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Like its predecessor was when it released, the new Meta Quest 3 is easily the best virtual reality headset for most people. It\u2019s light, easy to use, requires little setup and no extra hardware, and provides hours of cable-free VR gaming on a single charge. But unlike the Quest 2, this device also features colour pass-through letting you see the world around you blended with 3D graphics, which is promising for the future even if the software isn\u2019t quite there yet.<\/p>\n
VR headsets have a notoriously tough time winning over new users. They\u2019re expensive, they can be uncomfortable, difficult to set up and calibrate, and invoke nausea or dizziness in a relatively short time. Addressing this is clearly the top priority for Meta; the Quest 3 may be lacking some high-end features VR enthusiasts will miss, such as motorised lenses or eye-tracking, but it\u2019s among the comfiest and least expensive, starting at $800 with no PC or console required.<\/p>\n
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The Meta Quest 3 is much smaller than the Quest 2, and is also more comfortable to use.<\/span><\/p>\n The new system features pancake lenses, which are thinner, clearer and have a much broader sweet spot than the lenses on the Quest 2, as well as stunning 4K displays. Those who need to wear glasses in VR can easily do so, thanks to a built-in adjustable spacer.<\/p>\n It\u2019s light enough that you can just whack it on and adjust the straps for a comfortable fit that doesn\u2019t weigh on your face, though there is also the option of a \u201cpro strap\u201d with a rear brace that makes it more stable. The only annoying part of the initial fit is scrolling the wheel to set your pupillary distance, which you might need to measure with a ruler and a mirror if you don\u2019t know it.<\/p>\n The Quest 3 can overlay digital images on our regular view of the world.<\/span><\/p>\n Another typical issue with VR is that once you have the headset on you\u2019re cut off from the world around you, which is solved by the Quest 3\u2019s pass-through cameras and brilliant tracking. You can tap the side of the headset at any time to pause your apps and see your surroundings, but you can also do certain things in mixed reality.<\/p>\n All the system menus for example can float in the space around you, as can virtual desktop apps or things like YouTube. You can interact with them by pointing or poking, and can even drag the windows around.<\/p>\n Being able to see your surroundings while using menus and certain apps helps a lot to keep VR sickness at bay.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Tim Biggs<\/cite><\/p>\n You can also play games entirely in mixed reality. Some simple games just overlay the graphics, so for example you can grab and twist virtual block puzzles while sitting at the table. But the more impressive ones require you to save your room\u2019s layout by looking around at the walls, floor, roof and furniture, which becomes a wireframe games can use as the setting.<\/p>\n First Encounters <\/em>is a game that comes with the headset, and though brief I can see it winning a lot of first-timers over. Fluffy aliens break into your house through the walls, and you need to chase them around and shoot them to round them up.<\/p>\n In First Encounters, pesky aliens bust through your walls and roof.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Tim Biggs<\/cite><\/p>\n Being able to see the room eliminates any VR sickness, meaning you can run and duck around the room as you play. Meta\u2019s implementation of this technology is also the only one I\u2019ve tried so far that presents distances accurately; other headsets such as HTC\u2019s VIVE XR Elite made me dizzy because the angles and distances are off, but here I could walk around confidently. The tradeoff is that objects very close to you tend to warp, so while the resolution is good enough to check your phone mid-game, I wouldn\u2019t want to sit down and read a book through the headset.<\/p>\n The main weakness for mixed reality right now is that few games and apps exist that use it well. Some tabletop board-game-style experiences let you play on your real-world table, there are a few variations on monsters coming through your walls, and some fitness and productivity apps project virtual displays, but the truly entertaining or useful applications are yet to arrive.<\/p>\n Pass-through aside, the Quest remains a very competent VR platform. It offers 10-times the resolution of Quest 2 and twice the processing power thanks to its new Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chip. Tracking latency is very low and the screen refresh is high (up to 120Hz), so I never felt a lag between my head movement and what was happening on screen. The included controllers are smaller and much improved, though many apps now also allow you to control using only your hands by pointing, pinching and gripping.<\/p>\n The Quest 3 works with everything released for the Quest 2, though some games are now receiving updates to support the new hardware\u2019s extra power. Even if they don\u2019t, I found games loaded faster and looked much clearer on the new headsets.<\/p>\n Messing around in Resident Evil 4.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Tim Biggs<\/cite><\/p>\n The kinds of things you can do in VR are entirely dependent on the developer\u2019s imaginations, but outside of PC the Quest store has the widest selection of games you can get. Some do a really great job of making you feel like you\u2019re inside the experience with interactive objects and physics, while others put a VR spin on more traditional game genres.<\/p>\n One of my favourite examples of this is the Quest version of the 2005 classic Resident Evil 4<\/em>, where all your weapons and equipment are attached to different parts of your body, so you can physically grab them from their clip, holster or back strap. You also have to reload manually, and can throw your guns and knives around.<\/p>\n Those with a powerful computer can also use the Quest 3 as a PCVR headset, but it can be a little bit complicated. You\u2019ll need a very long and high performance USB-C cable that can deliver enough power and bandwidth to the headset for the best results.<\/p>\n If you wire your PC to your router, and have your headset connect by 5GHz Wi-Fi at minimum, you can also try sending games wirelessly from your computer. But in my experience this adds noticeable (and potentially nauseating) latency.<\/p>\n Superhot, the shooter where time only moves when you do.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Tim Biggs<\/cite><\/p>\n One final point that needs addressing is that, although the hardware in this headset is incredible, some will be turned off purely because it\u2019s from Meta. When the Quest 2 came out it had the caveat of requiring a Facebook account, which is something that comes with a lot of baggage. Meta has done a pretty good job of cleaning things up since then however; with Quest 3 you do not need to tie yourself to Facebook or Instagram, and the headset appears to do as much processing as possible on-device, which is good for privacy. Meta also says it does not collect data from the headset to target ads, and there are Apple-style health labels for each app showing the kinds of data they collect and how they use it. After a look through the privacy policy, the Quest 3 seems around on par with a smartphone in terms of your personal data being collected.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Our top five favourite Quest VR games<\/h3>\n
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