Samsung’s new XR headset is secretly a Pixel

Last week, I got to spend some time with Samsung’s newest device, a mixed reality headset called the Galaxy XR. This is the “Project Moohan” product Samsung has been working on for ages to take on the Apple Vision Pro. It’s an important launch for the company, and it’s even priced to compete — well, sort of. At $1,799, it’s about half the price of Apple’s headset, which is certainly good news, but still a massive amount of money.

I’ve already talked extensively about what the Galaxy XR is and what it’s like to use it. In this article, though, I want to talk about something I realized almost immediately after my demo with the headset: this isn’t really a Samsung device.

I know, that sounds weird. It has the word “Galaxy” in its name, and the hardware is clearly the result of Samsung’s incredible manufacturing and engineering. But the soul of the machine, the actual experience of using it? That’s all Google.

When I hear “Samsung Galaxy,” I have a very clear set of expectations. I expect to see things like One UI, Samsung’s heavy-handed-but-feature-packed Android skin. I expect to find Samsung-made apps, Galaxy AI features, and maybe even a stray Bixby command. Hell, I at least expect to see the words “Samsung” or “Galaxy” somewhere on the device itself.

That is not what this is. What I used felt less like a Samsung product and more like the first-ever Google Pixel XR headset, one that Samsung just happened to build.

During my demo session with the Galaxy XR, I was looking for traces of One UI. I was waiting for the familiar app icons, the Samsung settings menu, and yeah, even the bloatware. They never came. This got me thinking about the Galaxy XR keynote launch, and I realized there were no Samsung apps or features mentioned there, either.

Instead, everything I saw was Google. It seemed as pure and untouched as the software on a Google Pixel phone. Honestly, this was bizarre. Using a $1,799 Samsung device without any real Samsung presence in the software felt almost wrong. To be clear, everything was perfectly functional, but just not what I expected.

In fact, the Google experiences are what literally define this product. If you compare the Galaxy XR ($1799.99 at Samsung) to the Meta Quest 3 ($499.99 at Best Buy) or the Apple Vision Pro ($3499 at Apple), you’ll see a lot of crossover, such as with the core design, hand-tracking controls, etc. What the Galaxy XR offers that the other two don’t come directly from Google: Gemini and Google Play.

Let me start with the Play Store. Since Android lives at the core of Android XR (obviously — it’s in the name), pretty much every app and game available on the Play Store right now will work straight out of the box. There will be exceptions, of course, such as with anything that requires a phone-shaped device or a physical display. But 99% of the Play Store is already working on the Galaxy XR, giving it a huge leg up over something like the Meta Quest 3.

And then there’s Gemini. When Google announced Android XR late last year, it said this was the first OS designed from the ground up for the “Gemini era.” It wasn’t kidding. Gemini isn’t just an app you launch when you want it; it’s woven into the OS. This makes the Galaxy XR the first (and, as far as I can tell, only) XR headset on the market that is built for AI.

During my demo, I could access Gemini anytime by holding down the multi-function button on the top right of the headset. The familiar Gemini interface popped right up. I could talk directly with it about whatever, as usual, but the real trick is that Gemini could see everything that I saw. This was helpful during the software demos, such as when I was in Google Photos. I could ask about what was in the photo, when it was taken, or to identify anyone in it. Samsung also showed off a demo of Gemini helping a gamer by checking out what they were playing and giving them tips on how to succeed.

And remember that the headset can also “see” the real world through a low-latency, full-color video stream. This enables you to not only ask Gemini about what it sees in VR but also what it sees around you in reality. You can even use Circle to Search in this mode.

The rest of my demo was basically a greatest-hits tour of Google’s apps, remixed for mixed reality.

• Google Photos: Although this works just like it does on your phone with an extensive gallery of 2D photos, with one tap on any one of them, the headset’s Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Plus Gen 2 processor (yes, that’s its real name) analyzed the photo and converted it into a stereoscopic 3D image on the fly. It adds a layer of depth that’s pretty cool, and could be quite powerful for photos that have an emotional impact for you, such as one of a loved one who’s passed on, or a partner whom you miss while they’re away.
• Google Maps: This was the big “wow” demo. I started out floating in space, looking at the Earth. I said, “Gemini, take me to Manhattan,” and I instantly flew down from orbit, hovering over the Big Apple. I could zoom in, drop into Street View, and walk around the city. But the new trick is that you can now walk inside some buildings. Google is using AI to stitch together all the photos and videos people have uploaded to Maps to create 3D, walkable environments. The experience was a little janky, but the promise of this tech is wild. I can imagine “traveling” to a tourist destination long before you get on a plane so you know what to see and what to skip when you really get there.
• YouTube: This one is a no-brainer. I watched 360-degree videos and an interactive 3D film. And, just like with Google Photos, the headset will eventually be able to take a standard 2D YouTube video and automatically convert it to be stereoscopic. That feature is coming later, but I got to try an early version of it on one of my own videos, and it was really cool.

All this was incredible, but at the end of the demo, I asked the Samsung rep helping me out, “So, where are all the Samsung apps? Where’s One UI?”

I got a very polite, very corporate non-answer: “For today, we’re just focusing on these incredible Google-powered experiences.”

So yeah, they’re not there. Maybe they’ll be added later, or maybe they’ll even be there when you take the Galaxy XR out of the box, but I doubt it. If that were true, why weren’t they shown to me?

In the end, this device feels like it’s 80% Google, 15% Samsung, and 5% Qualcomm. That isn’t a criticism — I’m not saying the headset is bad. It’s just that my limited experience with it left me feeling like Samsung is just acting as the manufacturer for Google’s own flagship XR ambitions. And this all gives me a serious case of déjà vu.

For those of you who weren’t obsessing over Android back then, Samsung and Google partnered on a legendary phone: the Galaxy Nexus. The Nexus branding was Google’s “stock” Android label that predated Pixel, which eventually replaced it. The phone had Samsung’s absolutely incredible hardware — it was one of the first phones with a big, beautiful HD AMOLED screen — but it ran pure, stock Android. There was no clunky TouchWiz skin, which was what Samsung’s software was called back in those days. It was the “Google Experience Phone,” but it was built by Samsung.

That is exactly what the Galaxy XR is.

In that sense, one could look at this as the spiritual successor to the Galaxy Nexus, like the Nexus of mixed reality. However, Google hasn’t used the Nexus branding in years, so all that’s left is to call this what I think it actually is: the Pixel XR.

The only question left is whether anyone will buy it. The Apple Vision Pro has been a well-known bomb (by Apple standards, anyway). Apple couldn’t convince the world to buy a $3,500 face computer. Samsung and Google are betting that “half the price” is the magic number. But $1,799 is still an enormous amount of money for a device that, for now, seems like a very cool, very expensive toy for gaming and looking at 3D maps.

I remain cautiously optimistic. I want this to succeed. But as it stands right now, the most interesting thing about Samsung’s new headset is how little Samsung is in it.