Meta - Quest 3 Breakthrough Mixed Reality - 128GB - White

An extreme improvement over the Quest 2. If you are into VR, this is a must have. I fell into the world of VR a little over a year ago, primarily to play a game called VRChat. A few hundred hours later, and we're still here, having a blast every day. When the Quest 3 was announced, I was a little hesitant on upgrading, but in the end, I am glad that I did. While there are a few downsides, they upsides highly outrank them. Let's talk about the pros; - Resolution is INSANELY better than the Quest 3. The picture is much nicer and everything is sharper and clearer. - The pancake lenses are a huge step up from the Quest 2 lenses. There is much less chromatic aberration, and no blurriness when not looking directly in the center of the lenses. You can look all around and it will be clear everywhere. Whites and blacks are much sharper with a lot less light bleed as the Quest 2. - The passthrough is not even comparable. With the Quest 3 you have full color passthrough, and it's pretty darn good. I am able to read my phone, read my computer monitors, DJ in VR all while wearing the headset. No longer do I have to peek through the nose hole to try and see anything. - While I do not play standalone Quest, I imagine the performance is much better, as the chipset is a huge upgrade over the Quest 2. - The controllers are much better than the Quest 2, no longer requiring those large obnoxious rings. The tracking also feels much better. Now for some cons! - The battery life is not as good as the Quest 2, but it's easily remedied with external battery packs. I was already doing this with my Quest 2, so not a big deal to me. - Not a huge fan of the facial interface, and there are not any aftermarket options that are as good as the Q2 aftermarket ones. No biggie, support will come eventually. - The headstrap is not as comfortable as the Quest 2, however I replaced mine with a BoboVR headstrap immediately, and that fixed any issues there. Very comfortable headset with that. I've done many 7+ hour stints with 0 sign of pain. - May require a better PC setup if you are a PCVR'er! As a personal example, using my Quest 2, I would be able to run ~50/60FPS in very populated rave worlds using my 3080 Ti. Now, I experience around 30 frames in these same worlds with the same settings. This is definitely due to the increase in resolution. It pushed me to purchase a 4090 however, so this is a non-issue for me any longer, but something to keep in mind. All in all, I really enjoy this headset and I'm not sure there are any other headsets that come close - if you want to stay wireless. If I was playing wired, I would probably opt for the Bigscreen VR headset, but I enjoy the freedom that comes with wireless, so the Quest 3 is it for me! The attached picture shows my primary setup for VRChat. I 3D printed an adapter for the Vive 3.0 tracker to mount to the HMD. As I play PCVR primarily, I have swapped to Index controllers, as well, but the Q3 controllers will still work with PCVR no problem! If you're an enthusiast into VR, definitely check it out.

The Quest 3 is an amazing piece of technology. I wasn't wowed at first, but the additions detailed below helped me to optimize my device into a daily development tool and entertainment center that I am now wowed by every day. It's a device that feels like looking into the future, but as a modern device of the present, in reality it does have some limitations and hangups, which are luckily easy to fix and improve upon. At first impression, I can't lie that I was a bit underwhelmed; having already owned the original Oculus Rift and being a few gens behind, I was expecting some sort of immediate quantum leap forward. I was let down instantly by the resolution of the passthrough cams, as well as the Mixed Reality demo app in comparison to the original VR demo app ("First Encounters" was only kind of cool due to the current MR resolution restrictions and simple gameplay, it didn't feel like playing the future in the same way as the retro robot VHS demo for the older systems, but the new "First Hand" hand tracking demo app I played later on is very impressive). Where the mixed reality element shines is the quick passthrough to look around you, and maybe plop a screen up while doing something where you don't need to see any secondary screen around you in reality (other digital screens are often illegible in passthrough mode). The idea this will be worn while consistently doing many other things around the house or office every day is still a bit of a stretch imo: the MR elements are not quite there, they are simply a useful improvement and tool to test, not quite a selling point at the moment. This is the only thing that can't really be improved upon as a purchaser - yet. Also important to note was my initial consideration of whether I really needed the $500 minimum upgrade in my VR headset. How much of a difference did the new lenses actually make VERSUS the inconvenience of paying for, learning, and connecting this new wireless device to a computer for a stable PCVR experience? The Quest 3 as-is could barely go more than an hour in PCVR mode even when directly connected, let alone Airlink, and it didn't seem to offer any great advantage to PCVR itself, which seemed like a dealbreaker to me. After testing for a few days, at first I didn't feel like I truly needed the upgrade and considered returning the headset and keeping the simple Rift. However it took a few weeks to fully realize the immense potential and power of the device, and more importantly how to optimize my experience, and I am now consistently amazed and enamored by this product. So yes, I do believe it is worth the upgrade, on the merit of many aspects. First off, the battery life issue was easily fixed by simply using a 20k mAH portable power bank like ones used to charge phones on the go (I got the Anker 335 Power Bank, PowerCore 20k), just make sure it has at least 18W power output so the Quest can charge while in use, getting rid of the battery issues. I can't recommend shelling out for any device mounted battery at the moment due to claims the batteries often can't charge the power hungry Quest as it is being used, which is a must for extended play sessions. Cheap Power Bank did the trick for half the price, you can put it in a fanny pack to wear while playing if you want to cut corners while keeping up comfort and portability. Secondly, the comfort issues were fixed by buying the AMVR facial interface and headstrap which has thankfully finally been released and makes a massive difference in comfort of use. The original strap was like a cheap jock strap with two uncomfortably stiff rubber bands that dug into your head from all angles, which I did not want to wear for more than a half hour. In comparison with the Rift I would have marathon gaming sessions comfortably with no battery concerns, I am not one to complain about comfort and would usually suck it up, but I was surprised how uncomfortable the entire head mounting setup was, from the cloth facerest to all aspects of the default strap. I'm not sure if this was to cut corners with production costs or to scam people into buying peripheral products, but for $100 it was fully fixed and now feels like your head is under the car seat of a luxury automobile with the pleather cushioning, feels great. Finally, my main technical issue was with the Quest Link Cable and AirLink, where even when using an AMVR Link Cable with charging port, the resolution, battery life, and latency were all not up to my expectations. I have since bought a designated router with WiFi 6E (I got the TP-Link AXE5400, Archer AXE75), fixing all these issues and keeping the device wireless. By connecting the Quest 3 via AirLink using the routers 6GHz channel and setting the router to Access Point mode, the Quest's AirLink wireless connection is now amazing, with unnoticeable latency and incredible resolution. Note this was a decent hassle to get right, and took some toggling with the Oculus App, Oculus Tray Tool, Router Settings, and Quest 3 device settings to get exactly right, but now I can pop on the headset and jump right into my Remote Desktop mode or a Steam game. Upgrading the router was actually the most significant change that fully realized my hopes for the product, as the resolution and latency increase across all apps, and the ability to connect to PCVR with no strings attached while simultaneously charging the headset with a power bank for endless usage was a true game changer. P.S. - If your Remote Desktop opens to a blank black screen in AirLink, I recommend looking up the fix for Windows Settings in the Graphics settings in the Display Section, where you set the Oculus Server Desktop app to Battery Saving Mode, which switches it to use the Integrated Graphics instead of GPU, thereby somehow solving the issue for me and many others). These 3 additions/fixes completely unlocked the potential and optimized my experience with the Quest 3, and I am now able to wirelessly control my desktop with no latency in comfort without having to worry about my battery (just plug it into the power bank when low and keep playing while recharging, then charge the power bank up again after the Quest has recharged enough for endless play). I also bought a clip-on plastic protector for the front of the headset to protect the external cameras that I found for $10 on Amazon, and I may buy controller grips (unnecessary) and Quest-specific Prescription Lens inserts to further increase comfort and prevent scratching the Quest lenses with my glasses. Now that I have fixed most the foibles I had with it, I am having an absolute blast exploring the many emerging and existent apps in the VR/AR/MR spaces. The Quest's UI and general interactivity is interesting and inviting, and it is easy to launch apps and browse the web while customizing your workspace with screens and whatever else you want to set up your work/play space. In short, it was worth the trouble. Right away the Resident Evil 4 VR app had me strapped to the headset for 2 weeks in addicted awe, as a long time fan seeing this game replicated in VR around me as a standalone app was worth the price of admission alone. Every other app I've used from Asgard's Wrath to The Climb to Tribe DJ Academy has been an enthralling experience that I enthusiastically share with whoever is around me. It is also really cool to access your daily apps and websites in full 3D stereoscopic motion controlled VIRTUAL REALITY. What a time to be alive. With the addition of a linkable keyboard which is visible in your headset, daily remote desktop becomes a breeze to work with and increase enjoyable productivity, and even without a mouse+keyboard setup I still use the Remote Desktop and other productivity apps daily. App Developmment could use some process streamlining on Oculus' part, but the hardware is still brand new so developer tutorials specific to Quest 3 will hopefully be on their way soon, and you can piece together the steps for dev work in the meantime. So realistically, I would tentatively suggest to think of this device as an experimental standalone computer to be optimized through your own input, rather than a ready-to-go console at purchase, as it will take a lot of learning to get used to and to personalize the vanilla base product to your needs. Also expect to spend closer to $1k dollars to really make this a top of the line headset for practical purposes and also purchase all the apps/parts for a strong start, but regardless this is a high quality piece of technical equipment as well as a productivity amplifier and a standalone / auxiliary entertainment center. It really does make you feel like you are living in the future, and I would highly recommend to any techies, developers, gamers, or media enthusiasts out there who are willing to take the time to delve into the possibilities of this amazing machine. I would also still recommend it for more casual enjoyers, but mainly just to use as a standalone device as it is pretty straightforward and enjoyable to jump right into apps without all the trimmings, so someone less tech-savvy could conceivably still get a lot of use out of it, like a more advanced Kindle you gifted to your luddite Auntie who loves it once they get the hang of it and now plays apps on it all day in her free time. So to conclude, the Quest 3 is a technical marvel once set up properly. The screen resolution with wireless connection can be amazing (if it doesn't look incredibly crisp keep troubleshooting, it is not supposed to have the pixelated screen door effect as it did when I first started using it). The experience and comfort is now exactly where I want it to be, and overall I can't recommend this headset with the above changes enough. It is mind-blowing to see where VR is at the moment, and if you have the means, time, and interest, I would say take the plunge, get over the initial learning curve, and take a swim in the digital sea with the Quest 3.

How you view this device is going to largely depend on if you've used VR stuff before, and how much. If you have used a Oculus Quest 2 then this is a huge QoL improvement in mixed reality. If you haven't used VR before, or if you're enthusiast level and have tried everything, then some of the flaws are going to pretty apparent right out the gate. Pros: - Solid color pass-through & hand tracking makes for a much more usable mixed reality experience than its predecessors. - Room scanning is rather cool and a much better way to define boundaries than drawing. - The quality of the lenses and controllers mark a significant improvement over its predecessors, though good not great (esp when compared with some new devices coming out). - The price point! There's no way that Meta isn't losing $ on each unit, and nothing is even close for comparable functionality -- even upcoming devices are either 2x more expensive for the Immersed glasses that are really only for virtual desktop viewing (but with much better resolution and lighter glasses) or 7x more expensive for the Apple Vision Pro (which certainly promises a lot but $3.5k is steep even for Apple). Cons: - The base strap can be terribly uncomfortable if you don't calibrate it right, and it's generally a bit of a pain. - App support! It feels like this device can do so much and yet so little takes advantage of it. Take room scanning, for example -- it can clearly track the geometry of any surface in the room, yet when doing boundary recognition it ONLY creates walls, and you have to manually input (via tracing with the controllers) any couches, tables, windows, etc... This could and should be improved. Some apps like Gravity Sketch are incredible, a ton of fun to work with, and are consistently maintained. But many more are effectively deprecated or unnecessarily limited in their use, and most are not near the boundary of even what this device can do. - Peripherals. In reality you'll at least want a better strap, maybe an extended battery, and some kind of storage to keep it from just sitting loosely on the floor (travel case or charging dock). Meta are terrible in this department. Everything is overpriced (trying maybe to get back some money on the loss for the base model?), and it seems that at launch half the most important thing didn't even work, which has led to recalls and scarcity of devices like the elite headstrap with battery. I would *highly* recommend looking into 3rd party devices for affordable options, though ofc that's its own risk to make sure they meet compatibility specs. Overall I think this device is really cool, especially when you find apps that take advantage of the VR or MR to do something unique. It's also rather intuitive, and frankly when it's working right you feel like someone from a movie with future-tech. At the same time there are too few apps that take advantage of what the Quest 3 can do, and you should at the very least assume another ~$100-200 for hardware peripherals to make the device comfortable and stored well.