Samsung’s upcoming Android XR project is turning heads, not just because it has a variety of Vision Pro-like features, but because it may have even better displays than Apple’s $3,500 headset. That’s not necessarily a good thing. It would mean Samsung’s ‘Project Moohan’ could cost well over $1,000 just to stick a computer on your face. If Apple’s headset has taught us anything, it’s that few people want to spend anything more than $500 on a VR device.
As first spotted by 9to5Google, Korean tech news site The Elec reported based on anonymous industry sources that Samsung’s upcoming XR (extended reality) project has large and dense displays. As read with machine translation, The Elec claims the displays on its upcoming Android XR headset are 1.3-inch OLEDOS (OLED on Silicon) panels with a pixel density of 3,800 PPI, or pixels per inch. Compare that to the $500 Meta Quest 3’s displays at 1,200 PPI, and it’s already impressive. More importantly, it’s even more dense than the Apple Vision Pro’s similar micro-OLED panels, which cap out at 3,400 PPI.
The report notes that these panels are for the Project Moohan (Moohan means “infinity” in Korean) that’s still sitting behind closed doors at Samsung. As noted by The Elec, these types of displays are expensive. The panels for Samsung’s headset and the Vision Pro are produced by Sony. That company had shown off 1.3-inch, 4K OLED panels in 2023 costing more than $1,000. Even if Sony and Samsung mass manufacture these kinds of displays, Project Moohan would be shaping up to be a very expensive product.
Apple’s $3,500 “spatial computer” is one of the most capable headsets available with the best, prettiest OLED displays. Despite that, Apple has struggled to carve a niche for its ultra-expensive headset. Vision Pro sales in 2024 were down just a few months after launch. Late last year, The Information reported, based on anonymous sources, that Apple has quit production of the device, knowing it had enough components to meet demand.
Apple has been updating its headset over time, most recently bringing Apple Intelligence features to the visionOS 2. It technically offers some of the largest displays possible for streaming games or blowing your MacBook screen up to enormous, ultrawide proportions. The problem is the price and what you’re expected to do on Vision Pro. The lack of controllers essentially makes it useless for VR gaming. While Apple has brought more passive, short-form content to the platform, it’s not enough to entice more people to drop $3,500 on a new device.
Android XR is shaping up to be very, very similar to the Apple Vision Pro. YouTuber Marques Brownlee offered us our best look inside the Samsung headset. It has full-color passthrough with external cameras for augmented reality capabilities. This lets you manipulate your apps in 3D space. The big new feature is Google’s Gemini. The AI has access to Samsung’s external cameras, allowing users to ask it questions about the environment. For instance, Brownlee asked Gemini about a photo of the Wadi Rum desert in Jordan. The headset opened up Google Maps to show him the area through satellite imagery.
Is that the kind of feature that will have people lining up around the block to spend more than $2,000 on a headset? Probably not. The Vision Pro is capable, though it’s also bulky and uncomfortable after using it for too long. Samsung’s headset seems lighter than Apple’s, but that’s not the big reason consumers didn’t adopt the Vision Pro like Apple hoped they would. It’s a factor of price compared to its capabilities. The Vision Pro can act like a beautiful, massive TV, but only for one user at a time. You can get an excellent OLED TV for far less and enjoy it with your family.
The elephant in the room is Meta with its $500 Meta Quest 3 and $300 Meta Quest 3s. Any other competing headset, like the HTC Vive Focus Vision, can’t match its capabilities even at the $1,000 price point. Meta has had a head start ever since it bought Oculus back in 2014, and now it has a loss-leading position on the VR market. Still, even Meta does not seem immune to the idea of a more-expensive VR headset. Bloomberg recently reported that Meta is planning on a sequel to the more-expensive Meta Quest Pro. That headset sold so poorly the company dropped it from its lineup two years after launch.
Nobody is talking about the “metaverse” anymore, but companies like Google, Meta, and Apple all still think workers want to spend hours of their day trapped in a VR headset. VR or AR gaming is fun, but it’s not for anybody who gets motion sick or feels vertigo. Until these devices get as light and comfortable as a pair of glasses, XR won’t be the follow up to the smartphone as so many companies seem to think they are.
