Apple Vision Pro: the 2026 review
Could the original model actually make sense today?
The first reviews dropped for the Vision Pro exactly two years ago today, and whatever critics thought about the merits of Apple’s headset itself, they were unanimous on one thing: it’s way too expensive, so normal people shouldn’t buy it.
And I didn’t. Until I did.
Last year’s launch of the slightly spec-bumped M5 version meant that resale prices for the M2 original have now fallen through the floor. I recently found a 512GB model in like-new condition with my correct face shield and strap sizes — as measured through Face ID in the Apple Store app — for well under half what it originally sold for.
It is reasonable, or frankly unavoidable, to come to the conclusion that the Vision Pro has not quite set the world on fire. But I was curious to see how the platform has evolved since it was first sent to reviewers, and I had some use cases in mind that I thought could make it a worthwhile buy at such a significant discount.
Could it be possible that in 2026, the 2024 Vision Pro might actually be a sane purchase?
I would not ever say the Vision Pro looks stylish. I mean, you actually have to wear this thing. But on a pure hardware level, it’s beautiful — I really think this is Apple’s most impressive engineering feat in recent years.
The vented aluminium structure attaches seamlessly to the curved glass, with the fabric light seals joining through magnetic connections. It feels like a precision instrument, where every material is exposed unless there’s a reason for it not to be. It’s obvious what every part of the device does — you have the sleek display, the stark computing hardware and the soft wearable interface.
Of course, it might well have been a better product in the end if Apple had ditched the glass and metal and just made the whole thing out of lighter plastic. They should probably do that for another version someday. But for now, given that this was never going to be sold at a low price, we can all appreciate an unusually gorgeous gadget in a realm that’s not usually known for it.
The straps make a big difference to your experience with the Vision Pro. The stock Solo Knit Band, which does look cool and is what you’ll see in most promo photos, doesn’t work with my head for more than a few minutes; there’s no counterweight to the heavy headset itself, so it either slips down my face or requires excessive tightening. The canvas Dual Loop Band, which is also bundled, gives you some support on the top of your head but feels cheap and is fiddly to adjust.
But Apple launched a new Dual Knit Band alongside the M5 version, which also works with the original model, and that’s been the sweet spot for me. It’s basically a Solo Knit Band with another one across the top of the head, while also balancing the load through metal weights in the back. The adjustment method is clever — it has the same tightening dial as the Solo Knit Band, but you can pop it out like a watch crown to adjust the top band as well.
With this new band, I really don’t have many comfort complaints about the Vision Pro. It’s easy to adjust either at the front or the back if ever that becomes necessary, and I’m happy wearing it until the battery dies.
On that note, the Vision Pro battery situation is less than ideal. You’re tethered to a power pack that felt bigger in use than I expected; it’s about as tall and thick as two Pro-level smartphones. The cord only attaches to the left side of the headset and often gets in the way unless you’re able to stick it in a pocket. For all that, you get a little over two hours’ usage at most — though Apple calls it “all-day battery life” when you plug the battery in. Okay.
I am kind of torn on the design of the Vision Pro. Its industrial approach really does appeal to me, and I feel like there’s little reason to save on material costs when you can’t make it a mass-market device in the first place. On the other hand, the design accommodates superfluous features and could easily have been more comfortable with a less precious approach. I hope there’s a mass-market model one day, but I wonder whether this version hampered the chances of that ever even happening.
The displays are the defining feature of the Vision Pro — not just because the device is all about what you see, but because they’re also largely responsible for its price. The Sony Micro OLED panels combine for a total of 23 million pixels, resulting in an unprecedented 7.5-micron pixel pitch for an RGB OLED panel, and the results are as impressive in 2026 as they were in 2024.
The Vision Pro makes for an interesting comparison with the Meta Quest 3. It has more than twice as many pixels, and it’s impossible to make them out when using the device. The Quest 3’s LCD, however, appears sharper along flat edges and you can still discern the pixel grid. Apple seems to be using some sort of anti-aliasing technique or softer optics for a smoother image overall, but that erases much of the pure resolution advantage; the Vision Pro doesn’t necessarily show more perceptual detail than the Quest.
That aside, the overall experience is galaxies ahead. Using HDR-capable OLED panels makes a huge difference when watching movies, 3D content or really anything designed to be immersive. The foveated rendering technology, which drops the resolution outside of where your eye is actually looking, works flawlessly. And the choice to go with softer output over raw pixels feels like the right one; you can only focus so closely on objects in front of you, so the impression is generally that of a perfectly crisp display.
Passthrough is an essential aspect of the Vision Pro, letting you see your environment through cameras and overlay virtual apps and objects around it. It’s definitely a lot better in terms of image quality than on the Quest 3, though I’m kind of mystified at launch-period impressions from people who didn’t realise they were looking at a screen; the motion blur alone is jarring whenever you move your head. Apple’s advantage over the Quest is mostly in handling low light or extreme dynamic range situations, like bright monitors or sun coming through a window, as well as the overall cleaner output. I wouldn’t call it a paradigm shift, just a better version of the same thing.
By default, the Apple Watch-style “digital crown” on the Vision Pro is set to dial you in and out of passthrough. (It can also be set to control volume, like on the AirPods Max.) For example, you could be working in a virtual environment or watching a 180-degree immersive video, and the crown lets you add or remove the degree to which you can see your actual environment on the periphery. This sounds like a niche feature but it’s actually really nice; the equivalent on the Quest3 involves double-tapping the headset itself to turn passthrough on and off, which is pretty clunky. The Vision Pro makes it seamless to expand your peripheral vision a little to grab a drink or check on a pet without taking you out of what you were doing.
I find the Vision Pro’s field of view to be a little tighter than the Quest 3’s, but that’s largely only on the vertical axis. The Quest is like looking through a circular submarine periscope, whereas the Vision Pro is more like ski goggles, with a wider “aspect ratio” that feels closer to how your eyes work. There’s something to be said for being able to see more, of course, but I do think it’s harder to forget you’re wearing a headset with the Quest.
I really don’t see much value at all in the “EyeSight” feature on the external OLED display, which is designed to give a virtual passthrough-style rendering of your eyes to anyone around you. While it is technically cool that it knows if I’m winking, and it’s neat that they went for a multi-angle lenticular display, the actual effect is dim, low-resolution and honestly quite creepy. This is definitely an example of Apple getting a little too cute.
I will, however, say that the updated Persona feature is beyond uncanny. On launch, this amounted to blurry approximations of the user that they could project into FaceTime calls. With a more recent update, the model of my face looks almost exactly like me, reacting to all of my facial expressions in real time. I wouldn’t say it’s 100% photorealistic, but it’s close — it’s like if my face had been scanned for a future Last of Us game on the PlayStation 6.
I’m still not sure I’d ever want to dial into a call with a 3D avatar of my face, but I can’t say Apple didn’t nail what it was going for. It’s a remarkable technical achievement.
Beyond brief demos in the past, I’ve been seriously using visionOS for the first time over the past couple of months. I can’t speak to the original launch version, but it does seem like Apple has been putting in a lot of work to make it a more mature system across the board.
The fundamentals are right there. Hand and eye tracking both work incredibly well; you really do just look at something and pinch your finger and thumb to select it. You look at the bottom of an app to bring up a bar with which you can drag it around you, or look slightly to the left of that to bring up a “close” button. Everything is intuitive.
That said, there are now certain gestures that were added since launch that I really can’t imagine having done without. Flip your palm over for the home button and back again for Control Centre, for example, or keep your eyes at the edge of a screen or list to scroll down. It’s all very simple to navigate, but the OS does not invite complex interactions.
Ultimately, this is an outlet for you to set up what amounts to infinite floating iPads. Apps on visionOS, if they aren’t literally iPad apps — which often they are — tend to be designed around focused windows that you can place in your periphery.
I’ve been an on-off iPad Pro power user for a decade now, and hooking up a keyboard and trackpad to work with the Vision Pro requires a similar mindset. The difference is really just that you can look at apps around you rather than having to remember however Apple has decided to handle multitasking this year. And, of course, you have to strap a headset to your face.
The built-in app selection is what you’d expect from an Apple device. You put the headset on and icons for Safari, Mail, Messages, Music and so on appear in front of your environment. They all do the job without doing much to convince you to use them on the Vision Pro over another Apple product — it’s more like they’re there if you need them. I’m not sure I’ll ever be moved to read a house-sized ebook in the Books app, but hey, that is an option.
The exception is Photos. Apple’s photo library app is incredible on the Vision Pro, converting your regular photos into compelling 3D scenes and expanding panoramas you took a decade ago into immersive ultrawide vistas. As an enthusiast photographer who has never printed anything onto giant billboards, it really is a new way to look at your photo history.
I do think Apple made too much of the Vision Pro’s camera functionality when it first announced the product. The quality isn’t great from the headset itself, despite the supposedly better 3D capability, and you’ll usually get better results from just converting photos from your iPhone or any other camera. That functionality wasn’t available at launch, to be fair, but the dad at his daughter’s birthday party in that initial trailer did not need to be wearing the Vision Pro.
As for third-party apps, well, it is kind of a graveyard. I don’t blame independent developers for not wanting to put a ton of effort into an expensive device that the supply chain couldn’t have helped make a hit even if the demand were there, but it’s a seriously bad look for Apple that obvious big hitters like YouTube and Netflix still aren’t available two years after launch.
The gaming experience is also basically non-existent. Apple added compatibility for PS VR2 controllers last year, but only a handful of apps support it, and the controller bundle costs a laughable $250 without the headset. Much as I appreciate the controller-free approach to visionOS for general navigation, its version of Fruit Ninja is worse than what I played on the HTC Vive ten years ago.
I don’t think using the M5 model would change my mind much about the M2 Vision Pro. The newer version seems to have a slightly faster processor that’s best noticed in machine learning tasks like creating spatial photos, as well as maybe half an hour better battery life. The foveated rendering technique apparently now displays more pixels in full resolution, but it’s already imperceptible on the M2. And you can buy the Dual Knit Band separately.
Overall, in 2026, I think both models of the Vision Pro are still flawed but still undeniably futuristic. So what did I really do with it?
My first key use case was movies. I have a fairly huge iTunes library that I mostly started amassing once Apple made the shift to 4K; I think it’s by far the best way to buy movies because they’re accessible on so many devices, don’t take up any space and you know you’re always getting the best possible HDR delivery.
Related to the “don’t take up any space” thing, I also live in Tokyo and have a 55” OLED TV. I do like that TV, but significantly upgrading it would require a feng-shui rethink of my living room and would also cost about as much as a Vision Pro. With Apple’s headset, however, I can watch my library on a gigantic virtual screen, all from the same sofa.
And yeah... turns out that’s pretty great. I guess you don’t actually get 4K resolution depending on exactly where and how large you set up the screen, but as with most other things on the Vision Pro, image quality is impeccable and the sense of immersion is amazing.
Apple’s own TV app lets you place yourself in a minimalist virtual theatre, watch from a photogrammetry-powered virtual environment or simply put the screen somewhere in your passthrough environment, and there’s something to be said for all of those. I actually found myself using it in passthrough quite a lot, just overlaying the gigantic screen over my real TV.
Disney+, meanwhile, offers the best third-party video experience on the Vision Pro, with a bunch of environments ranging from a Star Wars landspeeder to the top of the Avengers tower. The service’s library also shows up in the Apple TV app, so if you look for 3D content you’ll see various Marvel movies or showpieces like Avatar: The Way of Water alongside your own film collection.
I feel fairly confident in declaring that the Vision Pro is the best method anyone has yet devised to watch 3D movies. If you’re going to wear glasses, I say, wear glasses. These have none of the ghosting or dimness associated with 3D theatres — in fact, the contrast and HDR performance is well beyond what you’d get even from the highest-end IMAX laser screen. Even the built-in speakers are incredible, somehow pushing out deep, bass-heavy spatial audio from small openings in the strap.
The caveat, of course, is that this only works if you’re watching a movie by yourself. But if you do that somewhat often, and you use Apple’s store or Disney+, there’s a case to be made that this is the best TV you could possibly buy for the money.
Apple has also invested in a selection of content for a Vision Pro-specific format called Apple Immersive. Much of what’s available is fairly short documentary-style footage about extreme sports and other inspirational subject matter, and some of it is fantastic.
But it mostly falls into the realm of tech-demo content that failed to take off in the early days of VR. Don’t get me wrong, this is the best 180-degree content I’ve ever seen filmed off-piste or on a hot air balloon, and the Metallica documentary ruled, but it feels quite throwaway without a broader commitment to creating more. You could burn through all of it in a few days.
As a big NBA fan, I was also excited to check out the first live broadcast of a game earlier this month, which happened with the Bucks-Lakers game on Jan. 10. I think there were some issues with the broadcast — the basket camera felt too high, the courtside camera felt too low and most importantly I’d like to be able to switch between them myself.
Overall, though, it was an impressive production and something I’d happily subscribe to for more comprehensive coverage. More than anything, the NBA experience made me think that there could be a clear business model for this kind of hardware.
My other main use case for the Vision Pro was its Mac integration. Basically, you can project your Mac into your virtual environment as if it were a resizable 4K display. I’m fairly happy with my current Mac mini desktop setup, but I do often have to use a MacBook Air for other work, and hunching over laptops at a desk is not compatible with my height.
I thought this could be useful both for travel and for times when I could use a bigger screen at home. Right now I have a 27” monitor on my desk and I don’t really want to switch to anything bigger. But with a post-launch update, the Vision Pro supports ultrawide aspect ratios, promising maximal multitasking.
The process of firing up your Mac in the Vision Pro is simple; just look at your MacBook and you’ll be prompted to connect with a pop-up, or if you have a desktop like a Mac mini you can start the connection through Control Centre. Connection quality for me has generally been very good. It only runs at 60Hz, but that’s no different to an iMac or a Studio Display, and the image quality is more than good enough.
While it’s not as sharp as an actual 4K monitor on your desk, the Vision Pro renders the correct amount of screen space at a high enough resolution to be totally workable. It’s also helpful to be able to blow up the screen to unrealistic sizes. I use Adobe InDesign a lot and honestly, it’s pretty neat to be able to peer in closely at frames that are misaligned by a single pixel.
The two ultrawide views are great for running apps side-by-side. I do wish there was an option for a taller screen rather than a wider one, although given the Vision Pro’s field of view, that might be more awkward than I’m imagining.
Overall, for specific tasks, the Vision Pro is the best Mac monitor in the world. You can blow it up or stretch it out to whatever you need it to be, and it looks great whatever you do with it. Of course, it kind of feels like overkill to use this full-on VR headset as a Mac peripheral for general use. But it’s a powerful way to lock in.
I just laid out two really strong use cases for the Vision Pro: it’s both the best personal movie device of all time and a uniquely versatile Mac monitor. For me, I actually think that’s worth what I paid — if not the MSRP.
But it still feels like a confused platform that Apple is yet to commit to, despite meaningful system-level updates since the launch. The content situation is anaemic and there doesn’t seem to be any excitement among app developers. There’s almost no reason why I’d use this for casual computing over an iPad, or for serious computing over a Mac. It is better at certain things, sure, but even with the well-designed new strap, the burden of sticking it on your face and managing the battery is too high.
Mark Zuckerberg’s infamous Vision Pro review has aged quite well. For what Meta was going for, the Quest 3 really is the better product. It’s a much better gaming platform and it costs one-seventh of the price. But it’s nowhere as good for watching movies or NBA games, viewing my photo library or even checking my email.
I don’t use my Quest 3 all that much these days as a gaming device, but I do think I’ll continue to use the Vision Pro. While it might not be a very useful standalone computer right now, in at least two ways it’s an incredible screen beyond what I could get from anything else.
Until Apple justifies the platform with more content and app support, though, I’m not sure I’ll ever need to buy another one.
This is exactly the piece I’ve been wanting to read, thank you Sam!!!!!