Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Meta Quest 3 Review: Great Upgrades, But We Need More New Apps”.
Our favorite headset has been The Meta Quest 2 for years now, there’s an update, the meta Quest 3 and a year full of VR headsets. How does this new one compare, and is it the one to get over the Quest 2? Here’S what you need to know so I’ve been using the meta Quest 3 for about a week so far and there’s a lot of things that I’m observing. The first thing you need to know is: what’s new? Well, there’s a lot of upgrades here. First of all, there’s a new processor, qualcom, Snapdragon, xr2, Gen, 2, better graphics, better speed, there’s higher resolution, better lenses, they’re clearer. It’S got a wider field of view. It’S got added cameras here. The controllers are smaller, but what meta is really pushing here is mixed reality. Mixed reality is the ability to blend virtual reality. With what your cameras on your headset see in the real world, it’s called pass through mixed reality, as opposed to when, when you wear an AR glasses setup that allows you to actually see the real world with ghostly AR images overlap and it’s the type of technology That you’re going to see on the Apple Vision, Pro and probably future VR headsets, because qualcomm’s Chip is going to be in a lot of others down the line.
One fun thing is: I can actually show you what mixed reality looks like thanks to the fact that the quest 3 can capture that footage and send it over to the phone app. The Meta Quest 3 basically gives you the type of experience with mixed reality. That’S sort of like what magically promised way back the ability to mesh your room, to scan your environment and to layer virtual things into it. There are a couple of apps that already do this.
One is a demo game app that meta has on the quest 3 called first encounters that allows you to have things crash out of the walls into your room and you’re shooting little creatures, and it’s it’s the most wild and fun demo. That’S on the headset right now, it’s it’s great, but also it can feel a little bit gimmicky. The question is: what else are you going to do with it? Well, the quest Pro met.
His ey tracking headset that came out last year also did some mixed reality, but there’s a depth. Sensing camera here, in addition to much improved color cameras that make that mixed reality feel more real met, is betting that you’ll care about that. But we need the apps and the games and the experiences that are going to make us feel what that difference is right.
Now week, one I’ve only seen a handful of apps that are using it, not a lot of killer apps, I’m really ious how well it gets introduced on a larger scale across meta’s software platform. How does it differ from the Quest 2? Well, this is the thing in good ways and bad ways. It’S basically the same proposition. It runs Quest 2 apps. It has the same software ecosystem. You can run those games.
You have the same type of screen with all the apps anything that you’re used to with what VR is on the quest that’s carrying over into the quest 3, that also kind of makes it feel like an upgraded phone or a tablet. So in that that sense, I was expecting maybe a little bit more of a transformed environment. It does start in mixed reality, but meta kind of did that a little bit before on the Quest 2 and the quest Pro the quest 2’s design is kind of similar to The Quest 3. Even though it is smaller uh up front, it’s got about the same weight. It has a similar type of strap attachment, so it’s elastic straps and you can pop out other types of accessories and add them on. If you want like an elite strap, the controllers are smaller, so they got rid of that big plastic tracking ring, but the grip and the button placement everything pretty much is the same.
Otherwise, which is great. If you really like the feel of the Quest 2 controllers, it still charges with USBC, it still has a headphone jack and it still puts a little uh audio into your ear through these speakers that are near your ear that people can hear. But it’s a little bit like it’s intimate. The quest 3 does not have eye tracking, neither does the Quest 2. The quest Pro does and Apple’s Vision Pro and the PlayStation VR to do have eye tracking. Now, it’s not a really big loss right now, but if you’re looking for a way to transform your interactions with VR, it could be a Miss down the road, because apple is betting, that it tracking plus hand tracking equals a whole new interface.
Meta does have hand tracking that’ll probably get better, but there is no eye tracking, so you may want to still default to those controllers battery life. It’S expected to be about the same, which is about 2 hours more or less so far. I found that it’s enough to play for a while in the evening and then I’m going to want to look to charge it up. The controllers still use AA batteries, much like the Quest 2 and those had a really good battery life or you could even put in these fancy contactless batteries for charging. But those come with the quest 3 charging dock from meta which I’m showing off right here. Very nice and very expensive, it’s $ 130.
That’S a lot of money. There are a number of accessories that met is already selling for the quest 3, ranging from an elite strap that has a better fit. There’S an elite strap with battery pack, which I didn’t try.
There’S a carrying case there’s this charge dock. Those are all going to cost you $ 70 for the case $ 1, 130 for the charge dock $ 70 for the elite strap and the base model of the quest 3 is $ 500. If you want to get the one with 512 GB of storage – that’s $ 650! So if you start buying a lot of accessories, this could be close to $ 1,000 proposition. That’S a lot of money, but you could get in with just the $ 500 one and charge it up with USBC and just get some type of a case, maybe a cheaper one. I would recommend a case and you don’t really need all the other stuff. Let’S take a moment and think about the future, what is going to happen in VR and AR down the road? Well, it’s a big unknown, of course, but there are a lot of products coming next year. Those products are going to likely Define a new landscape for computing, maybe with Apple’s case, certainly floating 2D apps, and an app ecosystem.
Samsung and Google might try to do the same. Where does that leave meta? Is it some sort of advanced Computing platform? Well, you already can use this as a monitor for working uh on your computer, just like you can with the Quest 2. The resolution on this display is more than good enough for doing work in and even for watching TV shows and floating them in your room with you.
It’S not Cinema quality in the way that I felt with the Apple Vision Pro, but that’s a $ 3500 headset. The interesting thing here is that for $ 3,000, less, yes $ 3,000 less, you could get a lot of those experiences to play around with for 500. Bucks and meta also has a number of fitness apps that type of full motion activity, stuff boxing or beat saer, which has not been updated for mixed reality.
Yet those things are what make the quest a really interesting proposition compared to PlayStation, VR2 or even Apple Vision. Pro down the road you know in 2020 it was a no-brainer upgrade. The Quest 2 was a better product and it was $ 100 less expensive. Now the quest 3 is a better product all around and will probably be the best VR headset at this price, but it is $ 200 more now, if you have a Quest 2 right now, I think you’re, okay, waiting, because a lot of the apps right now Have not been updated and the quest 3 is going to wait for those apps and if not a lot of people own it. Yet maybe developers are not going to all jump on board unless meta pushes them, but next year 6 months down the road it could all change.
The quest has evolved over time and adding hand tracking adding all sorts of experimental features met is going to be adding AI features on board this next year, so this could really turn into a very different product and at some point The Quest 2 won’t be supported And this will be the product, this $ 500 device, it’s remarkable what it includes on it and all the features and the resolution and everything else that makes it a really really cool product. Maybe not a must have upgrade yet, but I bet by the time all these headsets hit next year. This will still be the most affordable one, and that makes it a real, really interesting device game console.
Whatever else you want it to be to explore AR and VR as a game console, it’s definitely iterative, but I think it’s going to become one of the best gaming VR experiences that’s around oh, and by the way did I mention it also works with your PC. So, for that alone and for its high resolution, it could be an excellent pick. So here are things I like and dislike about the quest 3. What I like, the graphics, are better the display and the lenses are a lot better and it can do mixed reality, which is a really cool trick.
What I don’t like it’s $ 200 more expensive. The battery life has not changed and meta hasn’t figured out any other way that this will work with apps and other software ecosystems. That’S any different than the way Quest already did anyway. If you have more questions or comments, leave them below we’re going to keep following the quest 3 over time and see how it evolves, because there’s going to be a lot more stuff down the road.
That’S going to be really interesting to check out and make sure to like And subscribe thanks for watching .