Apple Vision Pro with M5 review: Better than ever, still lonely

Apple’s Vision Pro remains the best VR headset by a mile, and there are plenty of moments when using it feels magical. I love staring at 3D photos, watching movies on big screens, and working in a bunch of floating windows. But I noticed something odd after I wrote my first review in 2024: I took the headset off, put it back in its box, and didn’t put it back on.

The new M5 model is a great headset, now slightly faster and more comfortable than its predecessor. But I still find it hard to go back to watching a movie on my iPhone or TV, or working with my Mac. It requires putting something over my head, over my eyes, and creating an environment that I’m still not used to.

Apple and other companies will struggle to sell it: Using it feels a bit isolating – like I’m removing myself from the real world. It’s a neat tool, but I could live without it.

Perhaps the most notable upgrade to the Vision Pro this year is the addition of a new dual-knit band. The new strap, which works just as well as the original, is a big deal. It adds a band to the top of your head and embeds the weight in the strap behind it. This helps balance the headset so it doesn’t feel as front-heavy, a complaint many people had with the first version and its single-band strap. The whole setup is ball-heavy, but the better balance on my head is easily worth the trade-off. The strap can be tightened in two places – on the top of your head and on the back – using a single knob on the right side. Turn to tighten one strap, and then pull the knob out and turn to tighten the other. This is a clever design.

As for the actual hardware, not much has changed: it’s a Vision Pro with an M5 processor. What does this mean in practice? The M5 turns out to enable some quality-of-life upgrades. Apple now also allows faster refresh rates for micro-oiled displays, at 120Hz, compared to 100Hz in the first edition. I don’t remember when I scrolled through websites or photos or quickly moved my head across the Mac display in the headset, but if that bothered you, it should make the experience even smoother.

Battery life is also a notch better thanks to the M5. I streamed three episodes Separation Within the limits of Apple’s promise of three hours of video playback, I queued before the 10 percent warning. That breaks down to two and a half hours of “regular use,” which means just browsing the web, messing around in apps, and checking out a few movies.

The widgets are new since I last used the Vision Pro in 2024, though it wasn’t limited to the M5, and I like that I can put them in specific spots around my house and leave them there. So, I have a couple of pictures and a playlist kind of “hanging” on the wall in my room, and they’re always there when I put the headset back on.

Viewing photos is one of my favorite uses for Vision Pro. The M5 uses artificial intelligence to convert immersive photos to regular photos in just a few seconds – a bit faster than the M2, I’m told (I no longer have the original to compare). These immersive photos and videos, which you can record with a headset or even a modern iPhone, feel closer to being back in the moment, bringing people and scenes to life in 3D with a kind of colorful blur around you. Right now, this is as close as I can get to loved ones who have since died. And I love seeing my daughter’s baby toes in 3D from a year ago.

There are so many of these “you have to see it to believe it” moments. It’s wild watching Apple’s immersive videos of animals in the wild or soaring over mountaintops in helicopters. I’m disappointed that the library is still small and the videos are all relatively short. Apple continues to add more clips and “shows” that are sort of mini-documentaries, showing how the headset can make you feel transported to another world. But I love a large library of feature-length films. Most of what’s out there feels like demo content, usually lasting anywhere from a few minutes to 30 minutes. It’s comfortable to sit inside a huge movie theater and watch them on a massive display that sounds crisp and real to my ears with high-quality native audio. It’s a bit sad that there is no one to share it with (unless you have enough dough for several of them!).

The new chip also offers 10 percent more viewable pixels. This doesn’t mean there are more pixels on the display – they’re the same – it’s just that the chip can show more to your eyes at once. This is part of the foveated rendering used by headsets like Vision Pro. The pixels that keep your eyes focused are sharp, while the system seamlessly reduces quality in your scope. This resulted in faster text in sites and apps, but it wasn’t a dramatic change that I could pick up on.

The figures – the 3D versions of people that launched on the first version – look more detailed and lifelike than ever before. It makes the loneliness feel a little better! But the only people I could chat with were the Apple employees at the briefing. My friends are not visionaries. And they probably won’t unless they cost a lot less.

Then there’s the big promise of Vision Pro: that it’s a new, serious and productive way of working for professionals. You can really get work done using it. Most of the apps I needed were available in the App Store or worked pretty well in the browser. I was able to see all my open apps very clearly, edit the text of reviews in Google Docs, chat with colleagues, and more. And I did it for several hours without eye strain. To the extent that Apple wanted to make a computer for your face, it’s done.

But I don’t really like to use it for a long time. It starts to feel a bit claustrophobic with something substantial on my face after a few hours. I also prefer just being able to do human gestures, like rub the bridge of my nose when I’m frustrated, cover my eyes and ruffle my hair when I make a mistake, or spin around the room with something on my head.

I much prefer sitting on my couch with my dog, typing a review by my side and watching the real world without a headset in my face. Vision Pro may pass through Fair enough For many things—and thanks in no small part to the M5—but I’ll always be talking to someone face-to-face, answering the phone, petting my dog, or taking a walk. Doing anything, really.

The new Vision Pro is fun and sometimes magical, just like the first one. But as Nelle Patel and I said in our earlier reviews back then, it’s lonely out there. I want to share the experience and feel less like I’m in another world and more like I’m in it.

Apple needs to give me a reason to come back. Maybe the company’s push into live sports is one way to help. It will feature NBA games in 2026 that will make you feel like you are sitting courtside. But Apple needs a much smaller and lighter product if it really wants to bridge the gap between “I’ll watch this movie in Vision Pro” and “I’ll just use my Mac.” Hopefully I’ll look less dumb in it too.

Photos by Amelia Holvety Krales/The Verge