Asus ROG XReal R1 XR Glasses Review: Great Display, Rough Dock, Steep Price

The Asus ROG XReal R1 XR glasses land at $849 and are built as a dedicated gaming companion — especially for handheld PCs like the ROG Ally X. Plugged directly into a handheld, the picture is sharp and the experience holds up. The dock that ships with them, designed to add HDMI and DisplayPort connectivity, is the weakest link in the whole package.

Design-wise, the R1s are bulky by necessity — displays, mirrors, and sensors all need to live somewhere in that frame. The front housing is about an inch thick, and the outward-facing lenses have an angular look that edges out something like the Viture Beast, but only just. The temples are full ROG: nine RGB lighting zones per side arranged in diagonal strips, cycling through the usual rainbow by default. Controls sit on the left temple — one button centers the screen or opens settings on a double tap, and what looks like a volume rocker actually pulls up a menu for adjusting tint, screen size, and volume. The built-in speakers are audible but won't block out your surroundings, so headphones are recommended for anything immersive. Head tracking runs off a 3DoF sensor tucked into the front of the frame — it's well-hidden, more so than on most competitors. The menu system isn't intuitive out of the box, though after a couple of hours it starts to make sense.

XR glasses for gaming have been gaining traction alongside the handheld PC boom, with devices like the Steam Deck and ROG Ally creating a real use case for a portable big-screen experience. Asus partnering with XReal — one of the more established names in consumer XR eyewear — makes sense given that context. At $849, though, the R1 sits at the premium end of a category that's still finding its footing, and a significant chunk of that price goes toward the dock, which the reviewer flags as the package's biggest disappointment.

For anyone who plans to plug the R1 directly into a handheld and leave the dock in the box, the experience is genuinely strong. But $849 is a hard sell when the accessory meant to expand the glasses' versatility ends up dragging the overall value down.