Xreal has unveiled its newest gadget on the Augmented World Expo (AWE) 2024 XR trade showcase, nevertheless it’s not a pair of AR sensible glasses – it’s a smartphone-like system known as the Xreal Beam Professional.
The Beam Professional is a successor to the unique Beam adapter, and it solves lots of the points I’ve had with this era of AR specs – and it’s surprisingly inexpensive.
The upgraded Beam Professional is an entire new Xreal glasses attachment that’s suitable with Xreal Air and Xreal Air 2 fashions – together with the Professional and Extremely. Merely join it to your specs with a USB-C to USB-C cable and so they’ll flip into bonafide spatial computer systems that run on Android 14 and NebulaOS (Xreal’s home-grown working system).
You may management what you see on the Xreal glasses utilizing the Beam Professional’s 6.5-inch LCD 2K touchscreen. It’s also possible to use the display similar to you’d on a smartphone to handle Play Retailer apps and tweak your settings, and because of the twin 50MP cameras on its rear you possibly can seize spatial pictures and 3D video at 1080p and 60fps.

Better of all it is available in at simply $199 / £189 for the 6GB of RAM / 128GB storage mannequin, whereas the 8GB of RAM / 256GB storage mannequin will set you again $249 / £239. Preorders are reside proper now at XREAL.com for the US, United Kingdom, China, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and Netherlands; availability and pricing for Australia are TBC.
When you’re choosing up the Beam Professional and a pair of Xreal glasses it can save you on bundles, and people of you with a 1st-gen Beam can save $50 / £40 on a Beam Professional in case you preorder one by July 10, 2024.
The AR accent we’ve wanted
I’ve not but had the possibility to check out the Xreal Beam Professional, nevertheless it sounds just like the AR add-on we’ve been needing for some time by fixing a bunch of points I’ve had with the tech when testing it out.
Firstly, discovering suitable devices might be complicated. There are all kinds of compatibility points due to {hardware} and software program nuances which can be complicated in case you aren’t techy. Whereas the unique Beam was billed as a possible answer, it nonetheless suffered with compatibility points as a result of it couldn’t be used with no smartphone, whereas in case you choose up the Professional and a pair of Xreal Airs you already know you’ll have all the pieces you want.
Second, it solves the battery annoyances I’ve had due to its two USB-C ports. The Xreal glasses (and different wired AR specs) can burn via your cellphone’s cost, and there’s no strategy to cost your cellphone and use the glasses on the similar time. That’s not a difficulty with the Beam Professional, as you need to use it and join it to energy on the similar time.

Lastly, it looks as if good worth for cash. With none bundle reductions an AR glasses and Beam Professional setup prices between $498 and $648 / £528 and £638, which is a bit more costly than a Meta Quest 3.
Whereas AR is not prohibitively costly, it will possibly really feel such as you’re getting comparatively little bang to your buck in comparison with XR units equivalent to VR headsets due to the aforementioned compatibility and complexity points.
The Beam Professional offers you a easy plug-and-play possibility that’s a pocket TV and 3D digicam and which doesn’t require different tech – just a few subscriptions to the greatest streaming companies.
I’ll clearly have to strive the Beam Professional out to confirm Xreal’s daring guarantees, however in case you’ve been ready for AR tech to start out feeling worthwhile, that is your discover to start out being attentive to the house – and possibly even lastly dive in.




