Meta Quest 3

Written by John Yan on 7/22/2024 for QW2  

The Meta Quest 2 (Or Oculus Quest 2 when I reviewed it) was a solid VR headset that I really enjoyed using. While the FOV wasn’t the best nor the picture quality, the ease of use and wireless capabilities with the PC had me going for it for most games that weren’t VR simulators.

Meta launched the Meta Quest 3 around 9 months ago and I was able to get one for review as Meta kindly sent one for me to test out. I was pretty excited hearing about all the improvements they did over the previous generation so let’s dive in to see if the new Meta Quest 3 is enough of a generation leap to warrant upgrading to it if you have a Quest 2.

The Meta Quest 3 has a new design that allows for a thinner headset along with better optics and much improved CPU power. With the inclusion of pancake lenses over fresnel lenses, Meta was able to reduce the depth of the Quest 3 over the Quest 2 by 40%. That’s a pretty significant difference and you can see it right away in the box it comes in as it’s significantly smaller than the Quest 2 box.

Even though it’s not as big as the previous HMD, it does weigh about the same. The weird thing is it just feels lighter and I can’t explain why. It would have been nice if there was also a reduction in weight, but coming in at 1.1 lbs, it’s not that bad for being a stand alone HMD. Because it’s so much thinner than the Quest 2 though, it just seems lighter.

The white shell of the Meta Quest 3 houses a few new things in this year’s model. First up are three cameras in front, They are now full color pass through stereo cameras allowing mixed reality to be a, well, reality for consumers. They have a 4MP resolution providing an OK picture into the real world when looking through them. More on that in a bit.

Sitting in between the two RGB cameras is a depth sensor. To help with mixed reality such as mapping a room, the depth sensor is also used to more accurately scan a room and the objects contained in it. There’s a game that’s included where it scans your room and has little different colored tribbles like animals busting in. The depth sensor helps map the room out so it knows where the walls, floor, ceiling, and furniture and overlays the graphics of the game appropriately in the virtual world that it naturally blends in with your surroundings. Seeing bits and pieces of my playroom fall apart and open up to another world was truly remarkable. Using the depth sensor to effortlessly map the room made it super simple to get in and play and experience some truly awesome augmented reality effects Having the depth sensor help set up your boundary is now super simple and a much easier process than the previous Quest, but you can still do the old way of drawing out your boundary should you want to do so. The depth sensor is a great addition to the headset as this opens up a whole new world of possibilities in using your surroundings with the Quest 3. I’m excited to see what developers do with it in the future.

Instead of cameras in the corners of the HMD, the Quest 3 only features the front cameras and two more on the bottom of each corner. There’s no cameras in the upper part of the HMD like the Quest 2, but it seems like the front cameras are used instead to help track the controllers in front and below you. The tracking volume is said to be the same, but different than the Quest 2. There’s more tracking in front and below you and less tracking above your head. Meta thinks that their algorithm will be sufficient enough to handle tracking with less IR trackers on the controllers and think users spend more time with their hands in front and below you versus above you. There are sensors in the controllers to estimate your position and movement once it gets out of the camera’s field of view. They do a fairly good job at keeping where your controller is pointed at once it gets out of the view of the cameras. I did find that their position can be off a bit and once I looked back at a controller that left the view, I saw the representation in the game slowly float back to exactly where I was holding it relative to the headset. Like I said, it’s not perfect and I would have liked more tracking volume above me. You can probably get a lot more accurate tracking by pairing the Meta Quest 3 with the Touch Pro controllers that utilize onboard cameras to keep track of its position. It’s compatible with the HMD so there’s that option, but it involves spending another $300 or so.

I hadn’t hit many conventions recently so I wasn’t able to experience pancake lenses on other HMDs, so the Quest 3 was the first time I was able to really see them in person. I was truly blown away by the clarity of these types of lenses. I was so used to adjusting my other various headsets to get my eyes into a small sweet spot and seeing blurred images when my eyes looked around that I wasn’t prepared for just how clear these were. To be able to just plop the Quest 3 on my head and not have to do adjustments to get a clear picture is pretty game changing. Even with my other headsets where I have most of the straps dialed in, the Quest 3 is by far the easiest one to have put on and get up and running in with a clear picture quickly and easily. Coming from the Quest 2, Valve Index, and HP Reverb G2, the lenses in the Quest 3 are so superior to all those that I was used to that it’s hard for me to go back to the other HMDs I have.

God rays are pretty non existent. Image distortion is a lot less when using pancake lenses. For the most part, it’s such a huge improvement over the fresnel lenses of old that it would be really tough for any future HMDs that don’t use this to be on my recommendation list. The downside of these lenses is that you do lose a lot of light so you’re going to need a good panel that emits a lot of nits to be usable with pancake lenses and not have a darkened picture. And I’ve read that these types of lenses are more expensive to produce than fresnel ones, but hopefully the costs come down on that so more headsets can use them.

Behind the lenses sit two LCDs with a resolution of 2064 x 2208 pixels per eye. It’s an improvement over the Quest 2's 1832 × 1920 per eye single LCD display. It is a little disappointing that Meta didn’t go with an OLED solution, but the display does a solid job with vivid colors and great clarity. Because it’s LCD, the blacks are more of a dark gray so it’s not going to be as great in dark scenes like the old Samsung Odyssey, but it’s still pretty good.

Screen door effect is really minimal now. You have to really look to see it and while it’s not as clear as something like a micro-OLED display, it’s more than good enough that while playing you should be immersed enough to not notice it. FOV is improved over the Quest 2. We’re talking about a 13% improvement in the horizontal field of view and a 11% improvement in the vertical field of view. It’s not as much as the Valve Index and of course, the newer Pimax headsets.

Because there are two displays instead of one now, you get a true mechanical IPD adjuster instead of three different levels like the Quest 2. That means you can really dial the displays in and make it really clear. The IPD range goes from 53mm to 75mm making it compatible with a wide range of eye makeups.

While the lenses are top notch, the facial gasket is just OK. I found myself not feeling as comfortable with the fabric like material that comes with the Quest 3, especially when doing anything that requires a lot of physical activity. Meta does sell a silicone facial interface and I picked one up to try out. Let me say that the silicone facial gasket was loads more comfortable than the included one and I wish it wasn’t so expensive and included with the Quest 3. Even just normal usage where I was sitting down and consuming media, the silicone facial interface was so much more comfortable and for me, I’d never go back to the original facial interface. If you can find a good third party one or pick up the one from Meta, I’d advise you to do so to improve the comfort of the Meta Quest 3.

Speaking of comfort, the basic setup of the Meta Quest 3 is to have a strap that goes around your head to hold it in place along with a top strap that provides some relief from the unit just staying in place on your face. It’s OK and like what I did with the Quest 2, I printed out some adapters to let me use my Vive Deluxe Audio Strap instead of the included strap. Like the Quest 2, there is an Elite Strap that you can purchase that has a dial in the back and cradles the back of your head more. Most people I find prefer this style of strap than the simple straps that’s included in the box, but yet it’s another accessory that you have to spend money on to improve the comfortability of the Quest 3. If you’re looking to use the Quest 3 for long periods of time, I do suggest going with something more robust than what’s included as I found the Quest 3 can get tiresome with long stretches unless I was using some other strap design. For me, I found there was too much pressure above my eyes and it didn’t take too long to feel uncomfortable. I switched back and forth between the included strap and the Deluxe Audio Strap and preferred the latter so much more as most of the weight was now situated on top of my head rather than in front on my face.

Speakers are similar to Quest 2 where audio comes out from slots from either side of your headset. Since it’s open, people around you can hear what you’re hearing so if you want some privacy, there is a 3.5mm headphone jack for you to plug in your headphones for more privacy. The audio quality is surprisingly good and dare I say, better than the Quest 2’s but that’s not too high of a bar. I certainly have no qualms in using it, but because of the audio bleed, I opted for using headphones and in my case, the Vive Deluxe Audio Strap.

The microphone is adequate, but can be a little quiet at times. For gaming with friends, it does the job. If you plan on streaming though, you’ll most likely want to plug in a better microphone. There were times in my streams where my voice was a little bit too quiet. Watching others stream from the Quest 3, they all use some sort of external mic and it’s much easier to hear them.

The Meta Quest 3 is powered by the Snapdragon XR Gen 2. It’s based on the Snapdragon Gen 8 Gen 2 mobile architecture that’s in Samsung Galaxy S23 and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5, which is the phone I have. It’s a pretty solid mobile SoC and with some really impressive looking games like Asgard’s Wrath 2 being playable solely on the Quest 3, it packs a pretty good punch. Many games have been updated to take advantage of the extra power the XR Gen 2 chip brings so check your games if you currently own a few from the Quest 2 to see if there’s been an update to make it look better. Qualcomm claims it’s has 2X the performance of the Quest 2 SoC and with the additional RAM on the Quest 3 (8GB vs 6GB), the two combine to make a nice performance boost over the previous generation.

Battery life is still rather short in that I've had it last a few hours depending on what you’re doing. If you’re wirelessly streaming from the PC, it can go by quicker. For more intensive games like Asgard’s Wrath 2, it’ll also drain the battery quicker. Meta has a battery attachment with their Elite Strap that helps counter the weight of the HMD and there’s a few third party options out there that can lengthen the time you play with it. I would say if you’re heavy into VR gaming, it’s really something you need to pick up and coming from PCVR where we’re always tethered to a power source, it’s one extra thing I have to keep in mind. I’ve had it power off because I was so into a game like Demeo with my friends and you can bet it’s pretty frustrating to be in a middle of the game only to have the Quest 3 go out on you.

One of the better improvements that the Quest 3 has is the physical design of the controllers. No longer is there a ring around the front area but IR LEDs strategically placed on top and one near the base of the controller for the headset to detect. The design is very similar to the Pro controllers and with the removal of the ring, you can place your hands closer together in certain situations.

Button wise, it’s the same as the Quest 2 so you have your basic two action buttons on each face along with a menu and Meta button. The top also houses an analog joystick that you can also click and there’s an analog trigger as well as an analog grip button to round out the controls. Basically, if you took the ring away from the Quest 2 controllers, you have the Quest 3 controllers.

The same capacitive detection that mimics finger tracking is there so if you slightly put your fingers on areas like the handle or the thumbstick, you’ll see your fingers virtually move in as well. The capacitive touch areas are used in some games and work pretty well for finger detection. It may not be Valve Index Controller level, but it does a pretty damn good job either way.

As far as design and comfortability when holding it, it feels pretty much the same as the Quest 2’s controller. I did pick up some knuckle strap grip covers so I can let go of the controllers without dropping them, but that’s just my preference. Otherwise, they are solid feeling and the size makes them easy to keep hold off. The long battery life is also there although I feel like the Quest 2 controllers lasted much longer on a single charge. The Quest 3 controllers still take a while to drain down and you’ll be able to play for long periods of time without having to change batteries or recharge them unlike controllers for other VR headsets out there, but I definitely feel like the Quest 2’s controllers lasted much longer.

Of course, there’s also using just your hands and utilizing Meta’s superb hand tracking technology. For many applications, you can drop the controllers and just use your hands to navigate. What I found really fascinating was that using my fingers to press the menu items in the Meta UI, it almost felt like I was pressing on something even though my finger was just moving about in thin air. Your mind gets tricked into thinking there’s a solid button being pressed when viewing through the Quest 3 and it made me do double take a few times. This phenomena gets really enhanced for me when using pass through mode.

So Meta is really pushing augmented reality with the Quest 3 and the massive improvement in the pass through camera quality here really makes the experience top notch. Whereas the Quest 2 had a blurry black and white view to the world, the Quest 3 is full color and clear enough that you can read text on your phone or a monitor. It’s not perfect and the view is still a slightly computerized version of what you see in the real world, but at times you’ll be fooled into thinking you really are seeing virtual objects in the area around you. Before a recent update, the world would warp really weird around where your hands were and it was pretty distracting when you were in some type of AR situation. But, Meta has done a tremendous job at improving the warping in one of the latest updates as of this writing. There’s still some very minor warping when you move you hand around in some situations, but for the most part it’s something that you can easily ignore now.

Some games really take good advantage of pass through mode. For example, Demeo is a great one where a virtual game board is placed in your space along with decorations littering around your room on the walls. It’s such a perfect blend of reality and computer generated objects that at times I believed there was a game board in my living room.

The included demo game First Encounters where colored tribbles invade your home is a great first look at augmented reality. The Quest 3 scans the area you are in and will place breaks on walls and the ceiling where these things will jump through. It really feels like there are aliens invading your living space and this initial game shows off just a taste of what this technology is possible. As of this writing, there’s now a ton of games, old and new, that utilize mixed reality so you’ll have plenty of titles to play with if you want to use mixed reality. In fact if you’re coming from the Quest 2 and already have a library of games, there’s a good chance a few of them have mixed reality features added in.

Besides playing Meta games, I used the Quest 3 on a lot of PCVR games streaming from my PC. Equipped with a NVIDIA RTX 4090, I was able to turn up all the features in my games as well as my streaming app of choice, Virtual Desktop, to get a high quality experience playing SteamVC games.

When testing wireless streaming with Airlink and Virtual Desktop, I did find the Quest 3 was a lot more picky than the Quest 2. With my Wifi 6 mesh setup, I had no problems playing in an area without a mesh unit in the room when using the Quest 2. With the Quest 3, I would experience frequent stutters and dropped images. It was pretty annoying and almost made me abandon the wireless streaming aspect and plug the Quest 3 into my PC with a USB-C cable. But I decided to upgrade my mesh unit to a Wifi 6E setup and boy, did that clear things up. No more stuttering. No more black out areas. No more ghosting. It was gloriously smooth and now I’m not going back to wired when I’m using the Quest 3.

While I still prefer higher resolution HMDs for things such as racing and flight simulators, I pretty much go with the Quest 3 over my Valve Index on any action type game. Besides not being tethered anymore, the controllers are lighter and the headset is more comfortable to wear and less wieldy.

Is this a worthy upgrade to the Quest 2. Unequivocally, yes. The pancake lenses alone really makes the Quest 3 a much better HMD than the Quest 2. Being able to see clearly all around and not just in the sweet spot is such a nice feature that it’s hard for me to go back to other HMDs. The augmented reality aspect of the Quest 3 produces some truly awesome experiences. The removal of the tracking ring on the controllers makes them much nicer to use. The only thing I wished Meta could have improved more upon is the field of view. It’s still much less than what I like and I think that’s the next thing that really needs to be updated with VR headsets going forward.