Imagine trying to drag a 126-inch television onto an aeroplane, or attempting to mount one on the ceiling above your bed. It is not exactly practical. It’s must easier of course to instead use a pair of glasses with an immersive screens built into them. There are a few options on the market all at varying price points but I was sent Lenovo Legion Glasses 2 to try out. This is a piece of wearable technology with a promise to put a premium cinematic and gaming experience right in front of your eyes.
But does “wearing your monitor” actually improve your gaming sessions, or is it just another piece of technology destined to sit in a drawer? After spending some quality time with Lenovo’s latest smart glasses, the answer is a little complicated.
Why Do We Need Smart Glasses?
The concept behind devices like the Lenovo Legion Glasses 2 is solid. Basically give gamers, remote workers, and cinema fans a highly portable, completely private second screen. While early iterations of augmented reality and virtual reality headsets were heavy, isolating, and often required a powerful desktop computer to run, this new wave of smart glasses is designed for the everyday user. They exist to plug directly into your handheld gaming console, laptop, or smartphone and instantly expand your view, all while looking somewhat like a regular pair of sunglasses.
How They Work and What They Do Well
Let’s start with the mechanics and the major selling points, because there is a lot to like here. Out of the box, the Legion Glasses 2 feel incredibly premium. They are designed beautifully, ditching the bulky, robotic aesthetic of traditional headsets for a design that genuinely resembles a pair of standard glasses with only slightly thicker arms and screens hidden behind the glass..
At only 65 grams, Lenovo claims these are the lightest in their category, and you absolutely feel that on your face. They are built for marathon gaming or binge-watching sessions. The glasses feature flexible silicone rubber arms and adjustable nose pads to accommodate different face shapes.
When you plug them in, you are greeted by what feels like it could be a 126-inch virtual display. The picture quality is really good. With up to 800 nits of brightness and a 98% DCI-P3 colour gamut, games and films look vibrant, crisp, and realistic. Whether you are using them in a brightly lit room or outside, the visual fidelity holds up pretty well. Lenovo also includes a magnetically attached light shield which I really like. Snapping this piece onto the front of the frames blocks out external light, instantly improving clarity and deepening the contrast, plus it acts as a protector for your device.
Another excellent reason for this snap on accessory is it essentially puts the glasses into “stealth mode”. Because the screens are directed right into your eyes, the person sitting next to you on the train cannot see a thing. Whether you are battling monsters, watching a film, or reviewing sensitive documents for work, your virtual world remains entirely private while using the shield.
The Fit: Finding the Sweet Spot
However, the experience is not without its frustrations. While the hardware is premium, the glasses do not sit particularly well on the face. Finding the visual “sweet spot”, the exact angle where the entire screen is perfectly in view takes quite a bit of adjusting.
Once you do find it, the edges of the display can still feel slightly cut off. It’s a real manual adjustment of bending the nose grips and trying then bending and trying and If you happen to have a more prominent nose like myself, you might find yourself constantly seeing over the top of the frames. During my testing, I spent half my time peering over the rims like an annoyed librarian checking to see if someone had returned a late book until I found the right spot to get the best view and a fairly comfortable fit.
Real-World Use and Compatibility
To put the glasses through their paces, I paired them with the Lenovo Legion Go S handheld console. The picture was brilliant, but the “need” for the glasses suddenly felt questionable. I was sitting alone in my living room, so privacy was not an issue. More importantly, the perceived size of the virtual screen felt very similar to simply holding the handheld console at a normal viewing distance. If you are already alone in a comfortable space, plugging in the glasses can feel like an unnecessary extra step.
Lenovo proudly states that the glasses work with any device featuring a USB-C video output. For the most part, this is true. You can plug them into most modern laptops and phones flawlessly. However, if you are hoping to plug them directly into a Nintendo Switch 2, you are out of luck. The glasses do not work natively with Nintendo’s newest console. To be fair to Lenovo, this is an industry-wide quirk, and most AR glasses require a separate, third-party adapter to bridge the gap with the Switch 2.
How Do They Stack Up?
Compared to competitors on the market, the Lenovo Legion Glasses 2 win major points for aesthetics, weight and simlicity. They look more like everyday eyewear than almost anything else available, and the magnetic light shield is a brilliant design choice. The visual fidelity stacks up pretty well against other products in the same class.
Final Verdict
The Lenovo Legion Glasses 2 are a beautifully constructed, highly capable piece of technology with a phenomenal display. I’d recommended them if are a frequent traveller who wants a good private screen on aeroplanes, or if you share a small living space and need total privacy while gaming.
However, if your primary use case is sitting alone on the couch playing a handheld console, you might find that the slightly awkward fit and the lack of a clear visual edge do not quite justify the price point of $599 Aussie Dollars (spotted on JB HiFi) especially considering they are only a 1920×1080 resolution and if you are nearsighted you’ll need to get some inserts or contact lenses every time you want to use them as they don’t really fit over your regular glasses. Not many of these devices come with a myopic adjustment dial for your eyes, but you’d think given that 75% of adults require some form of vision correction that the designers would be doing everything they could to build them in. If I was looking for them now I’d shop around as Amazon Australia have some for a more respectable $348.
What I did discover is that these are a fantastic glimpse into the future of portable displays, and a space that could be becoming more popular over the next few years. If Lenovo continue to innovate like this and intergrate with their handheld PC’s then there’s more and more reasons to choose them as an ecosystem for portable gaming every time.
