Our first experience of video goggles are the Ezgear Ezvision unit coupled with a 5G video iPod. The premise is simple enough, why would you strain to watch a small 2.5" screen on the front of your iPod or other video / MP3 player when Ezgear claim that their small screens worn at eye level are the equivalent of a 50" plasma TV?

Open up the package and you are confronted by a set of what we can only describe as Geordie La Forge glasses (he was the blind chap in Star Trek Next Generation) . They aren't ugly and are nicely styled in silver, but when you don them you do look like Stevie Wonder on steroids and you will be the centre of attention. The glasses themselves are accompanied by a power pack which is also nicely styled in black with a blue power LED, this pack also acts as the video connection point and power source for the goggles.

Perhaps our biggest challenge with the Ezvision glasses was getting them comfortable. The arms are a good fit and grip the side of the head well enough, so there is no chance of the glasses slipping off and onto the floor. However the nose bridge seemed to dig a little bit and it took a fair bit of fiddling to get them comfortable as the 68 grams of weight rests on your nose. This was more of an issue for one of our colleagues who just couldn't get comfy, while the chap who was visiting from the USA who's glasses these were raved about their comfort and how he'd watched a movie on the flight over. Our conclusion can only be that it really does depend on the shape of your face and therefore just how comfortable you'll find the Ezvision specs.

Performance is really rather good, the 320 x 240 pixel resolution may not sound much but each of eye level screens are at the perfect viewing distance so that the resolution seems more than enough. Both colour and brightness seem about right and the clips we tested with seemed accurate and also lively, there was only a small amount of smearing on movement and the unit seems on a par with an LCD telly, but not up to the standards of a good CRT. Our only negative comment on image quality is the contrast which seems limited and as such black just isn't black enough which becomes noticeable on movies with dark scenes where it can be tricky to make out the action.

Audio is not the poor relation in these video goggles either, Ezgear have incorporated a reasonably good set of earphones which are all cabled together rather neatly and the earbuds drop down on cables from the glasses frame. Plus the sound good too easily as good if not better than the standard iPod earbuds and they are a nice comfortable fit too.

Battery life is quite impressive as the unit relies entirely on it's own power cell which is contained within the main pack, this we are reliably informed will easily last a whole flight of around 8 hours, which is far more then most video playback devices.

We were however less than impressed that despite all the extra bits of kit you get in the package there is no method of securing the power pack to your body, so it' left flapping about and we are afraid open to a bit of damage unless you are careful. While the system comes with the right leads for you iPod Ezgear have also provided a composite video connector cable meaning you can hook up most video equipment.

Overall this is a good package, we have concerns on the ability to get a good fit and this is something we feel could be improved with a range of detachable nose bridge pads, other than that this is a good bit of kit ideal for long journeys where you might want to watch a movie of your choosing but without straining your eyes on a tiny screen.

Priced at $399 they are not readily available in the UK and the distributor for Ezgear (Envious) do not list them yet on their site, however we expect top see them soon and they'd make a good extra for those who travel or perhaps even play games?

Published - 23/07/2006

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