Vision Pro, Apple’s very first headset, just turned one year old. Now that we’re into 2025, is it still worth buying? Read on for our no-nonsense recommendation.

Vision Pro isn’t worth the cost for most people.

Why: Vision Pro is an incredible headset by many measures. The interface, ease of use, and ecosystem integration are second-to-none. And while it has standout features like immersive FaceTime, support for almost all existing iPad apps, automatic 3D photo conversions, and an excellent ultrawide virtual monitor, the reality is that most people aren’t going to get $3,500 worth of value from the headset. There aren’t yet enough uniquely valuable use-cases or ‘killer app’ experiences to justify dropping that much cash on the headset.

To be clear, this assessment isn’t unique to the year 2025. Vision Pro was too expensive for most people on the very day that it launched. At a different price point, our recommendation would be very different. But for now, the cost will outweigh the value for most people.

SEE ALSO
Apple Reportedly Cancels Mac-connected AR Glasses Due to Poor Internal Reviews

Who should buy Vision Pro?

Like Apple CEO Tim Cook has said, Vision Pro is a glimpse into the future that you can get today. But looking through that time machine costs a pretty penny. If you’re someone with money to burn and a love for the latest tech, there’s probably no other product on the market today that can deliver the “wow this feels like the future” moments that Vision Pro can.

Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.

Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Stephen Bard

    Even if you can "afford" it, the AVP price is just "insulting" far beyond Apple's usual overpricing. The awkward annoying battery-on-a-tether weighs as much as the overheavy headset itself. Both FOVs are claustrophobically 10 degrees narrower than proper modern headsets and the displays suffer motion-blur. The device is not suitable for any properly immersive VR activities, which leaves you only with glorious movie watching and the novelty of floating flat productivity apps, which you quickly tire of the novelty of.

    • Arashi

      Actually the FoV is quite big, you can get 120 degrees horizontal with an aftermarket facial interface, bigger than most other headsets out there. Going back to my Quest 3 I feel looking through binoculars with the quest3. But yeah with the facial interface that that it ships with it's quite limited indeed.

      And personally I applaud the external battery, I think it's the way to go. But the headset itself should have been lighter, I'll agree there.

      • xyzs

        The FOV of the AVP is very narrow.
        I was shocked by how narrow it was when I used it, narrower than a Quest 1.

        • That's the FOV of the light shield essentially, Apple's light shields are WAY deeper than they need to be due to the eye tracking sensors. You can go much closer than the stock face shields allow. AVP will flash a warning "Too close to the displays" once a session that you can dismiss.

        • Ben Lang

          Depends a lot on the facepad. Even a custom-fit facepad from Apple leaves a lot on the table. This makes such a difference for me, and puts it much closer to Quest 3: https://www.roadtovr.com/apple-vision-pro-strap-annapro-a2-review/

          • Dragon Marble

            And there's no degradation in eye tracking accuracy? FOV is such valuable real estate in VR, it would be mind boggling if Apple simply left so much "on the table".

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            Apple presented AVP as a device for great media consumption and using existing iPad apps floating in front of the users. Both use cases don't really need a large FoV. You eyes cannot see all of the movie if it covers 90° of your view, as too much of it will be in the rather fuzzy peripheral view, requiring to turn your eyes/head to recognize details. The 27" display sitting at arms length in front of me as a stand-in for "flat apps" covers about 60° of my FoV, and to see my second display I first have to turn my head by about 40°. If I move further away so I see both at the same time, text becomes unusably small.

            A large FoV is very important for immersion, because it makes the virtual world feel more real, and below a certain amount the brain will simply know that this is fake. I tested this practically with my fear of heights and a number of cheap phone VR viewers with varying FoV. Below ~60° FoV, I could simply walk to a cliff and jump down without being bothered. But above ~70° my stomach started to cramp and I had to very slowly approach the same edge even while sitting safely on a chair. The results were reproducible, so this was my brain accepting the scene as reality only once it covered enough of my view.

            So FoV is important for games looking to provide great immersion, while Apple would have had good reasons to leave some of it "on the table" if this provided some other benefit for the types of applications AVP is intended for. Which explains why it is apparently pretty easy to increase the FoV on AVP simply by swapping the face cushions against slimmer ones.

        • Arashi

          Did you use try it with for example CMA1 or Annapro Facial interface? If not, remove the cushion and try it with either of those interfaces. It's wide, not narrow at all.

        • The FOV without the facial interface in the AVP is comparable to the FOV without the facial interface on the Quest 3. Apple's stock facial interfaces are the main cause of the smaller FOV out of the box.

      • As a new AVP owner, and current Quest 3 owner, I'm keenly interested in maximum FOV. I'm happy with my Quest 3's 110 degrees. It does feel like that the AVP is comparable when I use the "devil horns hack" (rotate the facial cushion 180 degrees on the light shield).

        And when I remove the cushion altogether from the light shield and let the AVP rest on my nose, it feels larger than 110, but I can't quantify it. How were you able to quantify it to 120? What measurement device I mean.

        • Arashi

          You can just use the regular measuring tools in SteamVR. I used hmdq, it showed me 120 degrees being rendered and I verified I could indeed see those with RoV.

          I use my AVP without the cushion. I've seen people 3d print their own shades to block the light that comes in as a result, but haven't done that myself yet.

          • OK, I don't have a home PC or Windows based laptop so no Steam VR for me in AVP. It would be pretty incredible if Steam VR where available on Mac OS. I'd get an M4 Mini and see how that works.

          • STL

            I use an Asus notebook with a built-in RTX4090. Does the job. I play Skyrim VR only.

  • xyzs

    It has never been worth buying, and will never be (unless you are just a bored millionaire).

    • Or you can get it for pennies on the dollar from the used marketplace. Anyone who buys new with so much stock in the aftermarket is either too rich for their own good or maybe not too smart.

      • xyzs

        I checked the marketplace, nobody wants to sell it for pennies, I don't know where you saw these amazing deals..?
        They all try to resell 75 presents of brand-new price, which is still crazy too high.

        • Christian Schildwaechter

          Go to ebay, search for Apple Vision Pro, then filter by sold items between USD 1000 and USD 1500. You'll get 24 results from the last three months, though most, esp. the cheaper ones, come from people with zero feedback and should not be trusted.

          If you remove the upper price limit, but then only look at successful actions with the HMD offered by sellers in the US with at least 50 ratings and a 100% positive score, prices from the last 90 days start at USD 1900, so about 55% of the USD 3499 retail price.

          • Good points. Another factor that's not available in the filters is that some of the units have remaining AppleCare coverage included. That value needs to be factored into the prices where applicable.

            I did my deal with a local seller – which I would advise to anyone looking to buy, so you can meet face to face, in a public place like a coffee shop or library, and test the device in guest mode. The 512GB model I purchased came with the bonus of Applecare coverage through April 2026

            Not saying online marketplaces aren't reliable, ebay has good buyer protection, but you still have to be diligent or you'll end up in a long drawn out process if things don't work out.

        • Not "literally" pennies, lol. The phrase is usually taken to mean a fraction of retail cost, which is what we are seeing. The going rate for preowned units can be reliably measured by checking "Completed & Sold" listings on ebay.

  • Ben, would you agree that for some time now its likely that more AVPs have been acquired from previous owners than from Apple themselves? In that respect, if someone can get one for say $1500 in the pre-owned marketplace, would you change your opinion? It sure did mine.

    I found a gently used 512GB model from a local marketplace seller for $1500. It came with the travel case and a belkin battery clip along with all of the accessories except the 30v charger. I picked one up new for $30. The device also is under Apple Care until April 2026.

    As a Quest 3 owner from the day it launched, getting an AVP was a dream. The device is a teleportation machine. Close to magic. I mainly used my Quest 3 for media consumption so the AVP was the perfect device for me, especially since the original owner took the brunt of the cost of ownership.

    • Ben Lang

      $1,500 makes it more tempting for some use-cases. I think Apple will need to reach a $1,000 price point to start to reach a mass market—and make further improvements to ergonomics.

    • Arno van Wingerde

      For $1500 it starts to get more interesting. However, this does not overcome the heavy weight, ridiculous strap, or lack of controllers. For media consumption, possibly for some computing where you "read" more than "write" – maybe. For VR games: forget it for now. I guess the screen is absolutely gorgeous and the graphics power is also great. But a number of fairly atypical Apple design errors reduces its application.

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        If you just saved USD 2K by purchasing it second hand, you should have some budget left to get an AVP strap replacement/add-on that moves the load from the face to forehead and/or top, significantly improving comfort. AVP will still weight 600g compared to Quest 3 at ~460g though.

        But if you get a strap that allows placing the external battery pack at the back, you'd get comparable balance/comfort to a Quest 3 with a BOBOBR S3 Pro, which also comes with an extra battery and adds about 500g. A HMD with proper counter balance will often be way more comfortable than one without, regardless of the weight of HMD and strap themselves

        The controller issue remains, though your budget savings might allow for getting PSVR2 Sense controllers once/if visionOS 3 brings AVP compatibility later this year. With AVP never intended as a gaming device, getting one for mostly VR gaming still at best makes sense for using the excellent display while streaming from a rather powerful PC. But as we are now getting headsets with 3.5K displays below USD 2000 actually targeting gamers, those that don't really care about AVP's media and productivity features should probably still stay away from AVP, even at USD 1500.

        • Agree on these points. And I don't believe AVP or any future derivative will have gaming as its focus. What it does extremely well is media consumption – and apparently productivity with the addition of the Ultra wide display mode, but I haven't personally used this feature yet.

          In terms of comfort, I find it more than acceptable with the "devil horns hack" that simply involves rotating the light seal cushion 180 degrees and mounting it so that the top two magnet catches attach the cushion to the top of the light seal (or cutting the sides of the cushion off and attaching it the standard way). This gives very good support to the headset with the only contact point being the brow area and for me at least does not impart the forehead pressure or increased weight and bulk of some of the other halo style solutions. Additionally, the FOV is on par with Quest 3 with this hack.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            I also doubt that we will ever see a gaming focused AVP. But thanks to iOS, Apple has for years made more profit from gaming than any other company, and was only trailing Tencent and Sony regarding gaming revenue. Due to Microsoft swallowing ZeniMax (Bethesda, id Software, Arkane etc.) and Activision Blizzard, Apple's gaming revenue should now have dropped to place four, while their profits are still at the top.

            Gaming apps generate more than 50% of all revenue on Apple's App Store, so it is safe to assume that they are eyeing a future XR gaming market too. But just like the iPhone didn't adopt input systems of previous mobile gaming devices like the Nintendo DS or PlayStation Portable, and instead (very successfully) forced developers to come up with mechanics that worked with touch screen tapping, dragging, swiping or turning the device, most future AV(P) games will rely mostly on hand tracking, eye gaze, body movement and/or voice, with 6DoF controllers primarily used for some ports. Similar to how RE8 can now be played on an iPhone with either touch or a PlayStation controller connected via bluetooth.

          • Cool. It will be an exciting future to watch this develop.

            Until then I'm still lapping up the content. From the Apple immersives (i still haven't watched them all but most are incredibly lifelike) to the Disney+ 3D stuff (still got unwatched stuff) to the MR casual content consumption.

            Going without the light seal and getting my eyeballs right up into the headset is convincingly like human FOV with the pass through upgrade vs Quest 3. Astonishing human vision FOV I still can't quite believe its not a bigger deal that this is possible with the right setup.

          • Arashi

            Did you try charging yours? I only just found out that it actually charges at 50 watt (if you have a charger that can handle that). The Quest3 is stuck at 15W. That's quite a difference for such a device. Apple really did a lot of things right.

          • I'm not sure the point of your question. I need to catch up :)
            Did I try charging my AVP? I actually leave it connected to the battery at all times when I'm not using it. When I'm using it I plug the charger into a USB cable connected to the stock 30W wall adapter.