Is the XREAL Beam Pro worth it?

When I bought my XREAL One Pro smart glasses I bought the bundle with the XREAL Beam Pro because I thought "why not, my son can use it on long car journeys". The truth is it's so much more than that though.

It's not just another mobile device when hooked up to XREAL glasses. As soon as you plug the glasses in you notice the screen turn into a "Spatial Mouse". Moving the device moves a mouse pointer on the screen, much like you can do with a Nintendo Switch, Meta Quest controller or even certain TV remotes. It turns the Beam Pro from being a mobile device into being a portable computer for working while travelling if you pair it with a bluetooth keyboard. Not only is this a smaller and lighter weight option (assuming you're doing your work online or via android apps), but your work is completely private because you're wearing the glasses.

There are a few nuances when travelling and working. Sometimes you might struggle to find where the mouse pointer is actually calibrated. This can be easily fixed by waggling the beam Pro around until it comes back into your field of view, or you can simply hold down the main button on the glasses to re-centre your screens and recalibrate the Beam Pro based on the direction it's currently facing.

I've been using this setup when working on the train and it's surprisingly comfortable. Yes it's expensive as it'll set you back around 700 GBP but a decent laptop will cost around the same if not more. Using the beam Pro isn't as easy as using a mouse or track pad but it provides a workable solution without having to carry another device. It doesn't have to be all work and no play either. If you pair a bluetooth controller with your beam Pro you can game on the go with many of the cloud options available - Amazon Luna (free with Prime), Xbox Game Pass, and Nvidia's GeForce Go.

One of the other benefits of the device is that you can charge it while using the glasses at the same time. If you would prefer to use your mobile phone instead for this (particularly with Samsung DeX or Google Chrome Desktop) then you can buy a splitter from XREAL to allow you to charge and use the glasses on any device. 

In terms of other drawbacks, sometimes the scroll with the Spatial Mouse isn't the smoothest, particularly if you accidentally have more than one finger on the screen. I have found on certain web pages that clicking certain elements doesn't work. I have managed to get around this by tabbing to them with the keyboard, but that could just be an issue with the website rather than an issue with the glasses and the Beam Pro.