The new model of Meta Quest headset is considerably cheaper than the last one but are the compromises it has to make worth it?
When we reviewed the Meta Quest 3 last year, we described it as ‘the best value VR headset’ ever. That was true, at the time, but it still costs £480, which is a not insubstantial amount of money. It’s £50 cheaper than PlayStation VR2 though and the Meta Quest 3 has a shopping list of advantages over Sony’s headset, not least the fact that you don’t need to connect it to a console or PC and it continues to receive a steady supply of high quality, big budget games.
We’ll be reviewing Batman: Arkham Shadow later today, but it’s just one of an impressive line-up of Meta Quest games, many of which are exclusives, including Asgard’s Wrath 2, Assassin’s Creed Nexus, Vader Immortal, The 7th Guest, and a very creditable pre-remake version of Resident Evil 4.
Unlike Sony, Meta seems committed to ensuring the format is kept alive with new releases, but there is the intractable problem of the price. That’s where the Meta Quest 3S comes in, a pared down version of the Meta Quest 3 that costs £379.99 for the 256GB model and just £289.99 for the 128GB edition. It’s still not an impulse purchase but given the high-end Meta Quest Pro costs £999.99 it seems to be as cheap as modern technology will allow.
What’s different about the Meta Quest 3S?
As you can imagine, the Meta Quest 3S is all about compromise: how much you can change from the original headset until you’ve reduced the price substantially, while still retaining enough of what makes the original so appealing.
Importantly, the two headsets are identical in terms of their graphics chips. Not being connected to another device is both the Meta Quest’s greatest appeal and its biggest drawback. It means you have no cables trailing behind you, like the PlayStation VR2, but it also means all the graphics have to be generated within the headset itself, using processors very similar to a smartphone.
The Meta Quest 3S can’t compete with the PlayStation 5 in terms of graphics but it is twice as powerful as the Meta Quest 2 and many of the games still look surprisingly impressive, being roughly equivalent to the PlayStation 4 in quality.
What’s different about the 3S, though, is the lenses inside the headset, with the 1832×1920 pixel resolution being noticeably lower than the Quest 3’s 2064×2208. The 3S also only has a single-display system, instead of the dual-display of the Quest 3, which means the visuals appear relatively burrier, particularly towards the edge of your vision.
The inferior lenses also mean that the ‘screen door’ effect, where it looks like you’re viewing the VR world through a piece of gauze, is more noticeable than on the Quest 3. Although if this is your first headset – and that’s certainly the audience Meta are aiming at here – these downgrades are going to be less of an issue in all respects.
The field of view is also narrower than the Quest 3 and for some reason the 3S goes back to adjusting the distance between the lenses, to suit your face/eyes, with just three fixed positions, rather than letting you adjust it manually with a dial – which can make it very difficult to get the focus just right.
Also, despite being 1 gram lighter than the Meta Quest 3, the 3S is noticeably bulkier and sticks out further from your face. So, it ends up feeling heavier even though it’s actually not.
What features does the Meta Quest 3S have?
Beyond the difference in the lenses, the 3S is largely the same as the Meta Quest 3, with a roughly three hour battery life and the ability to connect it to a PC if you want. The latter is an important feature, because if you have a powerful enough computer than you get access to an even bigger range of VR games, some of which haven’t been released on any other format – most notably Half-Life: Alyx.
The controllers are also exactly the same as the Quest 3, and arguably the best in the business – for the simple reason that they don’t have a tracking ring and so feel that bit less restrictive. The 3S doesn’t have a depth sensor, to accurately scan your room so you can move around it in 3D, but that seems to make little difference and we hardly had to change anything from the default set-up, in terms of letting the headset know where walls and furniture are.
The 3S is also still capable of running mixed reality apps, that blend virtual worlds and the view from the camera on the front of the headset. You can also switch to a view of the real world at any time by pressing a new button on the side, although you’ll rarely need to.
Finally, the Horizon OS interface, the equivalent of the dashboard on a console, is very intuitive and attractive and, again, exactly the same on the Quest 3. It’s also constantly being updated in quite significant ways, including the various VR landscapes you can enjoy while you ponder your options.
Is the Meta Quest 3S worth it?
As we said at the start, the Meta Quest 3S is all about compromise. It’s cheaper than the Quest 3, or any other comparable headset, but that means that the visuals have taken a knock in terms of the resolution and sharpness of the image.
How much of a problem that is for you will largely depend on your existing experience with VR. If you’re thinking of upgrading form the Quest 2 we’d probably advise saving up a bit more and getting the Quest 3 instead. However, if this is going to be your first headset there’s really no better place to start.
VR has been the future of gaming for at least three decades now and it’s still unclear whether it’s going to end up a footnote in history or the endgame for all hardware. We’re not clairvoyant enough to know the answer to that but we do know that, as expensive as it still is, the Meta Quest 3S is now the best value VR headset ever made.
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