Quest 3S is here and brings with it an undeniable value considering its price and capabilities. But many longstanding gripes—largely related to Meta’s Horizon OS—apply here just the same.

Quest 3S Review Summary

Image courtesy Meta

Quest 3S is the best value you can find in a VR headset today when considering its $300 starting price, content library, and overall capabilities. It’s an excellent starting point for anyone who wants to check out VR for the first time.

Even though Quest 2 also launched at $300, Quest 3S is an even better value because Meta’s headsets have only become more capable, while the range of games and apps has grown and improved since the launch of Quest 2. The Quest ecosystem overall has drawn the focus of the majority of VR developers, meaning most new VR games are available on the ecosystem. And Quest 3S has the same horsepower as Quest 3, meaning you’ll get to see improved graphics compared to what Quest 2 was capable of.

If you’re new to VR and want to find out what it’s all about, it’s hard to imagine recommending anything other than Quest 3S—especially because it doubles as a PC VR headset, meaning if you happen to have a high-end gaming PC you can also get access to some must-play VR games that are exclusive to PC, like Half-Life: Alyx.

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If you’re a VR user who has spent a lot of time using a Quest 2, PC VR, or PSVR headset, and are looking to join the modern Quest ecosystem, we still recommend Quest 3 because its higher resolution and class-leading lenses offer a notably sharper image and slightly wider field-of-view. These improvements will be appreciated most by those who have already spent lots of time in VR.

Quest 2, Quest 3S, and Quest 3 have always been good at playing immersive games, but the underlying Horizon OS software that powers them continues to be rough around the edges as Meta has prioritized adding features rather than polish. Using the main Horizon interface for spatial computing tasks like web browsing, finding and installing apps, and adjusting the headset’s settings is almost never without small bugs, inconsistent interface behavior, confusing layouts, and visual stutters.

It might seem like an odd critique considering that Meta definitely has the most comprehensive and capable software stack of any standalone headset on the market. But just being ‘better than the rest’ doesn’t necessarily make the headset’s core software experience good enough. That’s because Quest headsets don’t just compete with other headsets; they also compete with other forms of in-home entertainment like gaming consoles, smart TVs, tablets, and smartphones, which are often significantly easier to use.

Quest 3S Detailed Review

Before we get started, if you’d like to know how Quest 2, Quest 3S, and Quest 3 specs compare for the sake of context, you can find a detailed comparison here.

Visuals

Photo by Road to VR

Peering through Quest 3S reminds one very much of Quest 2. That’s no surprise considering Quest 3S has the same lenses and same resolution as Quest 2.

Quest 3S’s clarity (the overall fidelity of the image through the lens) feels decidedly ‘last-gen’, largely owed to the Fresnel lenses that make the display less sharp with added glare. The lenses also have a small sweet-spot, which means the clarity from the center of the lens to the edge drops off quickly. The small sweet-spot doesn’t matter too much for most VR games. But when it comes to doing spatial computing tasks like web browsing or using a virtual desktop, it’s noticeable because you need to move your head more often rather than being able to simply peer toward something at the edges of the lens with your eyes alone.

Photo by Road to VR

There are some visual improvements over Quest 2 though. Because Quest 3S has the same processor and power as Quest 3, it generally renders the view in the headset at a higher resolution which improves sharpness a bit. That extra power also means games can run higher graphics settings, often meaning more detailed textures, models, and improved lighting.

Even though Quest 3S can run the same graphical settings as Quest 3, the image through Quest 3—which has both better lenses and a higher resolution—is clearly the winner.

Quest 3S has one other big visual improvement over Quest 2: its mixed reality view. Although they share the same lenses and same display, the cameras on Quest 3S—which show the outside world through the headset—are now color and significantly higher resolution. Quest 2’s cameras were very low resolution, black & white, and didn’t offer a very pleasant view of the world. Because of this, using mixed reality on Quest 2 felt more like a hack than a proper feature.

Photo by Road to VR

With better cameras, mixed reality feels like a real benefit on Quest 3S. The resolution of the mixed reality view is still far from what your eyes see in real life, but it’s just good enough to want to use. By default you’ll be greeted with the view of your own room when you put on the headset (rather than being whisked away to a fully virtual environment). This makes for a much more pleasant transition into and out of VR, a nicer way to do basic spatial computing activities (like web browsing and movie watching), and makes mixed reality games feel much more viable.

Overall the visuals in Quest 3S look… fine. It’s perfectly capable for the games the headset can run, but still lower sharpness than you’d want if you planned to use the headset primarily for spatial computing tasks like web browsing, movie watching, and virtual desktop. Quest 3 gets closer to being ideal for those things, but even it still falls a bit short of ideal.

Audio

Quest 3S lacks a 3.5mm jack, unlike Quest 2 and Quest 3. Luckily it shares effectively the same audio quality as Quest 3, which we find is better than Quest 2 and good enough that most people won’t feel the need to add their own headphones. Though, if you want to, you can use your own headphones via USB-C.

We’d still love to see an ‘elite audio strap’ added to Meta’s official Quest accessory lineup, which would ideally combine high-quality off-ear headphones with existing ‘elite strap’ designs.

Tracking & Controllers

Image courtesy Meta

When it comes to headset tracking, Meta consistently has the best inside-out tracking in its class. Aside from annoying software-related stutters, Quest 3S tracking is robust and handles low light situations well enough.

Unlike every Meta headset that has come before it, Quest 3S lacks a proximity sensor inside the headset, which means the screen doesn’t automatically turn on or off when you put on or remove the headset. It feels a little weird coming from other headsets, but it’s not a major inconvenience to just press the little standby button on the side when you pick it up.

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Quest 3S uses the same Touch Plus controllers as Quest 3 which are also class-leading in terms of inside-out controller tracking. They’re compact, reasonably high-quality, have decent haptics, capacitive sensing on the thumbsticks and buttons, and excellent battery life. Overall there’s little to complain about regarding the controllers—they do their job well.

However, one downside of the Touch Plus controllers continues to be that they use replaceable batteries rather than rechargeables. Ostensibly this is a cost reducing measure, as Meta solves that problem itself with an official Quest Compact Charging Dock which includes custom rechargeable batteries that enable wireless charging when placed in the dock (the headset still needs to be plugged in). Note that Meta’s previously available Quest 3 Charging Dock also charges the Touch Plus controllers, but will not charge Quest 3S because the headset lacks special contact points on the bottom which are unique to Quest 3.

Image courtesy Meta

The controllers offer impressive tracking which feels equivalent to how they operate on Quest 3. While it’s possible for the controllers to lose tracking when put into blind spots for extended periods (like behind your head or back), the controllers do a good job of compensating if they’re only briefly out of view of the headset. Most VR games today also account for (or outright avoid) interactions that would put the controllers in tracking blind spots for long periods.

Hand-tracking on Quest headsets has gotten better over the years. On Quest 3S it’s a ‘nice-to-have’ feature when you want to do something quick in the headset like click a button, or want to consume media—where only simple inputs like play, pause, and seek are needed—without bothering with the controllers.

But hand-tracking on Quest 3S (and Quest 3 for that matter) can still be frustratingly inaccurate at times. The design of Horizon OS doesn’t help the matter with its poor input affordances, feedback, and targets that are often insufficiently sized given the limited accuracy. This undercuts the headset’s usability when using hand-tracking for basic spatial computing tasks.

Quest 3S improves hand-tracking in at least one meaningful way however. New IR LED lights on the front can invisibly illuminate your hands in front of the headset, improving hand-tracking in low-light scenarios. This makes hand-tracking more usable in dimly lit rooms and at night. Hand-tracking even works well in a pitch black room, which is not the case for Quest 3; this is perhaps the only notable scenario where Quest 3S outperforms Quest 3.

Ergonomics

Photo by Road to VR

Quest 3S is essentially the same size and weight of Quest 2 and Quest 3. Ergonomically speaking, it’s nearly identical too.

Unfortunately that means Meta has paired it with a soft strap out of the box. Everyone has a different head shape, so mileage varies, but we’ve just never found the soft straps of Quest 2, Quest 3, and now Quest 3S, particularly comfortable for long-term use.

In particular, the strap tends to graze the ears instead of going around them, which can be annoying for long sessions. Without any counterweight on the back of the strap, the headset also starts to feel front-heavy pretty quickly. This can be alleviated somewhat by being cautious about how much you tighten the rear strap (instead let the top strap do as much of the lifting as possible, with the rear strap as minimally tightened as possible while still keeping the headset on your face). This is made more challenging by the odd tightening mechanism on the soft strap which makes it difficult to make small adjustments.

Image courtesy Meta

As with its siblings, an improved headstrap is the very first thing we recommend to anyone thinking about getting accessories to improve their experience. A rigid strap with some counterweight on the back and a dial for tightening means significantly greater comfort.

Quest 3S is compatible with most Quest 3 headstraps | Image courtesy Meta

Fortunately Meta was careful to make the Quest 3S strap attachment point largely identical to the one on Quest 3, which means the vast majority of third-party Quest 3 straps are equally compatible with Quest 3S. And that means there’s already huge variety to choose from—you can find our top Quest 3 (and now 3S) headstrap picks (and other accessories) here.

If you’re coming from Quest 2, you’ll find that the headset inherently feels a little less taxing to use simply because the improved passthrough view of Quest 3S eases the transition into and out of VR. And a new button on the bottom of the headset makes for a convenient shortcut to turn passthrough on and off. On Quest 3 you can activate the same shortcut by double-tapping on the side of the headset, but many people are unaware of the feature, so having a dedicated button is an improvement.

Continue on Page 2: Games, Apps, and Horizon OS »

Games & Apps

Image courtesy Meta

Although it can do more, playing fully immersive games and experiences is definitely the main use-case for Quest 3S and what it’s best at.

While there remains some older PC VR gems that the headset can’t access (unless you have a high-end gaming PC to pair it to), the vast majority of VR games today are released either exclusively on the Quest platform (called the Horizon Store), or concurrently with other platforms. That means Quest 3S has access to a large and growing library of the biggest VR games and experiences being made today.

Compared to the launch of Quest 2, the Horizon Store has only grown in both breadth and depth. You can find viral indie hits like Gorilla Tag or jump into big-named platform exclusives like Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR or Asgard’s Wrath 2.  And between a wide range of games in Early Access or built inside of Meta’s Horizon Worlds social platform, there’s a lot to explore.

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Because Quest 3S shares the same performance specs as Quest 3, it can play the same games at the same graphical settings. That means it not only has access to the newest games (like the upcoming Batman: Arkham Shadow) but you can also be confident that it will be supported for as long as Quest 3.

With some exceptions, the vast majority of Quest games on the Horizon Store unfortunately don’t have the scope or polish that you might expect from games on any of the big three game consoles. So if you’re looking for polished experiences, you’ll need to do some research to sort through the huge library to find the content that scratches that itch.

We’ve got our own recommendations for the first Quest games you should consider buying, and for the best free Quest games you can find.

The Horizon Store is also home to many interesting non-game apps that span the gamut from education to travel to meditation, and much more. If you’re the creative type, you can find a number of interesting tools for creative endeavors like sculpting, painting, and animating in VR.

Horizon OS

Image courtesy Meta

Horizon OS is the name Meta uses for the core Quest software—the interface and features you use when not inside of an immersive app.

The company has been rapidly adding to the Horizon OS feature set. You’ll find a full-blown web browser, a virtual desktop for using your headset as a display for your Mac or Windows computer, a media player for viewing side-loaded content like photos and spatial videos, and more.

Recent changes enable free-form window management, allowing you to, say, open a web browser to pull up a YouTube video and maximize it like a huge TV, then open another browser window and pull it into your lap to browse twitter like a tablet.

Image courtesy Meta

On paper, Horizon OS has a lot of built-in capabilities. In reality, the OS continues to feel overtly clunky. Using it often feels like using a bolted-on smart TV interface rather than the streamlined interfaces you’d expect from a smartphone or tablet.

Issues with Horizon OS are broad, generally falling into three categories: poor design, inconsistent behavior, and bugs. It would take an entire series of articles to dig into the details, so here I’ll just say that Horizon OS continues to have poor usability. It does more today than it ever has, but cramming more features into the OS doesn’t always mean a better user experience if the features aren’t actually polished and easy to use.

This is a real shame because these issues are largely software and design based—things that aren’t constrained by the headset’s hardware. And the clunk of the user-facing software layer really diminishes the incredible things the headset is actually doing under the hood (the invisible stuff like head tracking, world tracking, passthrough, rendering games and apps with incredibly low latency, etc).

If Meta can figure out how to make real usability improvements to Horizon OS, it could greatly increase the value of Quest 3S over time. But, having seen these issues persist since Quest 2, we aren’t holding our breath.


Disclosure: Meta provided Road to VR with a Quest 3S headset.

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Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Q3S, as his Majesty King Carmack would say, has quote/unquote: "great value" ….
    []^ )

  • Very detailed review, as usual. Yesterday I just turned on my headset and my first reaction when seeing the visuals have been "oh gosh". I'm too used to Quest 3 now, and going back to Quest 3S feels like going to the past. But for new VR users or previous Quest 1 or 2 users, this is great

    • XRC

      Look forward to reading your 3S review once you've had some time with it.

  • eadVrim

    However, I still think that the option to reduce the price of Quest 3 128G to $400 was better than releasing Quest 3S with frensel lenses and low resolution for $300.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      Not really an option. Spot market price for 128GB MLC flash is currently USD 8.80, cheap 1TB SSD sell for USD 50 on Amazon, so USD 6.25 per 128GB flash. Meaning if Quest 3 with 512GB sells at cost for USD 499, a Quest 3 128GB would save USD ~18-26 for a price of USD 472-481. Nowhere near USD 400, and Meta pays even lower prices for flash due to long term contracts.

      Flash storage for years hasn't been the place to save money, but to make money. Meta said numerous times they are selling headsets at around production cost. So on release a 128GB Quest 3 probably cost USD ~500 to produce and sell. Flash prices have slightly risen since then due to reduced overproduction, but assuming current prices, the larger Quest 3 512G would have again added USD 18-26 in production, while selling for USD 150 more.

      Which is why companies like Meta, Apple or Samsung sell base models with questionable low amounts of flash despite flash storage being very cheap. Base models are often very price competitive, with not much room to reduce prices further, so companies make their money from selling upgraded versions with more reasonable amounts of flash, sold at multiple times its cost. Component prices for pancakes, brighter displays and larger battery on Quest 3 compared to 3S will be significantly higher than the total price for storage even on the 512G model.

      • eadVrim

        But why Meta was able to sell or has been selling the Q3 for $430

        • Christian Schildwaechter

          Zuckerberg stated in 2022 they sell some models slightly above, some slightly below cost, at a time when they were only selling Quest 2 with 128GB and 256GB with a < USD 15 difference in production cost, but a USD 100 difference in retail price. So when they say they sell a cost, this will be an average value, as component prices vary over time. Selling at production cost obviously doesn't make any money back for the required research and development, acquiring start-ups or having thousands of people working on software at MRL, so it is a somewhat fictional product price anyway.

          Quest 3 128GB sold at USD 430 during a short promotion a few month ago and now for the remaining stock. Given that no Meta headset sells at a price that would allow Meta to recoup the actual cost it took to bring it to market, and this cost not even a fixed value, but depending on how they calculate future value from current investment, the USD 430 don't reflect a specific component cost. It will be a wild mix of hardware cost, the cut Amazon and others take, promotion value and depreciation for old stock.

          The "worst case" calculation is still MRL spending USD 50bn spread over ~25mn sold HMDs adding ~USD 2000 on top of each headset. So Meta's strategy/calculation allows to sell an HMD they (worst case) invested a total of USD ~2499 to create to VR users for USD 499. With these numbers, a price reduction by USD 70 merely means temporarily increasing the loss per HMD by 3.5%. They were never able to sell Quest 3 for either USD 499 or USD 429 without heavily subsidizing it somehow. The actual price setting seem driven mostly by not wanting to create the impression they are dumping prices, i.e. selling on average below production cost, which could be interpreted as anticompetitive behavior. This still allows to sell even below production costs to e.g. get rid of older models, something they possibly also did in March when dropping Quest 2 to USD 199.

          • eadVrim

            They could have compensated for this loss by avoiding the high costs of producing a new product, I mean the Quest 3S (Engineering, R&D, Marketing … )

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            I'm sure they could have found a way sell Quest 3 at USD 400 via some advanced accounting, but we've seen Quest 2 sales go through the roof during the last holiday season with the price dropped to USD 249, outselling Quest 3 by 3:1 or 4:1. Partly due to a halo effect from the Quest 3 launch, but Quest 2 sales numbers have always been connected to price, crashing when Meta increased it to USD 399, and jumping up when dropped below USD 299, despite the more capable Quest 3 available and Quest 3S in sight.

            We now may be at around 2mn Quest 3 total, less than 10% of Quest 2. Meta's primary target is to grow the active user numbers, which they hope will attract more developers, at one point starting a self-perpetuating process of more users -> more developers -> more games/apps -> more users. And they need the large market to escape the Google/Apple ecosystems sucking up 30% of all sales. With Quest unit sales being very sensitive to price, a USD 400 Quest 3 doesn't help Meta strategically due to low sales. Most new users don't seem to care about the improved lenses, so it would be mostly nice for existing Quest 2 users wanting to upgrade, but shying away from paying USD 500 for better lenses and some updated games.

            Quest 3S reuses the lenses and displays from Quest 2, upgrades the SoC, swaps two b/w cameras to color passthrough and adds some room illuminating IR LEDs to improve tracking. It also runs the same software as Quest 3/2, so it was designed as a budget entry level HMD, with most of the R&D already covered by Quest 2/3. I'd expect most component cost to have fallen since the 2020 release of Quest 2, so they will probably be able to drop the price to USD 250 or even further once Qualcomm reduces the price for the rather expensive XR 2 Gen 2 that will make up a big part of Quest 3/3S component costs.

            I currently wouldn't even bet on Quest 3D being the last Meta HMD using Fresnel. Quest 4 might get microOLED displays if prices fall quick enough, but for a budget HMD the price advantage from Fresnel, requiring less bright LCD and lower capacity battery will be very difficult to beat for some time.

          • eadVrim

            If I were Meta, I would concentrate my efforts on marketing rather than reducing prices by creating a low-range product.

            For me, the Quest 3 is currently the best consumer product in the world, and its price is even lower than that of the PS5 console (which doesn't even include a monitor).

            The focus should be on creating a need and a demand through more publicity.

            The Quest 3 itself generates good free publicity through word of mouth and social media, which the Quest 3S won't.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            The goal is not to sell the best (consumer) headset, but the most headsets. Those are two very different priorities that lead to different hardware strategies.

            The Varjo XR-4 Focal Edition is the best (definitely not consumer) HMD you can buy with 28M Pixel displays twice as bright as AVP/Quest 3, aspheric lenses that at the center increase to 51 PPD, also reached in the super low latency, hires passthrough with auto-focussing cameras that allow the eyes to naturally focus on distant objects. Plus inside-out tracking, 200Hz eye tracking, 120° FoV, high color accuracy screen and cameras, DTS spatial sound and more. Hopefully a template for future headsets, but it would be insane for Meta to try to build something like this right now, or even try to use/beat the resolution of the much more consumer oriented 2.5K Bigscreen Beyond or HTC Vive Focus Vision.

            No matter how good your marketing is, the professional and even enthusiasts market open to higher prices is way too small to get to the user numbers only a price sensitive mass audience can provide. And without those user numbers, no developers will create any games or apps for the platform, and the whole thing implodes.

          • eadVrim

            What about Varjo X4 software and apps?
            $500 is in the range of most gaming devices.
            Pancake lenses and its sharpness and its comfort wirh huge apps on store that makes users return often to play rather than try ir some times and put it in the closet to collect dust.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            If you use Varjo XR-4 in your business, you probably either have custom apps created for you by developers with a yearly salary multiple times the USD 9990 price of the headset. Or you use it with professional software with yearly licenses the cost of cars, installed by consultants charging somewhere between one Quest 3S to one Quest 3 per hour. If you are sufficiently loaded to buy one for fun, you can run any Steam PCVR game, but don't expect those to come with special improvements for your headset, unless you again are willing to pay the developers hourly to implement them.

            AFAIR the average active Quest user generates about USD 8-10/month revenue for Meta, so quite a different market. Game development costs have to be spread over a large user base, with every single copy sold only bringing in a tiny amount. And I'm pretty sure that the last five years have proven that the small active user base causing low sales is the biggest problem for most VR developers, and that new hardware sales are significantly driven by people giving out Quest headsets as Christmas presents.

            Your idea that pancake lenses and sharpness are what makes users return is you projecting your own preferences onto a group that in reality plays dominantly games like Gorilla Tag or Beat Saber that barely benefit from the improvements. Quest 3 players may return more often with higher retention due to the lenses, but if the headset sells only 1/3rd the units, you still end up with less active users. And retention among Quest 2 Gorilla Tag or Beat Saber players is very likely much higher than with average Quest 3 users.

            I'm sure that if Meta, who have all the data on sales, price sensitivity, retention, most played titles, frequency of use and more, concluded that what the VR market (and not only some enthusiasts) really wanted/needed was a USD 400 Quest 3, this is what they would have released. Instead we got the USD 300 Quest 3S after the USD 500 Quest 3 sold much worse than its predecessor, and the USD 1500 Quest Pro bombed even after lowering the price to USD 1000. Everything besides your (unsupported) assumptions hints that focusing on higher end headset instead of the Christmas present budget compatible low end would end disastrous for Meta.

          • eadVrim

            So the good pancake VR will remain invisible or hidden by the Quest 2 and the Quest 3S!

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            More and more pancakes will be sold in more expensive headsets targeting enthusiasts. They won't be hidden or invisible, just like eye tracking isn't invisible despite being used only on higher end headsets. We won't see a lot of games that really need the clarity of pancakes, just like we don't see a lot of games that benefit from eye tracking besides performance improvements. But over time the tech will improve and get cheaper, and features currently only available on the higher end trickle down to the mass market devices.

            That's pretty much what we also see in other areas like smartphones, where you pay a high price for the latest tech, limiting how many people actually get to use it. But this way those that can afford the higher price enable further development and price reductions, eventually making the tech available to everyone. This spread over a huge price range has been rather beneficial for all, but indeed means that the latest and greatest features will often only see delayed widespread use once they have reached the average devices that developers target with their applications.

          • eadVrim

            Pancake lenses are not only clarity, it is the minimum for a really public VR headset should be. It is not a privilege but a standard.
            Normal VR user won't tolerante with narrow sweetspot, not tolerate with poor weight distribution …

          • Arno van Wingerde

            Nobody should drive anything less than a Ferrari either, but funnily enough more people buy a small Ford instead. Something to do with costs, I think…

  • Hussain X

    "However, one downside of the Touch Plus controllers continues to be that they use replaceable batteries rather than rechargeables."

    I guess you've not yet come across user replaceable AA rechargeable batteries? They've been around for decades. Being able to easily replace batteries within seconds either from low charge or battery degradation over time is super, super convenient and pro-consumer. Unlike Vive Wands, Index controllers, PSVR controllers where if battery dies (and it dies quicker over time due to degradation) it renders you disabled and you have to completely halt activities till you charge the controller batteries. Or worse, controller batteries were already dead just as you were about to have a VR session in the only free 2 hour time window you had over the weekend after a busy week longing to play VR. Or you argue with your sibling not to use the VR controllers so that controller batteries are still charged when you yourself get free in an hour's time, denying your sibling that hour. User replaceable batteries does away with all that headache and wasted downtime, and when you use AA rechargeable batteries, it's the ultimate feeling of power, unlike the disability suffered from built in batteries once they lose charge.

    • Arno van Wingerde

      That… and the amazingly long runtime on a single AA battery. I just wished there was a better way to get the "old" battery out, perhaps as a tool built into the battery cover.

      • XRC

        A thin fabric strip across the middle of the battery bay easily allows removal by pulling up.

        • Arno van Wingerde

          Thanks! The greatest tips are the simple ones…

    • Darren

      No idea why they would say replaceable batteries are a downside. Why would gamers who like to keep playing want to have to recharge controller batteries all the time? Makes no sense whatsoever.

  • Arno van Wingerde

    Hi Ben: it is a nice review of the Q3S and there simply is not that much more to say about it. But I found it somewhat weird to mix the review of a new headset with complaints about the OS: I would have made two separate articles about that.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      TL;DR: Meta really has done its homework with the hardware, but users still mostly have to fight Horizon OS, while it should invite them to explore more. Deserved praise for Quest 3S should include valid criticism about a lacking user experience, which becomes a bigger factor why people stop using their headsets. With decades of examples for creating more consistent UI/UI, this is more a problem of lacking focus than of technical difficulty.

      Horizon OS deserves separate articles, but pointing it out here makes sense. Quest 3S is very impressive considering Meta again hit the USD 300 "impulse buy" threshold. It may seem less impactful compared to the Quest 2 launch simply because Quest 3 exists, but given available tech and cost limitations, Quest 3S is about as good as they could make it. So if hardware could only be better at much higher costs, leading to dramatically lowers unit sales, the remaining factor limiting widespread use is software.

      That's for one availability of games and apps, driven mostly by market size, limiting Meta's influence mostly to keeping the price low enough to attract new Quest 3S users. But the part they can influence is the smoothness of the experience. VR comes with extra friction compared to playing console games for hours while lounging on a sofa. You need to strap a heavy, sweaty plastic box that blinds you to your face, and without precaution and clearing up space might hurt yourself, others or the furniture. If you're fine with that, you now have three things that need to be charged and still won't get more than 2.5h of solitary play. Things improved, and esp. with going wireless retention became slightly less horrible, but for more than 60% it's still not worth the hassle once the initial impact of being immersive in a virtual world has worn off.

      Meta went through the trouble of creating and improving several headsets at attractive prices, culminating in the Quest 3S. They jumpstarted the software market at high cost, so by now it is hard to run out of games to play, instead people leave because the overall friction is still too high. So adding extra stumbling blocks to an already bumpy experience by not polishing the UI that needs to glue it all together is very wasteful.

      Meta's main job at this point would be to guide people to keep using their headset, by making it easier/less buggy to play with others, by letting them organize their preferred apps in a way they want, by not making them guess where the latest update moved options, by pointing out what else is possible with things like updated "Theater Elsewhere" VR animation player and other things already possible in principle. Most users will never learn about all the other things they could do with their Quest though, as the current Horizon OS doesn't encourage exploring and just trying things out. Instead of pressing buttons and clicking options just to see what happens, you fight Horizon OS to get what you want and what should be obvious.

      It no doubt improved a lot in the last year, but is still far from the consistency that makes trying out new things all working in a similar, expected way so much easier on Apple devices. A few days ago Meta released the Horizon OS UI set for Unity, allowing developers to implement a consistent user interface similar to Meta's own UI across multiple apps. That very nice, but WTF!!!! It's 2024. The so called Macintosh Toolbox providing a consistent UI was the most important part of MacOS when the Mac released 40 years ago in 1984. It was very polished before launch, enforcing Apple's software design guidelines, with many elements surviving to this day despite several complete revamps of the underlying OS. It's still a role model for UI/UX design. So the problem isn't that it can't be done. The problem is that Meta with great hardware neglects the user interface and user experience and thereby wastes a lot of the potential of the platform.

      • Arno van Wingerde

        OK you guys convinced me. I guess the hurdles of any OS do not bother me, as I get to an app and live my life there. But I see your points about how Horizon OS tries to force you into these worlds instead of showing you what kind of stuff is possible with a Quest.

    • Ben Lang

      Horizon OS and its features are a big part of the advertised value proposition of Quest 3S. Seemly sensible to cover it here for someone who wants to know whether or not the product is for them.

  • brandon9271

    I would rather have a Quest 2 with pancake lenses than a Quest 3 with fresnel lenses.. Graphical fidelity doesn't really overcome poor optics.