Play For Dream MR, the high-end standalone headset from China, was the big surprise of CES 2025.
Play For Dream MR’s hardware and software design is definitely heavily inspired by Apple Vision Pro, and a representative admitted as much to me. But unlike the cheap Chinese knockoff we saw at last year’s CES, Play For Dream MR actually has high-end specs, including the Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chipset and 4K micro-OLED displays. And after trying it, I found Play For Dream MR to be the most impressive XR hardware of any kind at CES 2025.
David Heaney
Play For Dream MR is a kind of crossover between a Vision Pro and Quest Pro, with an Apple-inspired plastic outer shell sporting a glossy black exterior and a Quest Pro style rear battery for a balanced weight distribution.
Putting on the headset for the first time, I was presented with a comfortable and well-balanced piece of wearable tech that I suspect could be used for several hours without much discomfort. The built-in eye tracking scanned and set my IPD automatically, and afterwards I immediately saw a clear and sharp image from edge to edge. While streaming up my favorite game to test VR headsets with from a gaming PC, Half Life: Alyx, I strained as I looked for any sort of distortion or edge-blurring in the periphery, but I just couldn’t see any, if it was there at all. Textures popped and appeared crisp with colors that were vibrant, giving me a visual experience that was better than any headset I currently own.
I sat down with Lejong Chua and Marvin Madriaga from Play For Dream, and they shared some interesting insights into the headset’s design and functionality.
Watch the video for our full initial impressions of Play For Dream MR.
Both head and controller tracking worked well. There were some hiccups in tracking, but these could be attributed to the busy environment and heavy wireless interference you find at the showfloor of CES.
I did not get a chance to test controller-free hand tracking. When asked, the staff at the booth mentioned they had to disable that part of the demo due to too many people walking around the booth. This is a feature of the headset we’ll be testing thoroughly once Play For Dream provides us review hardware, so stay tuned for those impressions.
Play For Dream was backed on Kickstarter by 215 supporters who raised $291,773. According to Lejong, headsets are expected to ship to backers in March of this year, and sales should start soon after, priced just under $2000.
David Heaney
Overall, I was extremely impressed with what I saw during my time testing the Play For Dream MR headset. The image quality, streamed from a PC, was the clearest and sharpest I’ve seen in a VR headset, and the clarity of the mixed reality passthrough was way above others I’ve tried thus far.
Currently, Play For Dream MR runs its own fork of Android (heavily visually inspired by Apple’s visionOS), similar to the approach Pico and HTC have taken. But the company hopes it can replace its Android fork with Google’s Android XR as an over-the-air (OTA) update at some point in the future, though it hasn’t yet secured an agreement from Google.
The true test will be once we can get our eyes into the headset outside of a crowded trade show floor. Look for coverage of that once we have hardware in hand.
