So I recent bought myself a Vuzix Wrap 310 as a Christmas present and I thought I'd write up a little review. I found it online on sale for $200 so I snapped up the deal quick. I was initially planning on getting the Wrap 920 (which lists for $350) but it wasn't available at the time and the Wrap 310 just seemed like the better deal. It came to my place fast, in only a few days, since the store I got it from was in NYC like me. Sweet. Read on to hear find out whats in the package.

Now I got the unit and busted open the box quick. If you haven't seen my unboxing video you can check that out here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5312. The retail box is fairly compact and looks pretty nice. Once opening the box you can see the glasses and under a cardboard flap are the accessories. These include the battery holder/control unit, 2 AA batteries, an RCA adapter, an iPod adapter, and the headphones. Not a bad presentation so far. I was a bit surprised as to the size of the glasses, they are a bit bigger than they appear in the promotional photos. I mean, they look sleek, but I doubt they could pass for regular sunglasses. Still they are a lot more sporty than something like the VR920 Geordi LaForge style glasses.

So now I got my iPod and plugged everything in as instructed in the manual. At this point I am already a bit distressed as to all the cabling involved. First there is the thick cable connecting the glasses to the controller. Then another cable to connect the controller to the iPod. Then there are two cables to the headphones. Just trying the glasses on at the point felt a bit cumbersome and not the sleek portable experience I was expecting. Still I haven't tried out a video yet so lets see how that goes.

Now I load up a video, naturally my favorite anime at the moment, Ergo Proxy. I had to adjust the glasses a bit to get the picture in view. If I wear the glasses the normal comfortable way then the top half of the screen gets cut off and I can't see it. It helped if I pulled the nose-piece out as far as it could go but even then the picture is slightly obscured. The only way to get it in view is to set the arms above my ear an inch or two. Luckily the glasses are tight on the face so it stays firm in that position. I also had this same problem with the VR920 so maybe it is just my face, I don't know. Another issue was that the video on one screen was darkened with negative-like effect. This is a classic issue with cheap LCD displays when you leave the proper viewing angle. I could fix this by pushing the glasses to one side or the other. However then the opposite screen would become negative. I found a decent compromise and then bent the nose-piece to keep the position. Even so it is difficult to have both screens in perfect colors. This seems like a design flaw to me and its hard to believe I'm the only one with this problem. If the screens could be adjusted independently to the left or right I think that would solve this issue. On a positive note I was surprised at how clear and in focus the screens looked even though I was not wearing my prescription glasses. There is an diopter adjustment but I didn't even have to use it. The default looked fine.

Then I tried some different content, some Ghost in the Shell, some music videos. I noticed that dark/negative effect only happens on dark videos. On bright videos or scenes it doesn't really happen much. After wearing the glasses for a little bit I was also able to get them more comfortably on my face with the screen in view. But how does the screen look? Lot so bad actually. The colors were spot on and the motion was smooth. Especially for a device with a native resolution of 428 x 240 the picture appears surprisingly high resolution. Well with QVGA content it looked pretty shabby as you would expect but with VGA content in looked very nice. I guess there is some good downscaling going on and the video appeared to be at least 640 x 480. Well what about the screen size? Vuzix claims its like a 55 inch screen from 10 feet, which is technically true, but it doesn't feel that big. I did some tests and the screen appears the same size as a 32 inch from 6 feet or a 22 inch from 4 feet. In reality the virtual screen appears to be about 10 inches floating maybe 1 foot in front of your face. Pretty small compared to the advertised "big-screen" experience but still much bigger than the iPod nano's 2.5 inch screen. Even so it was still an acceptable size and subtitles were easily readable.

The audio quality was surprisingly good and went really loud. The quality killed the Apple iPod headphones and still could compete with the Senhiesser inner-ear headphones. Voices were clear, music sounded good. I don't see any reason not to use the built-in headphones.

How about 3D video? The unit supports 5 types of 3d video (on paper at least). Side-by-side (parallel or cross-eye), 3 types of anaglyph (red/blue, red/green, and blue/amber) and Vuzix Auto 3D which has something to do with encoding a watermark into the video but there is no documentation for this. I tried to get some side-by-side video to play but I couldn't get it to work. I tried with one video that was compressed half aspect ratio in side-by-side and also another that was just side-by-side full aspect. Neither would work. I tried the same videos at QVGA and VGA resolution with the same results. This is pretty disappointing because I was hoping I could use this to share with people some of my 3D videos but hopefully I will figure this out at some point. I did get some anaglyph video to play and it looked surprisingly good but I didn't buy an HMD to watch anaglyph video.

So whats the verdict? I give it 2.5 out of 5 stars. It had a lot of potential but some design flaws and usability issues get in the way. The screens could be a lot better quality but still look decent and beat out the built-in screen on the iPod for sure. If you frequently take plane rides or long bus rides I could see this as a decent alternative to the iPod screen. It could also be nice for watching content while laying in bed. And of course, you could be watching porno on a crowded train and no one would know. But for metropolitan commuters I feel the whole setup might be a little cumbersome unless you are on the same train for more than an hour. The screens are also not see-through like initially promised so walking around on the street with these things is probably out of the question. I mean, I could get around the house while wearing them alright but walking around the city with them might be dangerous. All in all not the worst buy for $200 and I think I will still have some fun with this kit. However it falls short of what has been advertised and I was really hoping Vuzix would have made some improvements over past models. Still a decent, if not somewhat flawed, product.

cool review thanks!

Great review so far. Looking forward to eventual videogaming possibilities. It accepts only vga? Then maybe iz3d side-by-side should do it?

Nice! Thanks!

Please keep us updated on the side-by-side 3D ability (or inability).

So I got 3D video to finally work. I had to master my 720P video at VGA (640 x 480) side-by-side, meaning each view was 320 x 480 at squished aspect ratio. Then when viewing on the Wrap 310 in 3D mode it would properly separate the two views and restore the proper 16:9 aspect ratio. My problem before was that I was using wide-screen videos and the iPod only supports up to 640x480 (although the video will still import and just play with the sides chopped off). The glasses themselves support 16:9 but I don't think the iPod does at high resolutions.

Also, I forgot to mention: the glasses only work on video content when using an iPod. You cannot see the iPod menus or apps/games with the glasses. They are video only.


I would need to get a $40 adapter to connect via VGA and I am not sure if its worth it. Might be an interesting experiment, but I already have the VR920 which are better for gaming anyway. Technically the Wrap310 should work with the iz3D driver in side-by-side mode, though. However if someone really wanted an HMD for gaming I would recommend the VR920 over these glasses for a number of reasons. For gaming the VR920 has its own 3D driver and also support on the iz3D driver. The VR920 screens are also higher resolution and I believe they look slightly bigger. VR920 has headtracking. There is also the immersion shield on the VR920. Just two different products really. Plus the VR920 sells for around $300 and the Wrap 310 retail for $250 (but the VGA adapter retails for $50) making them like the same price. No contest for gaming. That said I might still get the VGA adapter just to mess around with, we'll see.

Thanks for the nice review. I always wanted to try a pair of those. That's awesome that you have a pair of VR920's too ... are they really satisfying for S3D gaming? ... how do you think they compare to sitting close to a projector screen running a S3D gamewith Nividia 3dVision at at least XGA and with headtracking added on??? Eric

The VR920's are cool for what they are but in no way do they compare with a 3D projector. They can just barely compare with a 22" 3D screen. The headtracking is cool on the few games it works on but if I want to play serious I turn it off. If you are choosing between a 22" screen (zalman/iz3d, etc) or the VR920 I'd say go with the 22". However if you already have a large display (24"+) and don't want to downgrade just for 3D than maybe the VR920 would be enough to hold you over until better (bigger) 3D displays hit the market. I am just waiting for Vuzix to release a truly immersive device, I'm hoping they do one day.

Yeah, the negative thing is due to our facial shape and eye separation distance being a bit different from what it was designed for. I have this fixed on my VR920 helmet I am working on, I might make a quick guide to do just the distance fix.