Lenovo's Wearable Tech is the Future

Every company seems to be releasing wearable tech. Most recently, Lenovo announced that the company is releasing Legion glasses, an augmented reality headset for gaming, which is to be released alongside its newly announced gaming handheld the Legion Go.

The Legion Go is fairly straght forward, being a portable gaming PC that features an 8.8 inch display. However, the Legion glasses seem to be similar to the Apple Vision Pro, providing an augmented reality (AR) experience made specifically for gaming. The headset features a full-HD display for each eye with a 60Hz refresh rate while emulating a large screen.

Truly, Lenovo's recently released Legion glasses may be the way of the future. When I say that I don't literally mean that everyone is going to be wearing Lenovo's glasses, I mean that other companies are likely going to follow suit. And yes, Lenovo may have gotten their idea for the Legion glasses from Apple's Vision Pro or Meta's Oculus Quest but Lenovo's glasses seem to be better than both devices.

Comparing the Legion Glasses to Apple Vision Pro

For starters, the Legion glasses are $329, much cheaper than the Apple Vision Pro's comparatively high price of $3,499. Obviously, this means that much more people will purchase the Legion Glasses than the Apple Vision Pro. Of course it's important to note that these two products aren't really competing with each other, the Legion Glasses are for gaming while the Apple Vision Pro is for office tasks, productivity, and creative work. But really, who's going to buy Apple's fancily futuristic AR glasses to complete work when they could do it just as easily on a MacBook that's $2,000 cheaper. In contrast, the Lenovo glasses price point makes it much easier for consumers to purchase.

The fact that Lenovo is able to release AR glasses at a much cheaper price point than Apple leads me to wonder, did Apple make some missteps with what they included in their Apple Vision Pro. I know it's supposed to be a top of the line product but could Apple have used a less capable processor and lower resolution display to manufacture the device at a lower price point? If Apple could have created a product that did slightly less but was $1,000 lower in price then they would sell more units and get a larger amount of consumers to purchase their device. Releasing a product at such a high price point gives room for more competition.

Comparing the Legion Glasses to Meta's VR Headsets

While the Legion glasses are not competing against the Apple Vision Pro, Lenovo is competing against Meta's virtual reality headsets in the gaming space. But I think Lenovo's Legion glasses, beat Meta's virtual reality headsets, at least on paper. The main reason for this is that the Legion glasses are literally a pair of glasses. As a result they should be much more comfortable to wear than Meta's headsets. In fact, it has been reported that prolonged use of Meta's headsets can cause discomfort.

Also, since Meta's headset is VR it is completely closed off to the real world. In other words, when you use Meta's VR headset you are immersed in a virtual world. This is in contrast to the Legion glasses' AR where you simply see an abnormally large screen displaying a videogame in the real world through glasses. While VR may seem more interesting due to the immersiveness, it is more likely to lead to discomort than AR.

Conclusion

It should be obvious by now but just in case it isn't, I'll say it straight out. I think AR is the way of the future. Sure, VR creates a more immersive world and I'm sure VR will stick around. But seeing augmented reality with the comfort of wearing glasses just can't be surpassed, especially at the price point of the Legion glasses. As the technology that goes into developing AR glasses develops, I'm sure more companies will produce AR glasses to compete with Lenovo and Apple.

Written by Wes Cooper

2023-09-06