Click to Skip Ad
Closing in...

Magic Leap One is now available for purchase, and it obviously doesn’t live up to the hype

Published Aug 8th, 2018 9:19AM EDT
Magic Leap One Release Date
Image: Magic Leap

If you buy through a BGR link, we may earn an affiliate commission, helping support our expert product labs.

We’ve often talked about the Magic Leap augmented reality (AR) glasses that promised an experience like nothing else available from competitors. And we’ve been waiting for this groundbreaking Magic Leap One headset to finally become available for anyone to purchase. The good news is that some people will be able to purchase the headset starting right now. The bad news is that you shouldn’t expect an experience that’s anywhere close to what the company ultimately wants to deliver.

Priced at $2,295 and shipping only in the US, the Magic Leap One is not cheap. And this is the Magic Leap One Creator Edition, so it’s intended mainly for developers. As impressive as the mixed reality future we’re slowly heading to might be, someone needs to create it.

For that amount of cash you get the Lightwear headset and the Superpowered Lightpack, which is actually the wearable computer that you can clip right on your clothes so you don’t have to be tethered to an actual computer.

The computer is powered by a six-core Nvidia Parker chip, Nvidia Pascal GPU, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a battery that can deliver up to three hours of battery life. Connectivity includes Bluetooth 4.2, Wi-Fi 802.11ac/b/g/n, and USB-C. The headset, meanwhile, packs audio input support, a bunch of speakers and cameras, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

That said, don’t get too excited about Magic Leap delivering the AR and VR experiences it hyped over the years. We may be getting there in the future, but the One is nowhere close, as you can see in The Verge’s video below. Again, we’re just at the beginning of this mixed reality revolution, and both the hardware and the software need to receive significant upgrades and innovations for the experience to feel like what the company teased in marketing videos.

That said, if you’re willing to take the Leap, you can purchase one right here.

Chris Smith Senior Writer

Chris Smith has been covering consumer electronics ever since the iPhone revolutionized the industry in 2008. When he’s not writing about the most recent tech news for BGR, he brings his entertainment expertise to Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and other blockbuster franchises.

Outside of work, you’ll catch him streaming almost every new movie and TV show release as soon as it's available.