#MWC25: The 3D Display Revolution Lives On

This past week, we wandered through the buzzing halls of Mobile World Congress 2025 (#MWC25) and 4YFN in Barcelona (March 3-6, 12025), with new cutting-edge tech bringing us excitement for new products.

We saw it all up close—and our in-house tech geeks can’t wait to offer you some of these products in our store. Here’s what we discovered, straight from the front lines.

Don’t discard glasses so soon

As we entered #MWC25, we were in for a surprise: 3D displays with glasses are still alive and thriving. We were mesmerized by a modular LED panel, with perfect images without any ghosting (less than 2%) that looked much sharper than the real number of pixels the LED modules had. We thought 3D with glasses couldn’t get any better, and this proved us wrong.

With these modular LED panels, it is possible to make large-scale projects with displays of up to 200 square meters, while being easy to install for temporal events. This allows not only theaters for 3D movies, but also conferences, exhibitions, stages, and many other events and possibilities.

But there are also smaller and more types of displays and applications, for all kinds of uses and needs, both with and without glasses. You may see some of them soon in our store.

Stereoscopic Gaming

ZTE this time showcased two Redmagic 3D Notebook, one with an LED display on the lid (showing the hour and status). There were powerful notebooks showcasing 3D games and movies (you were able to play Tomb Raider), there was no ghosting or blurriness when the game was moving fast. Using the same LeiaSR technology than Acer SpatialLabs, the 3D images looked similar to Acer solutions. But the eye-tracking is really outstanding, you can move very fast and not lose the 3D image. You can be far or near, or at a side of the display and still enjoy the 3D image. The notebooks were full Redmagic products, but still not known when they will be released.

On the other hand, the Samsung LightField display offered a different approach than the Samsung Odyssey from CES. The images showed were a CGI animation. This lightfield display almost equals the LeiaSR 3D resolution, impressive for a lightfield display. Strangely, they added eye-tracking to the lightfield display, but even with that combination the visualization angles and distance to the display were stricter than the Redmagic’s displays. Even more, when you move it easily loses the effect. But it was clearly a prototype, Samsung wants to release as a product in the near future as the Odyssey, so its Stereoscopic lineup will increase with more options. This demonstrates Samsung is compromised into creating a 3D ecosystem like Acer.

Lenovo also showcased a 3D notebook concept focused on productivity. Like zSpace, the ThinkBook 3D Laptop emphasizes hand interaction with 3D images, but instead of a pen, Lenovo designed a specialized AI Ring for more natural control. Ideal for creative professionals, it enables hands-free navigation, manipulation, and adjustment of 3D models. The AI Ring features high-precision sensors for AI-driven motion tracking, allowing users to rotate objects, zoom, and interact with 3D environments through simple hand movements. The laptop’s hybrid 3200×2000 display boasts 100% DCI-P3 color gamut coverage for accurate visuals. However, its market release remains uncertain.

Headsets Redefining Reality

Mixed Reality

We tried Varjo’s latest rig at the TCL stand, over 1500 pixels per inch, crystalline clarity even showing the real world in 3D without noise and good brightness. Every detail was sharp, but the tracking was not so good, it was a wired headset. The price is even higher than Apple Vision Pro, but we think Vision Pro is much better.

Vive

Then we went to the Vive stand and tested Vive Focus Vision, blending mixed reality into something almost magical, even having in theory less pixel density than Varjo’s. Furthermore, not only the virtual images were clear, the real-world 3D visuals were super-realistic without distortions, with almost no noise to break the spell, and the virtual models were so crisp we can read tiny text etched into them.

The headset boasts a 2448×2448 resolution per eye, in a 120-degree canvas, and it has eye-tracking. It can be used standalone (Android, not Android XR, 128 GB internal memory with 1 TB microSD support, 90Hz), or as a PCVR headset (120Hz), it can connect to PC wireless, or wired via DisplayPort, for a pixel perfect image. It boasts a good 3D audio solution and also a pair of microphones with noise and echo cancellation. In terms of comfort, we felt the headset as the most comfortable we have tested ever. Considering all the specs, we think the $1200 price they are asking for it is a good deal. With all the possibilities, it’s an excellent purchase.

Other specs are Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2 BLE, 12 GB LPDDR5, 4 tracking cameras (+2 for eye-tracking), auto-IPD (from 57 to 72 mm), audio jack output, infrared sensor so it can track your movements in the darkness, hot-interchangeable battery, fast charge (50% in 30 min).

We were free to inspect a formula 1 car, and we were able to crouch and bring our head closer to the steering wheel to read the small texts on the buttons, it looked perfect. The tracking was also much better than Varjo (but Vision Pro is still unbeatable)… and the headset is wireless.

We were really impressed by this headset: It surpasses all other consumer VR and Mixed Reality headsets, is like to having a Vision Pro but for a third of the price. It is a standalone (Android, not Android XR) and also works as a wireless PCVR headset (the better use case, if you want to unleash all its potential).

Vive is also making great efforts of all kinds to widespread Virtual and Mixed Reality, not only with their headsets, their developments are interoperable, so anyone can enjoy them with their headset of other brands. The Vive stand opened our eyes and see Vive as real heroes that really want to improve the Mixed Reality ecosystem for everybody. Just the opposite than other popular “metaverse” brand (of which we are preparing an article with worrying revelations).

Vive showcased Multi-user location-based experiences, Vive Host, Viverse, Gaussian-splating based digital twins with AI 3D avatars and hot spots analytics, Vive Mars (to create virtual environments from a single photo, and also add interactive special effects)… These are some technologies present on the stand.

We want to highlight Viverse Build & Play which allows creating public virtual environments for Viverse, no matter the headset (we even made in the past a world in Viverse through our browser in Stereoscopic 3D with the old nvidia 3d vision, so no need for a VR headset, that’s the level of openness).

Spatial Computing (aka Apple Vision Pro competitors)

There was the Chinese Vision Pro clone, but we found is only a clone in external design, the resolution was good, similar to the Pico 4 Ultra. It came with a hand pointer and there was a video player for watching the trailer of Avatar (in 3D, of course), the 3D and color quality was wonderful. As a media player for Spatial & 3D content, this headset could be enough for many, but clearly the Pico 4 Ultra is a better full Spatial Computing device than this media player.

And then there was Samsung’s Android XR headset, which it will bring full Spatial Computing, only they were actually mock-ups with no functionality. There was no demo or information of any kind. When asked, there were no additional details beyond what Google said several months ago, not even an approximate release date. This demonstrates how ahead of its time the Apple Vision Pro is, offering a finished product with great features 1 year ago (2 years if we count from its presentation date, even then, demonstrations to press were already fully functional), while the competition still does not have functional prototypes nor are they expected soon, certainly not for this year. And the privacy-friendly AI Apple Intelligence is arriving in a few weeks, making the deceptive Android XR presentation even worse. Which makes it very likely that by the time it comes out, Apple will have already released a cheaper version of its viewer, or even a better second generation.

Tools to widespread Holographic Calls

Over at #4YFN, one innovation stole our hearts: a simple SDK for holographic calls. We watched our face as a 3d model in a call from iPhone to other iPhone (thanks to its TrueDepth cameras). With a few lines of code, any developer can integrate it into their code to make 3D calls to Looking Glass, SpatialLabs, iPhone Spatial Display, VR headsets, or any 3D display you can imagine. We can’t wait until the Stereoscopic 3D Community starts making a universal Holographic Calling App interoperable from-to all 3D displays. Here you can ask for access to it: Holoh — Redefining Presence.

Haptics that grabbed our attention

Next, we found ourselves at NTT Docomo’s booth, where they unveiled a haptic experience that felt like something out of a futuristic dream. It reminded us of 4D E-motion cinema, but dialed up for home use—vibrations and textures danced under our fingertips as we tested it out, also on the seat. Obviously, hanging something while watching a movie isn’t realistic, but integrating it on the gamepad while playing your favorite Stereoscopic 3D games can be a thing.

Roaming between #MWC25’s sprawling exhibits and #4YFN’s hopeful illusion, we felt excited about the new technologies. Barcelona turned into a playground for our senses this week.