The light-pack carries the bulk of the processing power for the ML1, so it is the heaviest object of the bunch. It’s actually quite heavy when you hold it on your hand, but the weight disappears when you clip it in your pocket — this has some trade-offs, however: the pocket-centered design ignores the possibility that users may be wearing things like a dress or more elastic pants that wouldn’t provide a strong grip.

Adding a bit of complexity to the UX are wires that can tangle in the user’s clothes and limbs if they’re not careful. This makes trying out the Magic Leap One a little bit awkward as the user is set up for a potential accident. For example, while I was stress-testing the device the light-pack fell from my pocket at one point due to the type of pants I was wearing and the thick wires briefly choked me as they got stuck around my neck and almost brought the headset down.

Thankfully, Magic Leap sells an optional $30 strap that allows you to wear the light-pack over your shoulder. This option was universally preferred by me and my colleagues due to its friendly and context-agnostic nature, but it should have been a part of the original packet.

Update: While the strap is listed as a $30 item on the website, I was just told by Magic Leap that they’ve been making them free for all those who purchase it with their device. This was unclear at the time of my purchase and I ended up not getting one.

The Magic Leap strap makes it easier for people to exchange headsets quickly

Magic Leap One’s display is great, but a bit less crisp and legible than 2016’s HoloLens. ML1 supports a higher field-of-view than the HoloLens, but it seems to have done it by sacrificing image resolution, wihch can make text cloudy. Its lenses are also considerably darker to compensate for lack of image brightness, which can sometimes remove you too much from the environment.

The display can showcase some occasional visual artifacts at times, the strangest one being an “oily” texture that appears when you’re looking at brightly-colored virtual objects. Artifacts are nothing new in the realm of Mixed Reality, but they will start showing up if you start looking.

Magic Leap has for a long time talked about the “multi-focal light-field” properties of its display, and chances are you won’t notice it in action. Apparently it’s one of those features that is working if you’re not noticing it, so it’s hard to make an assessment of how much of a difference it actually makes.