Spacetop G1 replaces the screen of a traditional laptop with built-in AR glasses.
It's an upgraded version of the Spacetop Early Access model which shipped last year to hundreds of early adopters. The startup behind the device, Sightful, says it will upgrade all Early Access model owners to the consumer G1.
Sightful was founded by ex-Magic Leap executives Tamir Berliner and Tomer Kahan. Berliner also previously founded a 3D sensor company which he sold to Apple.
Spacetop G1 has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset with active cooling and 16GB of RAM. That means it has the same GPU and similar CPU as Meta Quest 3 but with twice the unified memory.
That hardware powers the proprietary Spacetop OS operating system. It lets you spawn large floating web browser windows around you instead of being hunched over a traditional laptop screen switching through tabs. Essentially, Spacetop G1 is like having a Chromebook with infinite massive screens.
David Heaney
However, you won't be able to actually see all those screens at once. The built-in tethered AR glasses are the Xreal Air 2 Ultra, which use transparent birdbath optics. That enables a form factor of a very thick pair of glasses, but has the same problem as all existing transparent optics: a very narrow field of view.
As we noted in our review of Nreal Light, which had a very similar field of view, you'll only see all the floating windows at once if they're placed meters away. At more reasonable viewing distances you'll have to turn your head more often than with physical monitors and remember where content is. This is currently the key tradeoff of transparent AR versus opaque headsets with passthrough cameras.
Spacetop G1 supports Wi-Fi 7 for home or office use but also has a 5G modem for phone-free use on the go. You'll need a SIM card with an active plan from a carrier for that though, of course.
Sightful claims Spacetop G1 has up to 8 hours of battery life and charges from 0% to 85% in less than 2 hours via 63W over USB-C.
There are actually two USB-C ports, and as well as charging they can be used to output a 1080p mirror to a physical DisplayPort monitor to show content to others. There's also a 5 megapixel webcam above the keyboard for video calls.
Spacetop G1 ships "later in 2024" for $1900, and you can reserve one for a $100 deposit today.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.uploadvr.com/spacetop-g1-screenless-laptop-ar-glasses/