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Creators, developers and extreme early adopters can finally get their hands on a Magic Leap product, the Magic Leap One Creator Edition, for $2,295. Those willing to lay down the price of a low-end used car for an AR headset will find the main Lightwear headset, the Lightpack computing brick, a controller, a Fit Kit to ensure the straps fit well, a quick start guide, and chargers for everything. Price aside, there are a few additional caveats to this early, limited run of units. For starters, they’re only available in certain geographic areas, and when you do buy one, you’ll have to make sure you’re home when it’s delivered, because all units come with expert installation.
The release of the inaugural bit of hardware for the firm goes hand in hand with a few pieces of software to show off its capabilities. One is a musical soul-finding odyssey made in collaboration with longstanding Icelandic rock band Sigur Ros. It centers around the band’s signature sound, and allows users to manipulate ethereal particles. The other piece of software, aptly titled Create, gives users a sandbox in which they can mess about with a vast store of resources, placing them in the real world and setting up some of their behaviors as they please. If you’re familiar with Scribblenauts, it’s essentially that game’s Sandbox Mode, but set in the real world, and with a fixed store of resources that you cannot change with descriptors. Create was made by Magic Leap Studios, the company’s in-house arts and development outfit.
The Magic Leap One Creator Edition, which most likely bears the same hardware and software that will feature on the final retail unit, centers around the purpose-built LuminOS running on NVIDIA’s powerful Parker SOC and 8GB of RAM. There’s also 128GB of storage on board to start with. As to connectivity, the unit has Bluetooth 4.2 on board, as well as the latest Wi-Fi standards, and a USB Type-C port that can be used to charge the built-in battery for up to 7.5 hours of continuous use, according to Magic Leap’s official spec sheet for the new device. This release marks the genesis of the consumer mixed reality space as its own dedicated niche, which means that competitors may start popping up soon.
