Late last year Sony's hardware division revealed a new device that piqued the interests of the tech-enthusiast community -- a wearable display packing two HD OLED screens and surround sound for head-mounted 3D HDMI-connected viewing. The HMZT1, marketed as the "Personal 3D Viewer" launched in Japan in November and was more recently priced for a US launch in February, but Sony have now let us know that it is actually coming to Australia soon as well.

The HMZT1 boasts a wide horizontal viewing angle of 45 degrees by incorporating an optical lens that suppresses unwanted aberration and distortion. This puts a cinema style virtual screen in front of the viewer’s eyes, creating the equivalent of a 750-inch screen (virtual viewing distance 20m).

The design of this device is such that it results in a feeling of deep immersion with any information unrelated to viewing being isolated. Light from below the HMZT1 can also be intercepted by using the accompanying light shield (shade plate), thereby further enhancing the feeling of being in a movie theatre for the viewer.

Sony have set the Australian RRP at AUD$899 (in contrast to the USD$799 North American RRP) and will be accepting pre-orders from January 27th 2012 via the sony.com.au online store -- no other Australian retailers were mentioned in the media release.

We're yet to try one out for ourselves, but the device has been receiving some warm welcomes from the gadget and games community, including id Software programming legend John Carmack who tweeted "Sony HMZ-T1 OLED displays are excellent:1280x720 real pixels with no resampling, great color, response so fast I notice new artifacts".