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Marques Brownlee - What's Going on with Apple Vision Pro?

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Author: Marques Brownlee
Categories: Technology
Tags: technology
Views: 2 · Last viewed: 2026-10-16 10:03 UTC

Short Summary

Main recommendation: The new 2025 Apple Vision Pro is a modest refresh rather than a major upgrade, mainly offering a more comfortable Dual Knit Band and incremental M5 performance bumps, while the bigger story is that Apple appears to be de-prioritizing headsets in favor of smart glasses. The M5 chip brings faster app loading, about 10% more rendered pixels, a 120 Hz refresh rate (up from 100 Hz), and roughly 20% longer battery life, but the hardware, cameras, displays, weight, and $3,500 price are essentially unchanged. The video argues that the market has shown more appetite for smart glasses than for headsets.

Key Points

  • The new M5 chip is part of a rollout across the iPad Pro, 14-inch MacBook Pro, and Vision Pro, and the Vision Pro moves from M2 to M5.
  • Apart from the chip and band, the 2025 Vision Pro is essentially identical to the original, including dimensions, displays, the 12 cameras and sensors, the LIDAR scanner, the R1 chip, and the tethered battery.
  • The main real-world change is comfort: the new Dual Knit Band distributes weight across the back and top of the head, instead of the Solo Knit Band pulling on the back of the head and sagging onto the nose.
  • The M5 performance gains are incremental, with the video stating that most users are unlikely to notice the difference in rendering.
  • Competition is limited: Samsung's Android XR headset (previously shown as "Project Moohan") is finally going on sale, but few other companies are pursuing premium headsets, while smart glasses like Meta's Ray-Ban Display are advancing much faster.
  • The video cites other reporting that Apple has reportedly scrapped plans for a lighter "Vision Pro Air" and is shifting those resources toward smart glasses.

Details Worth Noting

  • Concrete instructions: No step-by-step setup or dosage-style instructions are given. The actionable advice is to choose the new Dual Knit Band if comfort is your main concern: it uses a dial on the back to tighten the back strap and a second dial on the top to tighten the top strap, and the band is sold separately for $99 for owners of the original Vision Pro.
  • The new band uses a smaller back fabric piece and adds tungsten (metal) in the back to counterbalance the headset's weight on the face, which is why the listed weight is higher than the original.
  • The original Solo Knit Band was reported to be painful after about 10 minutes of wear, which is why the new band is presented as a significant comfort improvement.
  • The M5 upgrade includes faster loading for apps and spatial photo conversion, a 120 Hz max refresh rate, and about 20% longer battery life, but the video says the passthrough cameras and displays are unchanged.
  • The Vision Pro still costs $3,500 and remains heavy, and the video notes most owners have mostly used it to watch movies.
  • He notes the 16-inch MacBook Pro (which uses Pro/Max chips) doesn't get M5 yet, and speculates Apple will likely eventually bring M5 to other base-chip devices like Mac Mini and iMac.

Bottom Line

The 2025 Vision Pro is mainly a comfort and performance refresh, and the video suggests it signals Apple scaling back its headset ambitions in favor of smart glasses.