Samsung's Galaxy XR headset is here, hitting UK stores this week with online orders live right now.
To celebrate, Samsung is giving away an explorer pack – worth over £665 of apps and software subscriptions –with every order, as well as discounts of up to 30% on other Samsung tech and accessories, including a travel case and controller. Plus, you can bag multibuy discounts if you're interested in any Galaxy Smartphones, which will get you 10% off your Galaxy XR purchase, saving you £169.
I have to admit that Samsung’s first AI-native headset is too premium-priced for me personally, at $1,799 / £1,699 (although it is almost half the price of the Apple Vision Pro). It clearly targets a specific type of consumer: It's not intended for gaming, and I can't see it being on any children's Christmas lists this year, so who is it for?
The promo video above makes it clear that the Galaxy XR is a headset aimed at creative professionals. There are no kids, no competitive gamers, and it's depicted for mostly home and office use, as opposed to wearing it on the subway. The pass-through mode lets users see the physical world around them, blended with digital screens, offering the ability to access information about anything in front of them.
For a limited time, purchases of the Galaxy XR will include a bundle of apps and subscriptions (an explorer pack) worth over £665. You'll get access to Google AI Pro, YouTube Premium, Google Play Pass, Calm Premium, Project Pulsar by Adobe, plus a free copy of the game StatusPro NFL PRO ERA.
Features available with Galaxy XR include the ability to travel with Google Maps in stunning 3D, deep-dive immersion with 360-degree 3D content in the spatial tab, users can ask Gemini about what's on screen or draw a circle with their hand (activating Google's circle-to-search function) for rich discovery, and experience their own photos and videos in 3D with spatializing tools.
XR can be seen as an umbrella term that covers technologies making use of digital elements, and mixed reality differs from virtual reality in that it combines and merges the physical and digital worlds together to extend our reality, as opposed to immersing the user in a completely new one.
Think of it like consuming content on a bigger screen, specifically dual 4K micro-OLED screens, or watching YouTube content in spatial 3D.
If you're looking for a more affordable entry point into XR, I highly recommend RayNeo gaming glasses for under $300 / £300 to get you started.
Will you be buying the Samsung Galaxy XR? Let me know in the comments below.
