Right off the bat, the most fascinating part of the Apple Vision Pro is how little (not at all) the early reviewers, - uh... "reviewers" mentioned its biggest flaw, which is - its phenomenal screens. These screens are amazing. But... but the issues, oh the issues.
1.) The screen glare. This is, as far as I'm aware, down to the type of lenses in the AVP, but the internal glare is absolutely horrendous. Every time you start an Apple Original, you get the glare right in your face with the Apple TV logo. Open up the prehistoric demo (which, by the way, really is incredible), and the opening credits glare right in your face - like a hall of mirrors of glare, right after the Apple TV logo glares in your face. It's worse than the Quest 3, which was already pretty bad with its pancake lenses. But you can forgive this kind of thing at $499 + tax. You can't forgive it at $3499 + tax. I put the AVP into Guest Mode, handed it to my wife (without my Zeiss lenses in), and her first complaint was about glare she noticed within 5 seconds, and the next complaint was about blurriness (the smearing) when moving her head. That pretty much sealed the deal (she had a good time demoing it, but would never keep it). I can't overstate how bad the glare is. It annoyed me while trying to watch part of a movie (which truly is a treat aside from the glare, and as long as you don't move your head much - see point 3.)
2.) The stock head band is a joke. It's there to look pretty in marketing material, but everyone knows the dual loop is much more supportive of the AVP's weight. Nobody looks at the dual loop and sees sexiness, though, but Apple knew they had to include it in the box. Sure, if you have hair (I don't), it's not great, but then quite frankly if you have hair you're pretty much doomed to either squish it or use the stock band and experience a squished face due to lack of top-of-head support.
3.) The smearing. I honestly have no idea why it's as bad as it is, but the smearing is horrific. You turn your head left and right and everything smears, whether in mixed reality or full on VR. What's most interesting is that the OLED panels are wonderfully responsive. If you drag a web page up and down without moving your head at all, it's all super sharp and readable - fantastic. This is perfect. If you move your head up and down, though? Yikes. As I have a Quest 3 right here with me, it's easy to go back and forth between the two, and the Quest 3 does not have any of this smearing.
4.) Color fringing. Yep, it's definitely there, especially obvious toward the edge of the frame.
5.) Low field of view. I don't have numbers, but it's obviously less than Quest 3, and you feel like you're really wearing a scuba mask. Note that none of the promotional materials show any of this field of view or color fringing.
6.) Speakers are leagues better than the Quest 3 ones, which shouldn't come as any surprise. Everyone seems to praise the Quest 3 speakers, but I've never understood the praise. They're serviceable, and that's about it. The AVP speakers are excellent for what they are, and Spatial Audio is a treat.
7.) Optic ID seems to be pretty broken if you wear Zeiss lenses. I only got it to work by squishing the AVP (with the thin light seal!) against my face while I set it up, and to unlock my AVP I have to squish it against my face every time. Apparently I'm not the only one with this issue.
8.) The battery cord is annoying in that it bunches up really easily, and requires finessing to loosen.
9.) Taking this thing off is such a relief in terms of head freedom. I'd much rather sit in front of my 27" or 32" display and work, than use the AVP.
10.) The whole packaging and setup experience is definitely top tier (minus Optic ID for Zeiss users).
Overall, this really is an incredible kinda-sorta tech demo. The screens, though, ultimately make or break the device, and in this case, due to the lenses and smearing it's an easy return to the store for me. If it didn't glare or smear, I'd almost certainly keep it, and how this made it through testing without someone saying, "WAIT WAIT!" is well beyond my ability to comprehend. There's so much good, though, that I can't wait for the next generation of Vision Pro. Not today, Apple. But perhaps soon. The future is there for the taking.
