Samsung has officially entered the mixed reality race with the launch of its Galaxy XR headset, priced at $1,800 — almost half the cost of Apple’s Vision Pro. The announcement, reported by Bloomberg, signals a major push by the South Korean tech giant into the rapidly expanding world of extended reality.
The Galaxy XR is the first device powered by Android XR, Google’s new operating system built specifically for next-generation XR devices. Co-developed by Samsung and Google, the headset pairs two 4K Micro-OLED displays (3552 x 3840 resolution each) with passthrough cameras and a full-immersion mode for gaming and cinematic viewing. Inside, it runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chip — a powerhouse designed for spatial computing.
Weighing just 545 grams, it’s noticeably lighter than Apple’s 800-gram Vision Pro. Battery life clocks in at about 2.5 hours of video playback, matching Apple’s performance but in a sleeker frame.
Samsung’s headset also integrates Google’s Gemini AI, allowing users to point at real-world objects to instantly get contextual information — a blend of gesture control and intelligent vision that hints at where spatial computing is headed.
To attract early adopters, Samsung and Google are offering an Explorer Pack with one-year subscriptions to Google services. Initially, the Galaxy XR will be sold exclusively through Samsung stores and online, with wider distribution planned later.
And this is just the beginning. Both companies are already working on a pair of smart glasses, a slimmer, more everyday version of XR — the next logical step in Samsung’s mixed-reality roadmap.
The XR era is officially underway, and this time, Apple isn’t the only one shaping what the future looks like.
