Meta released a brand new mixed reality headset about two week ago, the Meta Quest 3S. It’s their cheapest mixed reality headset by far, starting at a price of $299, compared to the $499 starting price of Meta Quest 3. Don’t get confused though, the S in 3S does not mean it’s better, even though you may think that.
It’s a great value for mixed reality – but something Apple would never make.
Hardware quality
The reason why I say Apple would never make it is for one reason, and one reason only: it’s too low quality.
Quest 3S is made of cheap feeling plastic, it has low resolution displays, and offers poor quality lenses. Plastic isn’t necessarily a downside, as it allows for the headset to be lighter, but it obviously isn’t a premium feel.
As for the lenses, they’re fine for gaming. When you’re in a game, often locked in on the center of the display, you don’t notice the lower quality of it. However, on the home screen and in other apps where you’re often looking around, you can notice that things aren’t perfectly clear around the edges. You could say the same for display resolution.
In gaming, where things aren’t always the highest resolution and don’t require perfect clarity, the 1080p-class displays are fine. However, in video streaming apps you absolutely notice it. It’s also noticeable in apps that show a lot of text, such as the web browser or remote desktop apps. I would never use the Quest 3S as a display for my Mac, something that I could happily do in Apple Vision Pro.
On a more positive note, it is quite comfortable. I don’t really notice the weight on my head, unlike Apple Vision Pro.
Input methods
Unlike Apple Vision Pro, Quest 3S comes with traditional VR controllers in the box, and they’re the primary way of interacting with the device. Quest 3S also supports hand tracking, although it does not have the magical feeling eye tracking that Vision Pro does.
Obviously, the Vision Pro costs over 10x what the Quest 3S does, so it isn’t that serious of a point – I can excuse the lack of eye tracking.
However, the hand tracking on Quest 3S is a little mediocre. It isn’t perfect, I’d say it works properly around 70% of the time. That 30% of the time where it doesn’t work is just annoying enough to not rely on it, though – so I usually rely on the controllers, which work quite well.
Meta introduced higher end controllers on the Quest 3S (brought over from Quest 3), getting rid of the huge rings required for tracking from the Quest 2 era of controllers.
Gaming
Quest 3S is obviously great at VR gaming. I’ve had a lot of time playing Beat Saber as a quick workout, as well as games like Fruit Ninja. I also recently purchased Just Dance VR, which is a bit of fun too.
Meta also offers a Quest+ subscription for $7.99/month with a large catalog of games, which I’m yet to dig into.
That’s Meta’s one advantage over Vision Pro, and it’s definitely an advantage that they should run with. Apple historically hasn’t been great with gaming, and Apple Vision Pro doesn’t support traditional VR controllers, so it might be a while before Apple has anything significant to offer in that regard.
Plus, Meta owns many large game studios that develop games for Quest, including the company behind Beat Saber. Even if Apple Vision Pro supported VR controllers, certain large games might never support the platform.
Wrap up
Overall, I really like my Meta Quest 3S, it’s a great gaming device, and the $299 price point is perfect for that. Quest 3S is basically a Quest 2 with a faster chipset, support for mixed reality, and better controllers. Meta took an already popular headset and made it even better, while keeping the same price point.
Quest 3S is no spatial computer though. I could not recommend this, nor the higher resolution Quest 3, for anything that isn’t gaming. It simply isn’t good enough for it.
You may wonder, why compare a $299 headset to one that’s over 10x the price? Well, that’s because Meta does. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has often claimed that the Quest is a better product than Apple Vision Pro, which simply isn’t true. It’s a better product for gaming, nothing else.
It’s certainly a cheaper product for experiencing mixed reality, but it misses the mark for anything truly practical.
And unfortunately, Meta has cancelled their Quest Pro line of headsets, so it’s unlikely we’ll see a true Vision Pro competitor from Meta anytime soon. I think that’s a shame.
You can buy Quest 3S in 128GB for $299, and 256GB for $399, from the following stores:
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