The beauty of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is that every year a number of new phones are launched at the show. But MWC is also a popular place for companies that make wearable tech to show off their latest innovations. This includes companies like TCL, which is best known for its TVs (and increasingly for its Nxtpaper phones and tablets), but also makes smartglasses.
When it comes to smartglasses, the competition is really heating up, and TCL’s RayNeo X3 Pro AR glasses, which were first announced at CES, offer a compelling alternative to more basic smartglasses like the Meta Ray-Ban. Meta’s smartglasses don’t have displays built into the lenses, but the X3 Pro glasses do – thanks to projection onto the glass using wave guides.
TCL RayNeo X3 Pro display
Based on the smallest micro-LED light engine, the 2,500-nit, full-colour display is still visible when you’re wearing the glasses, even in bright sunlight. I tried on the X3 Pros at MWC, but unfortunately it was inside a dark convention centre hall, so I couldn’t test the screens in different conditions. But I could see them clearly, and they sat at just the right height to give me an easy viewing experience without obscuring anything.
TCL RayNeo X3 Pro camera
In a demo at MWC, I saw how the glasses use a front-facing camera to check the signs around me and automatically translate words and phrases into French using AI (other languages are also available).
It was impressive, but I couldn’t judge how well the AI live conversation translation worked, as the hall was too noisy to pick out individual voices. I also couldn’t try out the built-in AI agent, as it only works in Chinese for now. It should be available in English by the time the X3 Pro hits the market internationally in mid-May (for around $2,000).
TCL RayNeo X3 Pro design
The X3 Pro is less bulky and heavy than its predecessor. At just 3 ounces, these glasses were light enough to wear without any discomfort, but they still looked ridiculously large on my average head — a problem with most smartglasses. As for the gesture controls on the glasses’ arms, they were easy to hold and worked pretty much flawlessly, which is a rare feat.
Final Thoughts for Now
Many companies are aiming to strike the perfect balance between aesthetics, wearability, and functionality, and TCL has gotten pretty close to it. The X3 Pro is ultimately a well-executed vision of what AR glasses should be, where you can see both the screen and the world around and outside of it. One thing we were curious about, but couldn’t test on the show floor, is battery life, which may dictate whether or not we’d recommend this product.