Spacetop G1 replaces the screen of traditional laptops with floating virtual screens via built-in AR glasses.
It’s an upgraded version of the Spacetop Early Access which shipped last year to “hundreds” of early adopters. The startup behind the device, Sightful, says it will upgrade all Early Access 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.
The laptop part of Spacetop G1 features a full-size keyboard and 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 a 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 typically won’t be able to actually see all those screens at once. The built-in tethered AR glasses are the Xreal Air 2 Ultra with 6DoF tracking, 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.
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Unlike in this concept, the limited field of view means you can’t see all the screens at once.
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 from October for $1900. For the next week you can reserve one for a $100 refundable deposit and get a $200 discount. Sightful claims you can cancel at any time before your Spacetop G1 ships.
