How This Startup From Finland Is Outdoing Apple's Vision Pro with a Business-Centric VR Solution - Insights From ZDNet

Augmented Reality: Experience a 100-Inch Display on Your Own AR Laptop without an External Monitor![ZDNet]

Sightful

The Spacetop computer is a sight to behold. It’s a laptop with no screen – instead, it comes equipped with an augmented reality (AR) headset that you wear to view a massive 100-inch curved display in front of you.

This could become the laptop of choice for anyone from traveling professionals to gamers. Those who don’t want anyone nearby peeking at their screens, people who don’t want to be restricted to a laptop’s small display, or those curious about mixed reality are the users Sightful had in mind when creating the Spacetop.

Also: I demoed Xreal’s AR glasses for spatial computing and they’re better than I expected

This AR-focused computer comes with the keyboard half of a laptop and a tethered headset that the user wears. It performs like any other PC, using a trackpad, keyboard, and mouse to control it – there’s no need to learn new controls or wave your arms around in public. The AR glasses display what a monitor would, while the user controls the Spacetop as they would control any laptop.

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The Spacetop originally debuted in May with an early adopter program during which 1,000 units were sold. The preview program concluded, and Sightful applied early adopter feedback to the Spacetop, which is now available for purchase at $2,150 .

“Our Early Access provided exactly the feedback we hoped for and needed from our users,” said Tamir Berliner, CEO and co-founder of Sightful. “The feedback we received has directly informed the refinement of our software, helping us get it to the point where we are ready to open up Spacetop to the broader public so they can experience the next stage in the evolution of laptops and the value that Augmented Reality can bring to their everyday lives.”

Also: Should you pre-order Apple Vision Pro? These 5 questions can help you decide

As far as specs, Sightful’s Spacetop runs a custom, open-source version of Android, features about five hours of battery life, and has a Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2, the predecessor to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. It also has 128GB of storage and 8GB of RAM.

Whether mixed reality is the future of work and entertainment -- as Apple CEO Tim Cook often hints when discussing spatial computing – remains to be seen. But the imminent launch of the Apple Vision Pro and CES offerings like the Spacetop seems to point in that direction. It does sound convenient to take a 100-inch virtual monitor anywhere you go, especially with AR glasses like the Spacetop has, as long as you don’t mind getting some strange looks when you’re out in public.