It feels like a long time since Meta began teasing its Quest 3 headset, but in reality, it was only back at the start of the Summer. In the time since, though, Apple unveiled its Vision Pro, causing many to rethink what the future of VR, MR or ‘spatial computing’ might look like.

We’re still a ways off from the launch of that particular headset, but thankfully, the next generation of Meta headset is here right now – and it sure is looking impressive.

The Meta Quest 3 is a serious upgrade to the world’s most popular VR headset. There’s a new processor, new optics, new displays, new controllers, new sensors – pretty much everything is new. I was lucky enough to give it a try during an early preview event, and here are my first impressions.

Price and availability

The Meta Quest 3 is available to pre-order now and will be shipping on 10 October 2023.

The base model costs $499.99/£479.99 and comes with 128GB of built-in storage. There’s also a 512GB model that retails for $649.99/£619.99.

Design

There’s no mistaking the Quest 3 for its predecessor, it’s a fresh design throughout. There are some elements that remain familiar, like the white colourway and the fabric strap, but the changes are plain to see.

The most immediately noticeable change is the prominent pill-shaped sensors on the front of the headset. The left and right units include colour pass-through cameras for mixed reality experiences, and the middle pill has a depth sensor. This is the first indication of the new direction that Quest 3 is heading in, bringing MR to the forefront, literally and figuratively – but I’ll explore that more later on.

The headset is noticeably slimmer, around 40 per cent slimmer according to Meta, this means that it feels much more balanced and comfortable in use. I wouldn’t say it’s quite as comfortable as the Pico 4, which locates its battery on the rear of the head strap for better weight distribution, but it’s certainly an improvement over the last generation. The centre of mass is much closer to your face, so the headset is less prone to wobbles when making quick movements.

Also assisting in this comfort is the redesigned Y-shaped head strap, which wraps around the back of your head to keep the Quest 3 firmly secured. I can’t speak to how well this strap works, as the demo units I played with were using Meta’s optional Elite Strap upgrade, but it looks like it would be an improvement.

After the release of the Pico 4, which comes with an Elite-style strap as standard, I was hoping Meta would be pushed into making it the default option – it’s almost universally recognised as the superior option, after all. But, that has not proven to be the case, so you’ll need to shell out an additional £129 if you want the upgraded strap. It does, at least, come with a supplementary battery that gets you 2 hours of extra play time, but it’s a pricey add-on nonetheless.

The touch controllers no longer have tracking rings protruding from the top, which gives them a very streamlined and slimmed-down look. In use, it means you’re much less likely to accidentally bang the controllers together, which is something I found myself doing a lot when testing the Pimax Crystal recently. Elsewhere, the controllers have an almost identical layout to the Quest 2 controllers, so there’s no time needed for adjustment.

A massive upgrade on this headset is the inclusion of a proper IPD adjustment wheel, so you can dial in your settings with millimetre precision, rather than relying on a few pre-set options. There’s also a depth adjuster built in this time, so if you need to wear glasses, you can do so without adding spacers to the facial interface. You simply press a button and slide out the padding until there’s an appropriate amount of space – top stuff.

You may have noticed that there are some interesting colour accents on the headsets in my hands-on photos. This is because Meta is releasing straps and facial interfaces in Elemental Blue and Blood Orange as optional accessories for £49.99 (US price TBC). It could be handy if you have a household with multiple headsets and you want to differentiate between them, but personally, I prefer the monochrome look of the standard configuration.

Display, cameras and audio

The Meta Quest 3 has dual LCD displays which provide a 2064 x 2208 resolution per eye. This equates to roughly a 30 per cent resolution increase over its predecessor and is the highest resolution that a Meta headset has offered to date. It also uses the same (or very similar) pancake lenses as Quest Pro, a massive upgrade over the fresnel lenses in the Quest 2.

According to Meta this new optical arrangement gets you around a 15 per cent wider field of view, with a sharpness increase of 25 per cent. It also dramatically reduces the amount of flaring and God-rays. In my experience, this seems to be accurate, the Quest 3 is much sharper than its predecessor and the optics are quite similar to the Pico 4, which is the headset I’ve been using the most over the last year.

The near-field speakers in the headband have been reworked too. They should now be 40 per cent louder as well as provide an increased bass response. At the moment, I’ve only heard the headset in a busy demo area, so it’s hard to say how much better these speakers are, but they do sound good. Those concerned about audio fidelity will probably want you use their own headphones, though, and thankfully Meta has retained the 3.5mm headphone jack on this model.

As I mentioned earlier, a lot of work has been put into the pass-through cameras, with the goal of making this a true mixed-reality headset. The Quest 3 boasts ten times the pass-through quality of the Quest 2, which isn’t too surprising given that it was a super basic monochrome camera. But what’s more surprising is that it has three times more pixels than the pricey Quest Pro.

Again, this is something I need to test in a more familiar environment, but on first impressions, it’s quite impressive. There’s still some slight distortion, but far less than you get from something like the Pico 4, and the latency is exceptionally low. You can happily walk around, check your phone and more via the pass-through cameras – and it gets all the more exciting when you add mixed reality to the equation.

Performance and software

The Quest 3 is the first headset to feature Qualcomm’s XR2 Gen 2 chipset, so in effect, it’s the first standalone headset to offer performance that exceeds what the Quest 2 is capable of. It also boosts the RAM to 8GB, which should aid in performance and multitasking capabilities.

Qualcomm says the XR2 Gen 2 delivers 2 and a half times better GPU performance as well as 50 per cent better GPU efficiency. It also has a dedicated visual analytics engine onboard and can provide video pass-through with just 12ms of latency. So, not only will future Quest titles look much better, but Meta says that existing titles will look better and run smoother, too.

One of the first things I experienced in the Quest 3 headset, and probably one of the first things customers will experience too, is the room setup process. It’s been completely overhauled to take advantage of the new MR capabilities and I was blown away. Now, to set up your playspace, you simply move your head around to look at your room from all angles. AR geometric patterns cover the walls and furniture in the process, and when you’re done, you just click to end the setup. We’ve been manually drawing the outlines of our safe play space ever since the days of the original Vive and Oculus Rift, and this is the first major step forward in the time since – it’s brilliant.

Once set up, the first game I tried was an upcoming title called BAM. This is a multiplayer MR game that revolves around a scaleable table, kind of like a pool table, that you can place in your room. It uses the pass-through cameras, so you can still see everything around you, but the game surface feels as if it’s in the room with you. The game has you controlling a little robot that drives around the table, and the goal is to grab the crown and wear it for a certain amount of time to win.

Of course, the other players are working towards that same goal, and they’ll attack your character to snatch the crown for themselves. It reminded me of Robot Wars and Super Smash Bros combined, and it was a great laugh. The fact that you can see the other players in the room around you adds to the competitiveness, too.

Next, I tried a series of single-player demos ranging from full VR experiences, like the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Nexus (which is looking amazing, by the way) to exclusively MR experiences like Meta’s own First Encounters. Some titles, like Samba De Amigo: Virtual Party seamlessly blend full VR with elements of MR, which is a trippy and completely new experience.

I’ll spare you the details of each and every game I tried, but if the goal was to get me excited about MR gaming, then mission accomplished. There’s loads of potential here, and I just hope that developers continue to explore the headset’s MR capabilities outside of the launch window. It’s perfect for party games as it doesn’t fully close you off from the people around you, and you’re much less likely to spill someone’s drink or kick a cat when the action heats up.

As for how much better the Quest 2 performs, and what its real-life battery performance is like, it’s too early to say at this stage. What I can say, after my short demo session, is that everything ran smoothly and looked superb. I can’t wait to get my hands on a review unit for some more in-depth analysis.

First impressions

The Quest 3 is an extremely exciting bit of hardware, and it unlocks some incredible MR gaming possibilities that have gone largely unexplored until now. While I have plenty of things that I still need to test, my brief hands-on time with the Quest 3 left me feeling confident that Meta will retain its spot as the most popular consumer VR option.

It’s launching at a higher price than the Quest 2 did, but it offers more impressive hardware, too. I think the fact that it remains in the affordable realm, as opposed to the premium pricing of the Quest Pro, all but ensures the success of the Quest 3.