XREAL Air 2 vs. TCL RayNeo Air 2S: The AR smart glasses crown is up in the Air

Smart and AR glasses have gained a lot of attention over the last year, though it can sometimes be pretty hard to tell them apart when every manufacturer out there has decided to latch onto the Air moniker like it’s their dying breath.

Two examples are the XREAL Air 2 and the upcoming RayNeo Air 2S, two pairs of AR glasses competing for a top spot in the smart glasses space. If their names weren’t confusing enough, the technical jargon of store descriptions and Amazon listings make it far worse.

I’m here to help clear that up by pitting one against the other to see how they stack up. I’ve been lucky enough to review XREAL’s Air 2 AR Glasses and, more recently, the TCL RayNeo’s Air 2S AR glasses, giving me plenty of time to get to grips with both pairs of Airs. 

So, let’s explore those often confusing specs and features and see which ones matter — and which of these AR smart glasses is worth spending your cold hard cash on.

XREAL Air 2 vs. TCL RayNeo Air 2S: The smart glasses crown is up in the Air 

XREAL Air 2 vs. TCL RayNeo Air 2S: Specs

XREAL Air 2 vs. TCL RayNeo Air 2S: Price and availability

The XREAL Air 2 AR glasses, released in November 2023, cost $359 at Amazon and the official XREAL online store.

The Air 2 glasses come with a travel case, a detachable USB Type-C cable, three alienate nose pads to cater to different fits, a cleaning cloth, and an optional light shield that clips onto the front of the frame to allow for more immersive viewing in lighter environments and richer blacks against the darker backdrop.

Conversely, the TCL RayNeo Air 2S AR glasses, which will debut on August 15, will be available for $399 from the RayNeo website.

Placing a $10 deposit to secure your order before the August 15 launch date will also grant you a $100 discount, bringing the price down to just $299.

The RayNeo Air 2S glasses come with a sizable travel case, a detachable USB Type-C cable, a single alternate node pad, a cleaning cloth, and a glasses lens insert to introduce users to the possibility of using prescription lenses while wearing the frames.

XREAL and RayNeo’s offerings are basically on par with one another, bar some minor extras. However, it’s the fact that those minor extras come with the more affordable option that swings this one in the XREAL Air 2’s favor, but only by a margin of $50.

Winner: XREAL Air 2 

XREAL Air 2 vs. TCL RayNeo Air 2S: Design

XREAL’s Air 2 AR glasses walk a fine line between being just different enough from Ray-Bans that they could be labeled legally distinct and not sued out of existence by the Essilor Luxottica corporation.

The Air 2 AR glasses offer a single rocker switch for brightness adjustment and a power switch on their chunkier temples, which also house a set of open-ear speakers. It’s a familiar design for sunglasses wearers, and it doesn’t look half bad when worn as such.

However, they stand off the face by some margin, a problem shared by RayNeo’s frames and many other AR glasses. It can look a little goofy at times, but selecting the right size nose pads can alleviate the issue to some degree — taking it from “hilarious” to just “a little odd at certain angles.”

RayNeo takes a similar approach, once again aping Ray-Ban’s famous Wayfarer silhouette and adopting the chunkier temples that house its open-ear speakers. However, the Air 2S features two rocker switches for brightness and volume and a more visor-like front that is highly reflective and much better at blocking out light.

This is great for immersion when the glasses are in use and even better at ensuring a bold and clear picture is always on display. However, it also makes casually wearing the glasses during everyday situations much more difficult.

While nothing is stopping you from wearing RayNeo’s frames while out and about, it's a much darker visor to see through and can hamper your situational awareness. That’s vital for someone like me who prefers being alert to their surroundings; the last thing I want to do is sit in a dimly lit room, unable to see anything beyond the wall of light in front of me while the Babadook glowers inches from my dumb unaware face.

While I appreciate the RayNeo’s expanded controls, the XREAL Air 2’s versatility of being more open to be worn as a regular pair of shades probably gives it the edge here. However, it is through gritted teeth, as I do love the visual impact of the RayNeo’s silver temples.

Winner: XREAL Air 2 

XREAL Air 2 vs. TCL RayNeo Air 2S: Display

A great display is essential for AR glasses. It’s the primary draw of the device, and it has to deliver exceptional quality to justify a typically impressive price tag. However, judging the offerings from XREAL and RayNeo is no easy feat, as their AR glasses offer exceptional displays.

If you were to compare the performance of each frame’s displays on paper, you’d be hard-pressed to find specs the two don’t have in common. Both share a full HD (1920x1080-pixel) image, a 46-degree field of view, a pixel density of 49 PPD, a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz, a 100,000:1 contrast ratio, and powered by Sony 0.55-inch Micro-OLED panels.

That’s an incredible amount of numbers and acronyms to contend with. Still, at its core, the previous paragraph highlights that both glasses offer crisp, high-res, and smooth pictures that retain a solid amount of contrast for a projected image. It also points out that these displays are ultimately so closely aligned that neither one takes the lead. At least on paper, anyway.

During my testing, I noticed that the RayNeo Air 2S appears ever so slightly brighter than the picture put out by XREAL’s frames. Still, I have a sneaky suspicion that this is all in the mind and that RayNeo’s heavily tinted visor is simply blocking out more light and allowing the image to appear brighter than it really is — despite the on-paper claims that it can reach 600 nits of brightness compared to the XREAL Air 2’s 500 nits.

After flipping back and forth between several pieces of media, through various images, and even across a selection of games, I could not tell the two apart with my eyes alone. Which makes this category a draw.

Winner: Draw

XREAL Air 2 vs. TCL RayNeo Air 2S: Audio

As mentioned previously, both the XREAL and RayNeo frames feature open-ear stereo speakers housed inside the temples of their frames.

If you had asked me a few weeks ago which smart glasses I‘d reviewed offered the best audio experience, I’d point to the XREAL Air 2 as a staple of quality audio across the board. XREAL’s speakers are crisp and deliver clear, sharp audio across music, gaming, and media.

However, since then, I’ve had the pleasure of trying the TCL RayNeo Air 2S glasses, and I’ve been spoiled by the kind of silky, rewarding, and thick audio you’d expect from a great pair of earbuds, not open-ear speakers. In fact, during my testing of the glasses, there were several moments when I reached to take out my earbuds, forgetting I wasn’t wearing any.

The secret to RayNeo’s success is its four-speaker array, which features an expanded diaphragm and broader stroke for superior bass and louder volumes. The boosting of these two elements gives more room for finer sections of audio to burst onto the scene, creating more impactful soundscapes and waterboarding your ears with a relentless swarm of rich audio.

Plus, how can you not love that RayNeo has seemingly included a nod to Spinal Tap in its volume settings? After turning your device’s volume up to full, you can boost things just one step further by hitting the rocker again on the temple of the frames.

These glasses go to eleven. It’s one louder, isn’t it?

Winner: TCL RayNeo Air 2S 

XREAL Air 2 vs. TCL RayNeo Air 2S: Experience

The XREAL Air 2 glasses will work with any compatible device that offers DisplayPort over USB/DP Alt Mode, such as laptops, smartphones, Windows gaming handhelds, and tablets.

If you want to connect the XREAL Air 2 glasses to a console, you’ll need to invest in the $119 XREAL Beam. Or, if you want to use XREAL’s glasses with an iPhone 14 or earlier smartphone, you’ll need to pick up the $49 XREAL adapter and pair it with Apple’s $49 Lightning to HDMI adapter.

Similarly to the XREAL Air 2 glasses, RayNeo’s glasses will work with any DisplayPort over USB/DP Alt Mode devices. However, if you own an Android device that doesn’t feature DisplayPort over USB or a non-USB Type-C compatible iPhone, you’ll need to invest in the $99 MiraScreen Potable Adapter. If you want to use the RayNeo Air 2S for console gaming, you’ll need to invest in a reliable USB Type-C to HDMI cable to convert the signal.

While both frames are advertised as AR glasses, external accessories, and app-based software gatekeep the real spatial experience each is capable of. While the accessories for both devices can be pretty expensive, each pair of glasses offers free proprietary apps for mobile and PC/Mac.

XREAL offers the Nebula app on Google Play and the Apple Store, and is currently beta-testing a version of its spatial display experience for the Windows platform.

In contrast, RayNeo hosts both the RayNeo XR app for Android and the RayNeo Mirror Studio app for Windows PCs on their website.

While Nebula and RayNeo XR are very much walled-in experiences, Nebula is the more fleshed-out, expansive, and easy-to-use of the two. It offers the best of what RayNeo’s apps deliver, including the curated AR sandbox of RayNeo XR, while also delivering on the multi-window spatial computing of RayNeo Mirror Studio, albeit with a lot more polish. 

Frustratingly, you’ll need to manually install the RayNeo XR app onto your device from outside of the Play Store, which may turn some users away from the experience, and the RayNeo Mirror Studio app for Windows is poorly signposted and not a very intuitive program for newcomers.

However, the true divide comes in the form of XREAL’s latest accessory for its Air 2 AR Glasses, the $199 XREAL Beam Pro — a smartphone-like, stand-alone, potable spatial computer that offers a custom NebulaOS overlay of Android 14 with a full 3DoF (3 Degrees of Freedom) capabilities. On top of that, the device is outfitted with two 50MP cameras that allow for the capture of both spatial photos and video.

It’s a game-changer. I recently gave my laptop up for a week to rely on XREAL’s Beam Pro device in its entirety, and, while there’s still plenty of room for improvement and refinements, it’s the best spatial computing and AR experience available within its modest price bracket by far.

RayNeo has no counter to XREAL’s offering on this front, with its closest parallel being the $179 Google Pocket TV, which essentially gives RayNeo owners the option of having a portable version of Google’s smart TV software with them at all times. While it’s useful, it does little to further the core AR glasses experience users seek.  

Winner: XREAL Air 2

Bottom line

Tallying up our results, it would appear that XREAL has run away with the victory here, but it’s important to highlight that RayNeo’s efforts aren’t all that far behind. If RayNeo could price match XREAL’s Air 2 AR glasses and offer a little more clarity through its visor, then it’s quite likely that it would have caused this one to end in a stalemate.

However, all isn’t lost for the RayNeo Air 2S. It’s still a phenomenal product thanks to its glorious-sounding speakers and high-performance displays — and those are the two most vital components of a fantastic pair of AR glasses (bar comfort).

Still, XREAL’s Air 2 AR glasses have managed to come out on top, with their value and versatility proving essential in pushing past a staunch competitor. This proves their longevity and viability even after XREAL has continued to innovate with AR glasses like the Air 2 Ultras.

Now, can we do something about these names, please?

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