Meta Quest Pro Half a Year Later: Why I Wear It and Why You Should Wait for the Quest 3

Speaker 1: Last fall, I went out to Meta's research headquarters where I got to take a look at the Quest Pro. This was Meta's next step in VR and a mixed reality. Now here we are about half a year later and the Quest Pro is still sitting around, but it costs less. This thing is the thousand dollars Now when it was $1,500 less than six months ago, what do I think about this thing? What does it mean in the landscape of VR and AR and how does it compare to something like the PlayStation VR two? Now that I've reviewed that, well, here's how I [00:00:30] feel about the most exciting, least exciting product that I feel like you probably are not gonna buy the Quest Pro. Speaker 1: The Quest Pro is the headset that I use most of the time when I'm not using the PlayStation VR two. That is because for me, the Quest Pro has a few features that make it better than the Quest two, this fits better over my glasses. That's the main reason I like it because I have big chunky glasses [00:01:00] and I can put this on and I can attach it like that and it's pretty easy and it doesn't press down on my glasses. Very nice. That's number one. But not everyone's gonna have to deal with that. The other thing I like about this is that it's got a higher resolution display. So to me it looks CRISPR that I appreciate and those are the two things, but for a lot of people, that's not worth paying up to the price that the Quest Pro is. Now, the Quest Pro does have a lot of other things going for it. It does have face and eye tracking. It does have [00:01:30] mixed reality, which is better than what's on the Quest too, in that it has color pass through cameras and it can create things that appear in the world around you sort of. But the the fuzziness of the cameras, you know, doesn't make it look perfect, but it kind of looks like AR and the controllers are smaller, which for some people might be a trade off, but for me, I like that they're nice and compact and the haptics are better, but Speaker 1: The software didn't change. The software on the Quest Pro is still basically exactly the same software [00:02:00] that's on the Quest too. Same operating system, same app store collection with some apps that are optimized for what the Quest Pro can do. The Quest Pro is also using pretty much the same processor with a few little modifications. So you're kind of getting the same performance on this as you would on the Quest too, for a lot more money. That's the thing that feels like it's holding it back because you're not really getting an experience that feels transformed. And all the things like eye tracking, face tracking, mixed reality feel like add-ons at best that are only [00:02:30] in a small handful of apps. I wanted to wait a while to see what would manifest, but now here we are, you know, significantly into 2023 and not that much has changed. Speaker 1: Meanwhile, met has another headset that's coming out not too far from now. We're expecting by the end of the year that there's going to be a Quest three. Now, the Quest two came out a couple of years ago, and the Quest three is supposed to have a better processor and it's supposed to have some of the stuff that's already in this headset. Number one, improved optics. Now this has really [00:03:00] nice compact lenses in here. Now if you can see this pancake optics, this is very small, even though the headset does feel bulky because you've got this big visor thing here that's resting on your forehead and this big band and all of that stuff. But that compact optics could mean a headset that's a lot smaller on the Quest three plus, the lenses are really clear, and I hope that carries over too, though this is a really expensive headset and the color pass through cameras that also should be on the Quest three, which means that those mixed reality [00:03:30] things you'll be able to get probably for less money. Speaker 1: The one thing that the Quest three may not have is eye in face tracking. Now there is eye tracking on the PlayStation VR two, it does some really cool things. You can actually control some things with your eyes, so you can use it to improve the graphics quality. In some games though, you may not even be aware that it's doing that. The Quest Pro doesn't really do all that much with ion face tracking, I found, except for some avatar animations and a couple of things. It's not really doing foviated rendering [00:04:00] at this point, but it all adds up to that. If you're a gamer, if you're someone who's playing games and you want to play the next fully standalone headset, you'd wanna wait for the Quest three. And I really do appreciate that This is fully standalone because I've been playing the PlayStation VR two for a while now and the haptics are fantastic, the visuals look great, but I am tethered to a PlayStation five. Speaker 1: Just the other day I was playing Walkabout mini golf with some friends using this. You could also do it on a Quest two, but the freedom of walking around [00:04:30] and just kind of feeling like I'm still in my space, but also in VR is very comfortable in this. There is a lot of open space when you put on this headset around your peripheral vision, which some people might feel like really ruins the immersion, but for me, makes it much more casual. Like I could actually lift this up a bit and take notes, or I could just check what time it is, and it feels a little more like putting on a pair of glasses. Let me just mention a few of the annoying downsides. One weird thing about this is I find that it kind of activates and deactivates [00:05:00] based on the face sensor. When I put it on my head, it's like it wants to check that it's in a particular spot. Speaker 1: So sometimes I put it on, it doesn't even seem to turn on, gets a little fiddly. The other thing is that it's not all that bendable. So when I put it over, my glasses actually is kind of a tight fit. I want it to flip up like a visor and it doesn't do that. So that's annoying and I feel like that should be changed and it's, and it's just big, you know, there's no case that comes with this. So you've got a charging dock that you need to use to charge this and the [00:05:30] controllers with little pins and you don't have a bag to carry it in or you may have to find one. And this is something I'd want to keep at home, but I'm certainly not gonna carry around with me. Whereas the quest too, you actually could stick it in a bag and take it with you somewhere. Speaker 1: Kind of like a giant pair of headphones. So that's the Quest Pro. And at a thousand dollars, look, you're not gonna buy one, but some developers and other people might be curious. Maybe they'll buy one. I think you should wait. And also we don't even know what Apple's gonna have with its headset and we also don't know what else is gonna be coming [00:06:00] out in 2023. But I do feel like this is onto something. This is something that is the bridge from VR to mixed reality to AR that meta and many other companies are gonna be working on. You're probably gonna see a lot more devices that kind of look a little bit like this. So those are my thoughts about the Quest Pro. After about half a year, make sure you check out our other VR and AR coverage on CNET and let us know what other questions you have in the comments and make sure to like and subscribe. Thanks for watching.