Follow ZDNET: Add us as a favorite source On Google.
ZDNET Highlights
- The price is surprisingly low at $1,799, which is half the price of the Apple Vision Pro.
- “The Explorer Pack” is included with premium memberships valued at $1,000+.
- The headset use cases focus on intensive entertainment and professional spatial editing.
Samsung officially launched the Galaxy XR headset, and although most of the details were already available before launch, the company managed to keep the $1,799 price a secret.
This news was a surprise to many, as it puts the headset at half the price of the Apple Vision Pro. To justify the price even more, Samsung is also including a number of free extras with the purchase.
Also: Samsung offers new Android XR headset users a free $100 deal – how to cash in now
Access to immersive entertainment experiences, such as watching your favorite show on a screen that mimics the theater experience from the comfort of your living room, is one of the biggest attractions of AR/XR headsets. To help users get the most out of the headset and find their favorite use cases, Samsung includes “The Explorer Pack” with every purchase.
“I think immersive entertainment is probably the most compelling use case for me,” Drew Blackard, SVP of mobile product management at Samsung, told me.
This package gives users a subscription worth over $1,000, which includes 12 months of access to Google AI Pro, YouTube Premium, Google Play Pass, and an XR pack that includes a three-month subscription to YouTube TV, NBA League Pass, NFL, PRO ERA, 12 months of Project Pulsar from Adobe, Asteroid, and Calm. Membership included. he is Very,
I had the opportunity to demo watch a YouTube video on the headset, which was automatically spatialized for an immersive viewing experience. Additionally, the video was playing on a suspended screen in my environment, with separate windows for comments, adding to the immersion. Given that this was one of my more memorable experiences, I can see how YouTube TV and YouTube Premium subscriptions could be beneficial.
Also: I wore smart glasses with xMEMS speakers and a cooling fan — and wished my Ray-Bans did too
Other integrations like Adobe’s Project Pulsar were showcased on stage to demonstrate how the headset could also benefit working professionals, enabling users to spatially edit video within their 360-degree environment.
Of course, Gemini was at the center of many demos, projecting the AI assistant onto any application the user opened and the environment passing through the lens.
The Google AI Pro subscription, which itself costs $240 per year, not only allows users to experience higher usage limits when using the headset, but since it’s linked to their Google account, it also means they can take advantage of Pro features, like 2TB of cloud storage, access to Whisk and Flow, the Gemini 2.5 Pro model, and Deep in AI mode Search, high limits for Jules, and more.
