The bread and butter of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is the slew of new phones that companies unveil at the show every year. But MWC is also a popular place for companies creating wearable tech to show off their latest innovations. This includes companies like TCL, which is best known for its TVs (and is increasingly becoming known for its Nxtpaper phones and tablets), but that also makes smart glasses.
When it comes to smart glasses, competition is really heating up, and TCL’s RayNeo X3 Pro AR glasses, first announced at CES, provide a compelling alternative to more-basic smart glasses, such as the Meta Ray-Bans. Meta’s smart glasses don’t have displays in the lenses, but the X3 Pro glasses do — thanks to projections onto the glass using wave guides.
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TCL RayNeo X3 Pro display
Based on the smallest micro-LED light engine, the 2,500-nit, full-color display is visible while you’re wearing the glasses, even in bright sunlight. I tried on the X3 Pros at MWC, but unfortunately it was inside a dark convention center hall, so I couldn’t test out the screens in different conditions. But I could see them clearly, and they seemed to sit just at the right height to provide me with an easy viewing experience without obscuring anything.
TCL RayNeo X3 Pro camera
In a demo at MWC, I saw how the glasses used a front-facing camera to examine the signs around me and automatically translate the words and phrases into French using AI (other languages are also available). This was effective, but I couldn’t judge how well the AI live conversation translation works, because the hall was too noisy to pick up individual voices. I also couldn’t try the built-in AI agent, as it’s currently working only in Chinese. It should be ready to go in English by the time the X3 Pro hits the international market in mid-May (for around $2,000).
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TCL RayNeo X3 Pro design
The X3 Pro is less weighty and bulky than its predecessors. At just 3 ounces, the glasses were light enough to wear without feeling uncomfortable, but they still looked comically large on my fairly average head — a problem with most smart glasses. As for the gesture controls on the arms of the glasses, they were easy to pick up and seemed to work pretty much flawlessly, which is a rare feat.
Final thoughts for now
Many companies are aiming to strike the right balance between aesthetics, wearability and functionality, and TCL has come pretty darn close. The X3 Pros are ultimately a well-executed vision of what AR glasses should be, where you can see both a screen and the world beyond and around it. One thing we’re curious about but couldn’t test on the show floor is battery life, which could be a deal-breaker as to whether we’d recommend this product.
