The Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional appears to be like to be certainly one of, if not the, most succesful AR/VR headsets round – no less than will probably be at launch in early 2024. Nevertheless, with spectacular tech comes not-so-impressive pricing, and that’s very true of the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional and its whopping $3,499 price ticket.
Now we’re not saying that VR headsets are low-cost – some, particularly those who hook up with beefy gaming PCs can price effectively over £1000/$1000 – however that’s nonetheless fairly a bounce to get to the worth of the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional.
The HTC Vive Professional 2 is likely one of the priciest PC VR headsets round in 2023 and that’ll set you again £1,399/$1,249 with the controllers, base stations and all the pieces else you want. That’s below half the worth of the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional.
The comparisons solely get extra surprising when narrowing the dialogue to standalone VR headsets just like the Quest 2 and extra premium choices just like the Meta Quest Professional and HTC Vive Elite XR. Actually, the latter two may very well be thought of direct rivals to Apple’s Imaginative and prescient Professional with a give attention to AR in addition to VR with color passthrough capabilities.
Regardless of the similarity in design and focus, the Meta Quest Professional has a comparatively inexpensive RRP of £999/$999, down from the preliminary £1,499/$1,499 price ticket when it launched in October 2022. That makes it 3.5x cheaper than the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional. It’s a really related story with the £1,299/$1,099 HTC Vive Elite XR.
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Once more, these have been thought of top-end Professional choices with worth tags to match till this level.
However regardless of this truth, you’d nonetheless have the ability to purchase two Vive Elite XRs and a Meta Quest Professional within the US and nonetheless have sufficient change left over to choose up a £299/$299 Meta Quest 2 as a substitute of shopping for the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional.
It’s comparisons like this that basically drill house simply how costly and, basically, unattainable, the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional might be to the on a regular basis client as soon as it’s launched in early 2024. It’ll possible be fodder for the wealthy and eager builders that wish to get their apps onto the platform, however not a lot else.
It’s potential that that is the top-end model with Apple planning a extra inexpensive headset to come back additional down the road, probably with out the Professional moniker of the first-gen headset, however that’s very a lot hypothesis for now.
With all that stated, right here’s a whole breakdown of common VR/AR headset pricing from huge producers and the way they examine to the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional:
- Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional: $3,499
- HTC Vive Professional 2: £1,399/$1,249
- HTC Vive Elite XR: £1,299/$1,099
- Valve Index: £949/$999
- Meta Quest Professional: £999/$999
- Sony PlayStation VR 2: £529/$549
- Meta Quest 3 (launch in late 2023): $499
- HTC Vive Movement: £499/$499
- Meta Quest 2: £399/$399