Meta debuted its new, cheaper headset during its Connect event on Wednesday. Dubbed the Meta Quest 3S, the company promised it has great performance despite the lower price.
Mark Zuckerberg himself announced the Quest 3S at the Meta Connect event. It costs $299.99, which is a steep discount on the newly reduced-price $499.99 Meta Quest 3 or $999.99 Meta Quest Pro.
Meta said the headset could do pretty much anything most folks want to use a headset for, such as watch a movie, immerse yourself in a concert, or play games.
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Meta has a detailed page on the different specs of its headset line. Here are the basic specs of the Quest 3S:
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Snapdragon XR2 Gen2 chip
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8GB RAM
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128GB or 256GB storage
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1832×1920 screen resolution
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90Hz or 120Hz refresh rate
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96 degrees by 90 degrees field of view
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Fresnel lenses
You’re probably wondering how that differs from the Quest 3. The chipset and RAM are the same across both devices, but everything else is a little different. There is no 512GB storage option as there is with Quest 3. In addition, the displays are worse across the board; their resolutions and fields of view are lower, while the refresh rate isn’t quite as variable. It also uses Fresnel lenses rather than pancake lenses.
“Quest 3S is a big step in making mixed reality more accessible, and we hope you’re as excited as we are about the future of this technology,” the company said in a statement.
With the discontinuation of the Quest 2 and Quest Pro, it seems like the Quest 3S is your new affordable VR headset of choice.