TCL Rayneo Air 2S review: AR glasses just keep getting better
Dexerto While these might look like sunglasses, the TCL RayNeo Air 2S hides two gorgeous OLED screens beneath them. While they’re not the first pair of AR glasses we’ve looked at, they are certainly among the best.
The TCL Rayneo Air 2S is an iterative update on the RayNeo Air 2, possessing many of the same core specifications, with key quality-of-life upgrades that make daily operation a breeze.
After spending a week testing the device for its quality when connected to gaming handhelds, Pocket TVs, and streaming games, I’m smitten. AR Glasses are here to stay, and they’re better than ever.
Key specs
- Screen: MicroOLED
- Resolution: 1920×1080 per-eye in 2D, 3840 x 1080 in 3D
- Brightness: Up to 600 nits
- Contrast ratio: 100,000:1
- Field-of-View: 46-degrees
- Refresh rate: 60-120Hz
- Projected image: 201-inches
- Features: Speakers, OSD functions, three screen modes
- Weight: 76g
- Price: $399
| Pros | Cons |
| Lightweight | Tough to fit correctly |
| Great speakers | Gets warm after prolonged use |
| Carry case is a great addition | Abberation makes text difficult to read |
| Image quality rivals an OLED TV |
Availability
The TCL RayNeo Air 2S is up for pre-order until August 14, and releases officially on August 15. Pre-orders are live now on the RayNeo website.
Design
Dexerto On the surface, the TCL RayNeo Air 2S looks like a thick pair of sunglasses, but, there’s much more to it than meets the eye. Each of the left and right stems houses essential buttons for volume, functions, and brightness, while a USB-C port to the right with an angled connection serves as your display input port.
Each of the stems has a three-stage hinge, where you can adjust the angle of the lenses. The front of the glasses has a fascia that looks like an extra-thick set of Ray-Bans. But inside, it houses a small plastic housing with a wear sensor at its center. Beneath is a piece of glass, which reflects a pair of MicroOLED screens.
There’s space for prescription lenses here, afforded by an alternate bridge upon your nose, too. The whole unit is encased in black and silver plastic, which may not to be everyone’s taste.
Dexerto The overall look is an uncanny-valley Ray-Ban, which sits slightly further away from your head than a normal pair of sunglasses. Don’t expect to be impressed with the visual flair of the unit, but its utility is undeniable.
There is an included carry case this time around, which can fit all the cables and accessories you can imagine, which is a nice step up from the original model.
Features
The actual utility of these glasses is to project whatever signal is coming in from the USB-C port, and to the MicroOLED screens. These are, in a word, fantastic. But, to get there, you’ll have to find the perfect fit first when putting the glasses on.
This is best done while you have a signal running into the glasses. From there, you can adjust each stem, as well as the nose bridge for the best fit. It can take a minute or two to get them to sit right, but once they’re on, it feels great.
Dexerto Just note that the large projected image still suffers from the same issues noted in my review of the previous model: aberration at the edges. This makes the text difficult to read at the fringes.
One of the biggest new additions that the TCL Rayneo Air 2S offers is the on-screen display, where you can configure speakers, color temperatures, and refresh rate. I would have liked to have seen an option here where you can adjust the projection size, which is disappointing.
Upgraded speakers
One of my biggest bugbears with the previous model was the lackluster speakers, and thanks to some adjustments, these have been massively improved. Sounds are fuller and bassier in all the right ways, and they also have a “whisper” listening mode, where the people around you will barely hear what you are watching or playing.
Playing games or watching shows via Crunchyroll was a treat, and so long as you have something these can plug into, you should be golden. Though, I do recommend that you take a look at Rayneo’s Pocket TV accessory, which is custom-built to be used with their glasses.
RayNeo Pocket TV overview
RayNeo also sent over the Pocket TV, which is the brains of a Google TV with a 6,500 mAh battery, some function buttons, and a microSD port. This is effectively an Android machine optimized for your screen with 3GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. It also massively increases the utility of your glasses, but they are a separate purchase and cost $179.99.
Dexerto In theory, if you have a supported Android phone or tablet, you’ll not need this, but the Pocket TV houses a software feature that lets you adjust the screen size to your liking, which can eliminate the aberration from the glasses entirely.
To me, it makes the cost of entry worthwhile entirely. At an 85% screen size, content was perfectly sized and sharp, and the benefit of it being a single wire to the glasses meant I took it around everywhere during my week of testing. They are a killer combo, and last for up to around five hours of continuous use.
Viewing experience
When connected to an appropriate source, like the Ayaneo Air 1S or Steam Deck, the TCL Rayneo Air 2S’s excellent MicroOLED displays offered up true blacks, with a crisp display that immediately looks just as good as the OLED TV in my living room. For gaming workloads, the 120Hz refresh rate setting worked like a dream, making games like Hades 2 and Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising sing.
I’ve also spent a good amount of time binging Star Trek: Strange New Worlds using the glasses and didn’t feel like I missed out on any kind of 4K resolution bump here.
You can also connect the glasses up to your PC for a spatial experience, but this remains pretty underbaked compared to the likes of a Quest 3. We’re still a long way off from cramming the technical greatness of a VR headset into this form factor, but it offers a glimpse at what the future could be, and it can’t come soon enough.
Verdict – 4/5
These are a notable step up from the original model. However, I would have still loved to have seen an adjustable screen size option on the menu. It feels as though we’re getting closer and closer to the ideal AR glasses, and once they are fully oven-ready for mass-market consumption, this segment has the potential to replace your primary home displays.
But for now, it’s a step in the right direction, and any early adopters to this fledgling market won’t be disappointed with this no-frills investment.
Should you buy it?
If you are regularly kicked off of the main TV in the house (like me) or have no space for a big TV if you have a smaller living space, The TCL RayNeo Air 2S is a viable replacement for your primary display. Just be aware that over prolonged use, the unit can warm up.