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From the front, the Air 4 Pro looks like a normal pair of sunglasses. | Image by PhoneArena
RayNeo’s Air series is a cost-effective entry into AR glasses, or more accurately in this case: wearable displays. I really liked the previous model, the Air 3s Pro, because of its affordable price, high brightness and respectable display clarity.
I now have the RayNeo Air 4 Pro in my hands (and on my face), I've used it quite a bit and I want to share my experience with it and whether it's a worthy successor.
What's new
RayNeo Air 4 Pro shown from different angles – it still looks a bit strange from the side. | Images by PhoneArena
The RayNeo Air 4 Pro is a mostly minor upgrade over the 3s Pro. Users of RayNeo’s previous glasses generation are not meant to get this new model. The Air 4 Pro is for those who begin their AR displays journey now.
The headlining feature of the RayNeo Air 4 Pro, if there is one, is HDR10 support. I genuinely had a hard time testing HDR10 support on the Air 4 Pro. I tried different devices, I managed to watch HDR videos on them; it's just that there doesn't seem to be too much of a difference with or without HDR10 enabled. The image maybe becomes a tad brighter or more contrasty, I don't know. There is also an AI HDR feature that aims to simply transform SDR content into HDR content – I had similar success with it. But that's not a huge problem, as you'll see later.
The felt case is back – it's the same, only black this time. | Images by PhoneArena
The Air 4 Pro also come with a new image processor, called Vision 4000, for generally improved image quality and clarity. Add to that the upgraded Bang & Olufsen-tuned speakers, and that's more or less it.
Now, let's see how the finished product performs.
What's great about the Air 4 Pro
To be honest, the HDR problem I mentioned above doesn't feel like a big deal to me, because with or without HDR – the image quality you get from these glasses is superb. At 1920 x 1080 px, the resolution doesn't impress, but still, the overall image quality is definitely among the best in this category of devices. Compared with some other glasses of similar type, like the Xreal 1S, the RayNeo Air 4 Pro look clearer. This is especially noticeable if you're doing more productivity-focused tasks, such as reading text on a webpage. This is one of the Air 4 Pro's biggest virtues. Sure, it doesn't have convenience productivity features like anchored mode or widescreen, but it doesn't a really great job with screen clarity and text.
Continuing on the positive note, contrast and color reproduction are also great. In tandem with the very high brightness output the Air 4 Pro are capable of, images on screen are really vibrant and lively. This makes not just viewing images, but playing games a lot of fun and, yes, very immersive on the RayNeo Air 4 Pro. That Vision 4000 chip is really doing a great job here. If there's one thing I'd like to see improved is color saturation, because RayNeo has gone a bit overboard with it. The glasses are rated at 145% sRGB coverage, and while it's perfectly fine for a display to go above 100% sRGB, at 145% thing are starting to get a bit too vibrant. Just don't enable the Color Enhancement option from the settings, because it boosts vibrancy even more. There should be a way to normalize colors a little bit, if that users wants a more color-accurate picture.
The 76-gram design is as cool and as compact as it gets right now. | Image by PhoneArena
A key factor that makes these AR glasses so great is their simple, plug-and-play nature. You just plug them into the device you want to view on a big screen, and boom – you're in. From there, you just launch your game as you normally would, crank the brightness up and enjoy! There's some lost art in that sort of delightful simplicity.
To help with the immersiveness, sound quality through the four on-board B&O-tuned speakers is actually pretty decent. The consideration here is RayNeo couldn't simply put the loudest and deepest speakers – they needed to be of a special type that both sound good and is fairly direction, because of the privacy concern. Typically, when using AR glasses like these, your digital experience becomes very private, it's very much yours and yours alone. This is why you also expect the audio to not be easily heart by others around you. These are still speakers, though, so it can't be completely hidden, but it's fairly quiet. There is the Whisper option again, which makes sound coming from the speakers more difficult to hear by others (but of course, it degrades sound quality.)
The optics, the SeeYa 0.6-inch micro-OLED displays and the Vision 4000 chip make for crisp visuals, for a 1080p screen. | Image by PhoneArena
Sound quality itself is very good – among the better ones in such glasses. It's winning feature is that it's fairly well-balanced and pleasant to listen to. You don't get hissing, crackling highs, muddy sound or anything like that. It would be great if it could get a bit more powerful, but maybe that's going to come with the next model.
Finally, perhaps the biggest strength of RayNeo's Air series continues here as well, with the Air 4 Pro retaining the very enticing $300 price point.
What needs to be improved
The quad speakers, situated along the temples, sound good but could be louder. | Image by PhoneArena
As mentioned, there are some things that can be further upgraded in the future. First on my list is higher resolution: sure, the Air 4 Pro delivers remarkable clarity for a 1920 x 1080 px device, but if that could be cranked to 2560 x 1440 px, this would make for a quantum leap in image quality. Why not be first to do that, RayNeo?
Also, there should be an option allowing you to switch to slightly more down to earth colors. Color reproduction on the RayNeo Air 4 Pro isn't completely out there, but is somewhat oversaturated. This may or may not an issue for you, depending on what you'll be using them for.
Sound is good, but for those cases where there's no one around, you should be able to crank it up a bit more, so you can enjoy it even more!
Finally, looking into the future, I think RayNeo should start thinking about integrating an anchored mode – no need for fancy things like ultrawide, but anchored mode is a major step forward, so it'd be great to see that in the next edition of the glasses – without any tradeoffs to image quality or brightness, if possible.
Is RayNeo Air 4 Pro worth it?
They almost look normal from the side. | Image by PhoneArena
Yes, they are worth it. At $300, the RayNeo Air 4 Pro are an inexpensive pair of display glasses that give you much of the core functionality.
They aren't perfect, but they also don't have any major issues to ruin the experience. If you can reach for the Xreal 1S (available at $450) – that one will give you a lot more to play with in the way of AR features, but if you don't want to cross the $300 boundary, you'll still be able to enjoy the wearable display experience perfectly well with the RayNeo Air 4 Pro. And that, is a good thing.
What more would you like to know about display glasses like the Air 4 Pro? Share your thoughts and questions in the comments!
Rad Slavov is the Editor-in-Chief at PhoneArena. He joined the media in 2008, right on the cusp of the modern smartphone revolution. Through time and perseverance, he amassed a great deal of knowledge and industry know-how, allowing him to guide and organize the company's growing line-up of talented content creators and ever-expanding content portfolio.
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