I manage a lab with a dozen Microsoft Hololens 2 headsets (which cost us $3,500 each to buy last year) and I can tell you the Apple Vision Pro does indeed compete with and yet is light years ahead of Microsoft’s AR attempt.
I am getting exactly the same feeling I had when the original iPhone was released when at the time I was on my 3rd expensive Windows Mobile PDA phone.
Yes, My O2 XDA II had a 3.5” touchscreen like the iPhone, but it was horrifically clunky and low tech in comparison to the multi-touch, capacitive screen and elegant overall vision of the iPhone.
The HoloLens 2 is exactly the same - right down to having a clunky Windows Mobile-like interface compared to the gorgeous visionOS of the Apple headset.
The open visor design of the Hololens is its weakest feature as it makes it impossible to use outside in broad daylight as the screens just can’t compete in brightness. It also means the angle of view is terribly constrained with graphics limited to a small box in front of you with none of the immersive wrap-around graphics of the Vision Pro.
Those who have used the Apple headset report it is easily 180 degrees of view extending right out to your peripheral vision. The Hololens in contrast feels like I’m looking through a keyhole at low rez grainy, pixelated graphics from 2 decades ago.
in addition, you have to hold your hands and arms up and point and pinch at objects in front of you getting massive “gorilla arm” fatigue as you try to type or manipulate objects. With the Vision Pro, it is your eyes that are the mouse, moving around the interface instantly with your arms relaxed in your lap or on the table or couch arm rest with just your fingers simply pinching to select and doing short subtle moves to drag. Far quicker and vastly more relaxed.
The HoloLens just doesn’t compare.