Meta Quest 3 Hands On: a $500 Ticket to Mixed Reality

Speaker 1: All right, earlier this year I got a demo of Apple's Future of Mixed Reality, the $3,500 Vision Pro blending, the Virtual and Real Together. That's coming in 2024, but Meta is blending the virtual and Real on the Quest three, and it costs just $500. Speaker 1: The Meta Quest three is their new VR headset, the update to the Quest two, which has already been our favorite VR headset for [00:00:30] years. The new one is coming out October 10th, and it costs more $500 for 128 gigabytes of storage and 650 for the one with 512 gigabytes of storage. The big thing on this headset is mixed reality. There's a whole new chip on board a Qualcomm Snapdragon XR two Gen two. That chip, which is going to be seen on other headsets as well is debuting here. That's the big thing it allows besides better graphics and improved performance, is this mixed reality, [00:01:00] which means that you can look at the real world through its improved color. Cameras see things in the real world, and VR objects can be interlaid with it. This also has a depth sensor, which is something that Met is Higher End Quest Pro that debuted last year didn't have, so you're basically getting a better VR headset than the Quest Pro for half the price. Speaker 1: Strange how Tech works, but it was nowhere near as good as Apple's Vision Pro. Then again, the Vision Pro is $3,500, and the Quest three is $500. [00:01:30] That's a $3,000 price gap, so pretty good for a $500 device. There are a couple of different demos that showed really how this functions, and the Quest three looks like it's really focusing on gaming. A couple of these experiences worked kind of like I saw on Vision Pro, which is that I would scan the room, be able to mesh the real world and scan objects, recognized the vision of furniture tables and walls, and then virtual objects would then interact with it. First Encounters, which is a intro experience on the Quest three, [00:02:00] showed how you could shoot things and run around furniture and things would pop out of the walls and the walls would shatter. It's a cool effect. Speaker 1: The camera quality is much better even on the Quest Pro, and it's much better than the Quest two and the Quest three defaults to showing the outer world as its first experience, and then you can jump into pure VR as well if you want. Meta is promising about a hundred apps to start. A lot of the stuff right now looks like games and special effects that are going to spread out of walls. I think for fitness, it's going to be really interesting [00:02:30] if you could do workouts and still see the regular world around you, that could be a lot of fun and actually pretty useful. There's also a big thing that's missing on the Quest three that was on the Quest Pro. No eye tracking and no face tracking. Now, they'll probably come on a pro version of the Quest three at some point, especially since Qualcomm Snapdragon XR two gen two chip could support it. Speaker 1: Headset's smaller. It's definitely more compact in the front, a lot easier to put on, and it's got extra depth adjuster on it, which allows [00:03:00] you to accommodate for glasses without having to add a spacer in. They worked fine with my chunky glasses, but I don't have that wide a pair of glasses. They narrowly fit, and you're going to have to see how it fits with yours. The controllers are new. These controllers are smaller. They don't have that plastic ring anymore, and that means they probably won't break as easily in case you smack it into something, but they don't have quite all the features that are on the Quest Pros controller. They don't have the cameras that were on the Touch Pro, so they're not fully self trackable. You could always pay to upgrade to those if [00:03:30] you want. There are also things like an optional charge dock with the Quest three, which is something that the Quest two did not have. Speaker 1: The resolution and the optics on this are really good. There's a pancake lens system, which is similar to what's on the Quest Pro Pancake Lens is basically a more compact lens system and it's clearer, and the resolution on this display is higher than any of the other Quest headsets, and there was no light bleed when I wore the headset, so unlike the Quest Pro, you're going to feel really immersed. There are a lot of different accessories [00:04:00] for the Quest three ranging from carrying cases to charge docks and a lot of different headbands and different facial fits, including colors. This time I'm feeling optimistic that they're going to be a lot more interesting color designs for Quest three Speaker 1: Graphics. Well, technically they could be really good, but the games I got to play so far, a handful of the launch styles, Assassin's Creed Nexus, I got to try somebody, amigo. I got to try Stranger Things, and I also got to look at Red Matter two in an upgraded version. The graphics were incremental, [00:04:30] so I wouldn't say it's a type of astonishing jump right now that you would've seen a PlayStation four to PlayStation five. That's because this is a little more like a phone or a tablet upgrade. There are also more advanced VR headsets out there. The Vision Pro is not here yet, but it costs a lot to produce an impressive effect, and the PlayStation VR two has really amazing graphics and some great eye tracking functions, but it costs 500 to $50 and you still need a PlayStation five in order to use it. That's a lot of money. The Quest three, $500 [00:05:00] and all self-contained, so stay tuned for a lot more thoughts on the Quest three. It's a very promising headset and it's the most mobile and active VR headset, so if anybody's looking for fitness or mobile gaming, meaning moving around gaming, I feel like this is going to be the top pick. Anyway, if you have more questions or comments, let us know below and make sure you keep watching.