DealExtreme $1.79 anaglyph 3D glasses review
Long time readers of this site will be quite familiar with the concept of anaglyph 3D by now since we’ve written about it before. Those cardboard red/cyan 3D glasses that you find anywhere aren’t the most comfortable though, so luckily there’s a more “professional” option- and it only costs $1.79 shipped worldwide.
Anaglyph 3D is an old tech that has gotten a new life on tablets, but unfortunately many people are unaware of it. For most people, the screen on their tablet is the best screen they have (resolution and physical size aside) due to excellent viewing angles and colors on most top of the line tablets today. The iPad 2, for instance, beats the crap out of any of my other screen with room to spare. That plus apps that are made for anaglyph 3D makes tablets the perfect place for having a bit of cheap fun.
The point of getting a pair of proper 3D glasses like this is comfort and durability. Those cardboard glasses are neither comfortable nor durable and they often have a somewhat small opening so that your entire field of vision isn’t “anaglyphified”. These glasses however are shaped like sports sunglasses, forming around your face to give your entire field of vision a red an cyan color. This makes it much more comfortable to look at anaglyph 3D content and it also makes the 3D effect better due to the larger field of vision.
The glasses themselves are plastic and surprisingly well built for something that costs $1.79 with worldwide shipping included. The hinges for folding them works well and they seem quite durable. The sports type design might not be to everyone’s taste as they wrap around your face quite tightly, but I’m used to such sunglasses and they fit me perfectly.
There isn’t a whole lot to say about these glasses other than that they are well built, works well and are ridiculously cheap. Even if I find 3D video to be a gimmick to no end, 3D images are actually extremely impressive. You get a much better result with sharp, static images than you ever get with video. For less than $2, anyone with a tablet (or any type of screen really) should get a pair just to play around with. The downside is that since it’s DealExtreme, it’s going to take forever to get them. I ordered mine on March (yes, March) 3rd and they only arrived yesterday, a total of 1 month 23 days. The delay was due to them not having them in stock for ages, and then the normal slow transit from Hong Kong. I’ve seen similar glasses other places (for more money) so you might want to loko around, or just have patience and use a cardboard pair in the mean time.
Here are some things you can use the glasses for:
- YouTube 3D
- Anaglyph images on Flickr
- 3D Photos on the App Store (best anaglyph photo iPad app I’ve found)
- HISTORY 3D: Civil War on the App Store (US civil war history app with images)
- Fly Effect 3D HD on the App Store (flying game)
- Anaglyph apps on Android Market
I sincerely hope that anaglyph 3D will take off on tablets as it’s a simple way to have a bit of fun without requiring a $1000 3D TV or a Nintendo 3DS to do so. There are also 3D cameras out there now and plenty of ways to convert those images to anaglyph 3D images, so there are many ways to use these glasses.
