RayNeo Air 3s Pro review: Getting my mind to adjust to the 201-inch screen simulation took a while - but once it did, these display glasses proved impressive

RayNeo Air 3s Pro: 30-second review

If you're fed up with staring at a small mobile phone screen on your daily commute or looking for a simple, lightweight solution for an oversized screen on your travels, the Air 3s Pro could be the perfect solution.

Whilst marketed as AR glasses, there's less augmented and more simulated large-scale display. The glasses require a host, your mobile phone or laptop, to provide the display data, and once connected via a USB-C cable, there’s no doubt that the display experience is pretty decent.

Initial setup is easy. They simply plug into your device and operate like a secondary display, with adjustments either through your laptop, mobile phone, or directly via the on-screen display accessed with the buttons on the arms of the glasses.

The overall fit and comfort of the glasses is one-up from those I’ve tried before. At least this time, you don't have to have the glasses perched halfway down your nose. The wearing position is actually quite comfortable. The screens are noticeably larger than previous iterations, and with a 120Hz refresh rate, watching TV or action-packed films, the visuals highlighted excellent clarity and smoothness of motion.

The other point here is that the screens are incredibly bright if you want them to be, up to 1200 nits, which makes them viewable in both darkened, shaded room conditions as well as outside, so they really can be used on your morning commute.

The outward design still makes it obvious that these aren't straight sunglasses. They are just a little bit more bulky, but that said, they are slimmer than some I've tried in the past. There’s still the USB-C cable that trails from the back of the right-hand arm directly down into your mobile phone or laptop to make the data connection.

One thing to note is that when watching TV or a movie, these screens, like any pair of glasses, are fixed in front of your face. So, any movement means the small displays move with your head. This can be a little disconcerting at first. The skill here is to keep your head as steady as possible whilst watching. There's no built-in sensor to stabilise, so you need to do that yourself. But if you're sitting on the bus in the morning, that shouldn't be too much of an issue.

They also feature built-in speakers. Again, whilst these aren't top-end, they are relatively decent, pumping audio directly into your skull. Even when people are sitting right next to you, on Whisper Mode, the audio is exceptionally quiet, so it will cause few distractions.

A few issues, such as no IPD flexibility, mean that if the screens aren't perfectly aligned, these won't be the glasses for you, at least not without a little intervention from your optician. Likewise, there’s no built-in diopter; however, there is the option to place it in prescription glasses, which can be ordered online. These need to be specialists and can’t just be your standard pair. And if you're looking for anything more advanced, say, true augmented reality found in the best smart glasses we've reviewed, then the 3S Pros are not that. They are simply a very decent set of display glasses.

If you are looking for a set of display glasses to watch decent-quality TV on your daily commute, or for that matter, anywhere, then so far the Air 3S Pros are the best solution that I've seen.

RayNeo Air 3s Pro: Price & availability

Whilst the RayNeo Air 3S Pros are still expensive for essentially a set of display glasses, coming in at $249 / £255 direct from RayNeo.

At the time of review, they're listed at over $300 on Amazon.com, and unfortunately unavailable on Amazon.co.uk. Considering how much these units used to cost, this price has certainly become far more reasonable.

• Score: 4/5

RayNeo Air 3s Pro: Design & build

In the past, this style of display glasses was rather bulky and, to be honest, not that comfortable. My colleagues and I have found that trying to position them on your head in a comfortable viewing position has, at times, been tricky, with the glasses needing to be positioned partway down your nose to get the right focus and screen position.

However, with the Air 3s Pros, the first thing that I noticed was how much more comfortable these are than previous iterations. The sleek frame has a modern, sunglasses-inspired look. They're actually relatively slim, although you can still note that they are something other than straight sunglasses.

The build is superb and solid, with decent plastic materials used throughout. The slightly thicker-than-normal arms contain the buttons and the electronics needed, and two large lenses contain the displays, which are fronted by some larger sunglass-style shades.

When wearing the glasses, they feel relatively comfortable and are lightweight. Unlike some other models where you can easily see the surrounding environment, here, with the displays and the darkened glass, you can really only see faint shadows of what is around you, especially once the displays fire up, essentially giving you quite an immersive feeling.

When it comes to optical adjustment, there is very little. If you have eyes that are very close together or far apart, then there is no IPD adjustment. If you are interested in a pair of these glasses, then you will need to nip to the optician for them to create some bespoke lenses. Even then, the fit might not be 100% for you.

A more common requirement is for a diopter adjustment, and again, here there is none, so if you do wear prescription glasses, then you will need some inserts just to ensure that your near focus is accurate. What I like here is that RayNeo have linked up with Lensology, an online optician, where you can send your prescription, and they will make you bespoke glasses to fit into these units, obviously at an additional cost.

I found that with the review sample, although I do wear glasses for reading, I found the clarity of the screens was still exceptionally good, and actually, I didn’t need any additional optical correction.

Positioned on my nose, and having watched the first episode of the 2014 documentary series Sonic Highways, I was instantly impressed by what these glasses had to offer. At 76g, after an hour of watching, that lightweight didn’t feel like it put too much pressure on my nose.

I was also impressed by the size of the screen that was projected. Whilst it took a while to get used to having a small screen look large in my vision, after a while I was able to adjust my mindset and get into the programme, helped by the fact that there was some pretty decent audio and visuals.

• Design & build: 4/5

RayNeo Air 3s Pro: Features

The RayNeo Air 3S Pros are a set of display glasses. Whilst they are marketed as AR glasses, there is no interaction as such. Really, they just simulate a very large 201-inch virtual screen in front of your eyes.

What's impressive here is just how bright these screens are, at 1200 nits. Thankfully, this brightness is fully adjustable depending on where you are. The clarity of the screens is through Sony's Micro-OLED dual displays, which give you 1080p per eye. Sure enough, looking through for the first time, one of the standout features here is just how clear the image looks.

The screens also support Hue View 2.0, which is the fifth generation of hand-held Micro-OLED display technology. It enables you to experience 200,000:1 contrast and 98% DCI-P3 colour, which is definitely a standout from what we've seen before.

To ensure your eyes stay safe, these glasses also come with TÜV SÜD Low Blue Light & Flicker-Free dual certification. Whilst they offer 1200 nits of brightness, there are 20 levels of display control so that you can turn it down without causing any fatigue to your eyes.

Audio is catered for through the arms, with small speakers feeding directly into your skull, so there are no earbud inserts. The speakers are fully adjustable through the on-screen display, allowing you to select from Standard, Whisper, and Spatial Audio Clarity modes.

With Standard mode, the audio sounds great, and if you’re sitting next to someone wearing the glasses in a quiet location, you can just hear the speakers if you put your head close. Switching to Whisper, and considering the ambient noise when you're commuting, you're not going to annoy other commuters sitting near you.

On the on-screen display, as well as the audio mode that can be adjusted, you also have refresh rate, resolution, and display colour, with modes allowing you to switch between Movie, Game, and Eye Protection. One of the other features I like is the ability to quickly adjust brightness and audio using the two rocker switches on the arms, which activate once you've exited the main OSD menu.

Through the test, I used the glasses with an iPhone 15 Pro, MacBook M1 Max, Vivo X200, and quite a few other devices. In each case, the setup was simple plug-and-play, making these some of the easiest glasses I've used so far. Essentially, any device with DisplayPort should be able to operate with these glasses.

• Features: 4.5/5

RayNeo Air 3s Pro: Performance

In the past year, I've looked at several of these display glasses, and whilst they've been entertaining to use, most up until this point have had enough quirks and flaws to make them more of a gimmick than something actually usable. However, the RayNeo Air 3s Pro has made me rethink this.

They are far more comfortable than any unit I’ve tried in the past, and with the simple plug-and-play functionality, I was up and running in a couple of seconds with no faffing around or adjustment. I simply placed them on like a normal set of glasses, plugged them directly into my iPhone, loaded up a TV show, and then just sat back, relaxed, and viewed.

The first thing I noticed was the clarity of the screens. These are definitely a step up, although they still don’t cover the entire vista. Unlike other versions I've tried in the past, where the screen seemed just a little bit small, whilst you still have to get used to the “tiny big screen” in front of your eyes, it is far more immersive than previous versions.

Likewise, the balance of light and dark has also improved a lot. Whilst you can't wear these glasses while walking around, you’d simply bump into things, as all you can see are faint shadows through them, this does mean that when you're watching, the screen is far brighter and has far greater clarity than what I’ve seen in the past.

The visuals are good, and so is the audio. It's not hi-fi, but it's more than enough to enhance the visuals while watching movies. Even in a crowded environment, sitting in a café, I found the volume more than enough to hear what I was watching, and those around me didn’t seem to be distracted by any noise.

Through the glasses, the choice between 60Hz and 120Hz gives it a good range of refresh rates. For TV, 60Hz is more than good enough, especially considering these are 1080p screens. If I did switch to gaming, I could boost it up to 120Hz for smoother gameplay. But for the most part during this test, I solely focused on 60Hz, which was more than enough while watching back Sonic Highways and Monarch, with smooth motion in both TV shows.

When it comes to adjustability, the glasses are rather limited. There's no IPD adjustment, although I found the screens were perfectly positioned for me. And with no diopter adjustment, whilst I do wear reading glasses, I found that these worked perfectly well out of the box, and I could still see the screen nicely and clearly. If you do wear prescription glasses, then it is possible to get lenses supplied by Lensology.

While I found the visuals and audio excellent, the fit, while good, still wasn’t 100%. I found that if I positioned the glasses in the usual place on my nose, the screens were just a touch too high. Slipping them down slightly to just before the midpoint of my nose gained the best position. Still, after a while, it felt comfortable enough. The main point here is that your head usually remains static when using the glasses, rather than moving normally as with standard glasses, so the pressure on your nose is slightly different.

The other point is that at all times, there’s a USB-C cable connected to the rear of the right glasses arm that connects to your phone or laptop. So again, this is something that you are consistently aware of.

In use for media viewing and gaming, the Air 3s Pro works spectacularly well. Once you get used to wearing the screens and the sense of scale settles down, you get a truly immersive viewing experience. If, however, you're thinking of using these as a larger screen for your laptop, then things become a little trickier.

Here, the resolution and refresh rates are exceptionally good, so from that point of view, being able to view everything on the screen is more than possible. It’s more than the image in front of you moves, and that can become a little disorientating, and these screens are still 1080p, so space for windows and palettes will still be limited. If you keep your head absolutely still, then it is possible to use it as a screen, but it's not the most comfortable compared with using a laptop screen. Still, it is an option.

One of the other major points about the glasses is the audio built into the arms. In the past, this type of audio has always been a little bit cluttered. Here, I was actually really impressed with the quality that came through. If you're used to using your laptop speakers to watch TV or film, then you’ll definitely see a major uplift in quality.

Even compared with moderately decent headphones, the audio quality here is definitely on par. And of course, you've got the advantage of being able to hear everything else going on around you as well.

What’s surprising is that as you flick through the different settings, from Standard to Whisper to Spatial, you can actually hear the difference. If you're commuting, that Whisper mode means that those around you aren't going to be annoyed by the sound of whatever TV show you're watching. And even if you do put your head quite close, you can hear that, for the most part, they are relatively quiet.

If you're looking for a very decent set of display glasses, then whilst these aren't quite perfect, they're certainly a huge step in the right direction.

• Performance: 4.5/5

Should you buy the RayNeo Air 3s Pro?

Every time a set of these glasses arrives, I get excited about advanced interactive options and features. But when it comes down to it, most are purely display glasses, essentially popping two screens inside a set of glasses that give you an equivalent viewing area of a large TV or cinematic screen, in this case, 201 inches.

Of course, the screen isn’t actually that size, with the 1080p resolution, you’d be a little hard-pressed to fit in everything that you would on a 201-inch screen. This is more about scale than actual resolution. However, it’s still impressive once your mind adjusts to the fact that you have this huge screen in front of you, and it’s not just two small screens combined, but one a few millimetres away from your eyes.

Once that optical illusion settles down in your head, the viewing does become truly immersive. Watching back films, playing games, and browsing content on your mobile phone becomes very natural. You just need to make sure that you keep your head pretty static. If you’re thinking about using these as a large screen for your laptop, then whilst you can do that, it’s not the most comfortable experience, as those displays will move with your head, and that can be quite disorientating.

RayNeo have moved a long way forward with these glasses, and the balance of light and dark as you look through the lenses is far better. The surrounding area is merely shadows, so if somebody does start to try to talk to you, you’ll need to remove the glasses. But that does mean that the screen is nice and bright, and you get excellent clarity, far better than models I've seen in the past. But these are display glasses and shouldn't be seen as a replacement for true AR or VR headsets.

It’s also worth pointing out that these are not standalone; you will require a connection to a mobile phone or a laptop in order to get content to the display monitors. But being such a small size and coming with a very neat carry case, they are highly portable. Essentially, if you're looking for a decent, compact large-scale monitor that you can carry with you, then these display glasses are a superb option, backed with decent audio and the option to add in prescription lenses if you require them.

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