The battle to offer the best extended reality viewer is heating up with Qualcomm announcing a new processor designed to take on Apple Vision Pro.
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 platform aims to radically improve the spatial computing experience with support for 4.3K display resolution per eye. That’s a four times resolution improvement on the previous version. Qualcomm says it will offer amazing clarity and spectacular room-scale experiences in virtual and augmented reality settings.
The platform also delivers 15 percent higher GPU and 20 percent higher CPU performance for crisper visuals with faster frequency rates, and less jitter, says Qualcomm. For cordless operation, the platform supports ultra-fast Wi-Fi 7 and Wi-Fi 6E, along with Bluetooth 5.3 and 5.2.
Samsung, Google, HTC, Immersed and Play for Dream are among companies that have built headsets using the Qualcomm Gen 2 platform.
“Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 enables 12 or more concurrent cameras and powerful on-device AI to track your head, hands, controllers, eyes, and the world around with unprecedented precision, unleashing next-gen mixed reality experiences,” the company says.
To aid augmented reality which displays virtual objects and action in real world settings, the chip supports 12 millisecond full colour video see-through vision that Qualcomm says lets you transition through levels of immersion with comfort.
It remains to be seen how the Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 platform competes against Apple Vision Pro’s headset. Much of the competition will revolve around the XR experience and virtual environments they offer, and content.
Apple Vision Pro also uses a Qualcomm processor, the Snapdragon 845 chip. Vision Pro offers 12 cameras, along with 5 sensors and 6 microphones for tracking and passthrough, and includes Apple M2 and R1 chips. Its display resolution is 4096×5464 pixels.