Eyes-on with the Myvu Crystal video headset

I'll be perfectly honest with you—I'm not crazy about video "eyewear," as it's called. The crummy, postage stamp-sized images on these things typically give me headaches, the audio's usually worse, and there's, like, no way I'm wearing 'em in public.

In other words, I'm probably the wrong person to be reviewing Myvu's new, top-of-the-line headset, the Crystal. As good as the Crystal is compared to other headsets I've tried, they've done nothing to change my bad attitude about video eyewear in general. So let's just take all that as a given, and move on.

Anyway, you may remember that Gina took a crack at an older Myvu headset way back in December 2006, and in some ways, the new Crystal setup isn't all that different.

The glasses themselves are still relatively light and thin—indeed, it's easy to peer above and beneath the virtual screen to see what's happening in the real world, which is always a good thing (although you'd be crazy to try running, cycling, or—no, don't even think about it—driving with the headset on).

Unfortunately, you must also deal with the same ungainly mess of wires, including two that stretch from the headset to a central control unit, and then another wire from the central unit to your iPod, iPhone, Zune, or what have you (various adapters are available)—an awkward setup, no matter how you slice it.

OK, but how does the actual display look? Well ... better than before, but still not that great.

The Crystal is capable of VGA resolution—that's four times the resolution of the QVGA Myvu headset that Gina tested 18 months ago—which makes for a relatively tight-looking image, especially compared to the painfully low-rez, Lite-Brite-esque pictures I've seen in other video headsets.

And this time around, watching the virtual display didn't give me an instant headache; indeed, after more than 30 minutes of viewing, I had yet to go cross-eyed. (Adjustable clip-ons are available for those who wear glasses.)

That said, the Crystal's picture quality still looked shaky and washed-out to my eyes, and the 4:3 aspect ratio means that widescreen movies and TV shows must be either cropped or letterboxed (making the already smallish-looking image appear even tinnier). A pair of four-step brightness and contrast controls help, but not a lot.

Meanwhile, I was pretty unhappy with the weak, muddy sound from the Ultimate Ears-made earbuds—and no, you can swap them out with your own earbuds.

Finally, the Crystal only packs in about 4.5 hours of battery life, and trying to watch video on a completely drained headset while it's charging is a non-starter—the 701's died on me within minutes.

Overall, I'd have to say that Myvu's Crystal 701 boasts the best image quality I've seen in a video headset yet—BUT (and this is a serious "but") it still can't compete with the picture quality and convenience of the best mobile video displays (such as those on an iPhone or iPod Touch). Even if we're talking about the tiny screen on an iPod Nano or a Sansa View, the hassle of dealing with the Crystal's wires and so-so image quality just aren't worth it, especially given the $299 price tag.

That said, if you're dead-set on video eyewear, the Crystal 701 probably belongs on your shortlist—although I'd suggest also trying the Zeiss Cinemizer, another VGA-quality headset that I have yet to try (check out this head-to-head at Gizmodo).

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