Spacetop replaces the screen of traditional laptops with floating virtual windows.
It’s the first product from startup Sightful, founded by ex-Magic Leap executives Tamir Berliner and Tomer Kahan, which was in “stealth mode” until now.
A slightly modified version of the Nreal Light AR glasses comes with Spacetop, permanently tethered, and slots into grooves above the keyboard when not in use. The lid is shaped around the glasses so you can fold it up with the glasses securely docked.
The device runs Sightful’s proprietary Spacetop OS operating system that lets you spawn large floating web browser windows around you instead of being hunched over a traditional laptop screen switching through tabs.
As we noted in our review of Nreal Light however, the limited field of view of current transparent AR optics means you’ll only see all these 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 like Quest Pro, but the upside is the glasses weigh just 100 grams.
Spacetop is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, the chipset the Snapdragon XR2 (used in headsets like Quest 2 and Pico 4) is based on. The much larger battery and cooling area means its CPU is clocked at 3.1 GHz, higher than in headsets, but you should still expect performance more akin to a Chromebook than a high-end laptop. The chipset is paired with 8GB RAM and 256GB onboard storage.
Spacetop supports Wi-Fi 6 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 is claiming a 5+ hour battery life and USB-C PD charging that can charge the device from 0% to 85% in less than 2 hours. 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.
Sightful is currently selling 1000 pre-launch units of the device called ‘Spacetop Early Access’, priced at $2000, which it claims will ship from July. The startup says feedback from buyers will “tailor the device hardware and software experience” and “directly influence the launch of Spacetop V1”.
