ways that so far haven't been available. They also rely on Google apps/services, but emphasize their integration with the Gemini AI, not just using the same apps with hand/eye tracking. This is a much bigger bet than Apple is making, but Google doesn't really have a choice here. They lack a service like Apple TV with plenty of licensed high bitrate content and self-produced high profile productions like Severance. You can buy/rent movies on YouTube, but it is more known for its high compression rates, aimed more at phones than 4K HMDs. Google's multiple attempts to establish a messenger also didn't work out, with Meta's WhatsApp dominating in most of the world, and Apple's FaceTime/iMessage service dominating in the US. AVP users have about 1B other FaceTime users to connect and talk to as their Personas, while it is not entirely clear with whom AndroidXR users are supposed to communicate as their ‘Lifelike’ avatar. Google is instead focusing on an area where Apple is currently trailing, AI and capable personal assistants.

While the basic HMD technology is somewhat similar, the concepts are rather different. AndroidXR's suggested use cases seem much closer to Meta's smartglasses than to AVP, with the problem that these use case make most sense outside where smartglasses are worn, but XR HMDs are not. But this again may be irrelevant if the current Galaxy XR is mostly a test balloon for developers, and only later iterations can show how viable the concept is. And it makes AndroidXR a prototype for future, much more powerful smartglasses. So Google's bet could eventually pay out a lot even if XR HMDs themselves never gain a lot of traction, but smartglasses do.

The Meta smartglasses themselves are somewhat unproven. They no doubt sell a lot, but so far their main uses seem to be protecting the eyes from the sun and making a fashion statement, followed at some distance by taking pictures, and then with much larger distance by the actual smart features AndroidXR is betting on. The newly released Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses apparently increase the usefulness of the smart features a lot, but at the same time double the price while being a lot clunkier, interfering with the very important "fashion statement" function. So their success is not ensured either.

The technical differences between AVP and Galaxy XR are mostly driven by necessity, and much more boring. Both use Sony microOLEDs, Apple an earlier version that suffered from low yields, leading to a very high price of USD 700, (close to) half of the production costs. Apple has access to faster SoCs from their notebook/tablet lines, and added another very fast/expensive R1 co-processor to handle sensors/tracking/passthrough, while Samsung has to rely on a Qualcomm SoC derived from their 2023 top chip SD 8 Gen 3 targeting mobile phones, now slightly faster (15% GPU, 20% CPU) due to process improvements.

Build cost estimates for AVP were USD 1400-1800, meaning AVP would be sold with a 49%-60% markup on top of production costs, much higher than Apple's 40% average margin on iPhones etc. (all models, high and lower end). Apple can significantly lower the cost in future Vision models by switching to their cheaper A-series SoC from iPhones that would also lower the power requirements and possible the extra R1 chip, and no longer using the insanely expensive 1st gen Sony microOLED displays.

Samsung's profit margin on their (high end) phones is about 55%-63%, but until we see teardowns and BOM estimates, we have no way of knowing whether for the Galaxy XR they apply a higher than average margin like Apple does on AVP, or actually a lower than average one to establish the device. Samsung uses slower/simpler silicon (esp. compared to the new AVP M5), very likely heavily relied on Qualcomm's reference platform, and avoided expensive in-house silicon development. But as Qualcomm has dramatically increased SoC prices in the last few years, it is unclear if this gives them advantage in lower build costs. They should at least pay less than Apple for the microOLEDs, simply by using 18 months newer ones created on a less "experimental" process. It seems very likely that the Galaxy XR build costs are significantly lower overall, though probably not only half that of AVP as the retail price implies. As Samsung uses AndroidXR and Google's Play store, they won't make extra profits from app sales like Meta or Apple, instead they'd have to rely on the device price for all their (future) earnings.

Basically both AVP and Galaxy XR in their current form won't be representative regarding used technology, weight or price for the XR HMDs Apple and Samsung release in a few years, but they hint where both Apple and Google expect XR to go conceptually.

I can't wait for the full review