It's been just over two years since soon-to-depart CTO John Carmack told a Meta Connect audience about his vision for a super-low-end VR headset that cost $250 and 250 grams. “We're not going to build those headphones today, but I'm still trying,” Carmack said at the time with some exasperation.
In the middle of the price equation, the recently released Quest 3S headset almost lives up to Carmack's hopes and dreams. The new $299 Meta headset is a significant drop from the $499 Quest 3 and the cheapest price for a Meta VR headset since the company raised the price of the old Quest 2 to $400 in summer 2022. If Factoring in a few years of inflation there, the Quest 3S is close to the $250 headset Carmack envisioned.
A new button on the bottom of the Quest 3S lets you switch to step mode at any time.
Credit: Kyle Orland
A new button on the bottom of the Quest 3S lets you switch to step mode at any time. Credit: Kyle Orland
Unfortunately, Meta has yet to seriously address the “250 grams” part of Carmack's vision. The 514g Quest 3S feels at least as unwieldy on the face as the 515g Quest 3, and both are still quite a ways away from the “super-light comforts” Carmack envisioned. Add in all the compromises Meta made so the Quest 3S could hit that lower price, and you have a cheap, mid-size headset that we can really only recommend to the most price-conscious VR consumers.
Meta Quest 2 Plus
iFixit's recent teardown of the Quest 3S shows that the new headset is more than just a spiritual successor to the cheap and popular Quest 2. In contrast, iFixit discovered that the Quest 3S's optical stack uses exactly the same parts as the Quest 2, just below. to LCD panels and Fresnel lenses.
The Fresnel lens housing of the Meta Quest 3S.
Kyle Orland
The Fresnel lens housing of the Meta Quest 3S. Kyle Orland
The Meta Quest 3 pancake lens housing.
Kyle Orland
The pancake lens housing in Meta Quest 3. Kyle Orland
The Fresnel lens housing of the Meta Quest 3S. Kyle Orland
The pancake lens housing in Meta Quest 3. Kyle Orland
In 2020, the 1832×1920 per-eye resolution offered by that visual stack represented a significant improvement over what came before, especially at such a low price. Today, however, that dated display technology invites direct comparisons to the 2604×2208-per-eye display on last year's Quest 3. With the screens just a few centimeters from your eyes, that difference represents a very noticeable 20 percent drop in apparent clarity, downwards. from 25 pixels per degree to just 20.