In handheld Augmented Reality (AR) the magic-lens paradigm is typically implemented by rendering the video stream captured by the back-facing camera onto the device’s screen. Unfortunately, such implementations show the real world from the device’s perspective rather than the user’s perspective, creating a visual mismatch causing the dual-view problem. The dual-view problem is predominantly a result of imagery that is misaligned and incorrectly scaled and has potential to lead to distortions in the user’s spatial perception. This paper presents a user study that analyzes users’ expectations and their ability to deal with the dual-view problem by comparing device-perspective and fixed Point-of-View (POV) user-perspective rendering. The results confirm the existence of the dual-view perceptual issue and that the majority of participants expect user-perspective rendering irrespective of their previous AR experience. Participants also demonstrated significantly better spatial perception and preference of the user-perspective view.