Apple Vision Pro just got serious competition from micro-OLED headsets with better specs

Apple's stunning displays just got bettered by two companies you've probably never heard of

A man with a short beard wearing a MeganeX Superlight mixed reality headset over his eyes. He is in front of a yellow background and is smiling.
(Image credit: Megane)
Quick Summary

Two new mixed reality headsets have launched with Apple-beating display resolutions.

Samsung is expected to use the same displays in its forthcoming Vision Pro rival.

One of the things that sets Apple's Vision Pro apart from rival headsets is its very high resolution – an impressive 3,386 pixels per inch, making the visual experience something truly magical. But now two new mixed reality headsets have raised the game.

They each sport 3840 x 2552 pixel micro-OLED displays, resulting in 3,882ppi.

Of course, the difference between 3,386 and 3,882 is not likely something you'll be able to perceive. But, it's still significant because while you probably haven't heard of the new headsets' manufacturers, Play For Dream and Megane, Samsung is reportedly planning to use the same displays in its forthcoming Project Moohan device.

What this display tech means for mixed and virtual reality

First and foremost, adopting an even higher resolution will give Samsung bragging rights over Apple. But, it's another part of what appears to be a pretty ambitious project and product.

We know that Google, Samsung and Qualcomm are working on Project Moohan as the flagship Android XR headset, and that means it'll be the first serious Vision Pro rival. It's believed to be significantly more advanced than the likes of the Meta Quest 3 and Pico 4 Ultra.

The bad news is that you probably won't be able to get those displays in front of your eyeballs any time soon. The Project Moohan trio are expected to launch the product as a developer version first, so that there will be a good selection of native applications when the headset is later launched as a consumer product.

It's also likely to be as expensive as Apple's headset: as FlatpanelsHD reports, the Play For Dream headset has a dollar price of around $2,000 and the MeganeX Superlight 8K headset is roughly $1,900. Samsung's will surely have a higher premium.

That means, like Vision Pro, it's not expected to be a big seller for some time after launch. In late 2024, there were reports that Apple was going to wind down production of its £3,499 / $3,499 / AU$5,999 headset doe to a large backlog of unsold devices.

Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).

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