Meta Quest 3 128GB - Breakthrough mixed reality - Powerful performance, White

I have been a fan of VR since the original Rift, indeed my most popular review on here was for just that product. I spent an age playing Elite Dangerous and various driving sims in VR and definitely got my money's worth from it. As with the Rift, I had got some vouchers from work which made this a relatively inexpensive buy. A friend had let me try his out and I had been blown away. With the old Rift, you had a 'screen door' feeling where you could see the outline of the pixels that were making up the image. It wasn't enough to spoil the experience, but was definitely noticeable. Also with the Rift, the lenses were such that you only ever looked straight ahead. The Quest is an enormous leap forward in quality. The image is clean and crisp, you are not connected to your PC by a cable so can play anywhere you want to, the movement of the image is silky smooth and the lenses are set up in a way that gives you the ability to move your eyes and see peripherally. The passthrough camera is really handy too, tap the controller twice on the side of your headset and whatever application you are using will be replaced with a view in front of you, handy for re-orienting yourself if you happen to stray outside of your gaming space. Worth noting too that the Quest has a very clever application that scans the room you are in and helps you map out your play area, if you move towards the edges, it will show you a mesh overlaid on whatever you are playing to show where you might be straying close to a wall, door or whatever. Even so, it would take a braver man than me to play in the same room as a large TV, a collection of fine china, a pyramid of champagne glasses - you get my drift. I am not going to dock any stars, but I do want to point out a few things that are important to know in advance: - Battery life, when using processor intensive applications, will give you a little over 2 hours use. This isn't really a problem as you won't often want to be strapped into the headset for that long. That said, as I do a fair bit of racing in VR which can last longer than the battery, I have dealt with by buying a replacement strap with a battery passthrough from Kiwi Design (highly recommended, and reviewed on here separately). Budget about £60 more if you want a similar upgrade. - Onboard memory - you can buy the Quest in 128Gb or 512GB versions. Given how cheap solid-state memory is, I balked at the cost uplift for the 512Gb version and bought the 128, and honestly unless you want all your VR apps stored on the headset itself you really don't need 512Gb. Save some money and buy the lower-storage version. - The headstrap that the Quest comes with is perfectly functional, but not the most comfortable for longer sessions. As noted above, I have replaced this with one by Kiwi Design which makes the whole thing much more comfortable. - If you want to play titles from your PC on the rift, check that your motherboard supports the necessary connectivity, otherwise you may have to buy a passthrough cable which will mean you are tethered to your PC (as well as out of pocket for the cable). Mine does, and I happily play Half Life Alyx and other titles downstairs in my conservatory where I have plenty of space. So that's all the consumer advice that I have to share. The gaming experience is fabulous. Half Life Alyx is mindblowing, it really feels like you are there although having life-size headcrab zombies shambling towards you is quite unnerving! Assetto Corsa looks amazing, and sitting in the cockpit of your chosen car feels so natural. Microsoft Flight Simulator - well basically you feel like you are flying a real plane. If you are considering upgrading from an older VR experience, or thinking of taking the plunge for the first time, this is a really impressive offering at a reasonable cost and one I recommend highly. I am happy to answer any questions that you may have about any details I have not covered here.

Having used VR since the original Rift and tested several headsets including the Apple Vision Pro, I find the Quest 3 offers excellent value compared to pricier alternatives. The visual quality is a notable improvement over previous generations with minimal screen door effect. While not perfect, the resolution makes games look crisp and immersive enough to enjoy for hours. The passthrough feature works well for basic awareness of your surroundings, though it's still grayscale and not quite as seamless as advertised. Performance handles most games smoothly, even in demanding titles. I appreciate the wider field of view compared to the Quest 2, and the lighter design makes longer sessions more comfortable, though you'll likely want to adjust the default strap for best results. I love the standalone convenience - no PC required means I can play anywhere without hassle. The room setup is straightforward, and the boundary system has saved me from crashing into furniture multiple times. About the storage - I opted for the 128GB version to save money, and it's been adequate but sometimes limiting. If you travel frequently, you might find it frustrating. Some newer games like Asgard's Wrath 2 take up significant space, and I've had to delete games I enjoy to make room for others when packing for trips. With slow hotel Wi-Fi, reinstalling games can be a pain. However, if you primarily play at home or rotate between 4-5 games at a time, 128GB is perfectly workable. I used the money saved to buy a battery strap that extends the otherwise limited 2-hour battery life. For the price point, the Quest 3 delivers impressive VR that finds a good balance between quality and affordability. Not perfect, but definitely worth it if you're interested in VR without breaking the bank. Just consider your storage needs when choosing between models.

It was not meant to be such a long lasting product but due to VR's flop, this is currently the best VR headset that reasonable money can buy, there is no competition in that price range unless you reach £1.5K and over with the Pimax productcs shipped from China with long waiting queues. I hope that VR will take off, maybe one day, for now, can only recommend to get this with a cable for highest visuals and a dedicated PC and GPU. It is not comfortable at all but it gets better with some strap accessories, in fact it is must have if you want to last longer than 30 minutes, so the headset is not complete to cut costs, you need to replace the strap, hope it helps. So get one while stock lasts, all hardware is by now restricted due to memory / shortage etc...

Massive visual quality improvement from the quest 2's lenses, great for PCVR. I have a dedicated WiFi 6e router right next to my PC and with the quest nearby it doesn't lag when using virtual desktop or oculus air link. Can't say much for standalone games as I use it solely for PCVR but it feels smooth and immersive, controllers track fine as long as they are visible from the headset. The colour pass through is a massive improvement as well, making navigating around the environment while wearing the headset easy, not quite good enough to look at your phone screen though. In my opinion VR is vastly underrated. The immersion is much more thrilling than flatscreen games and using your hands to actually touch virtual objects and interact with them is very fun and exciting, it just feels natural. But you can also play flatscreen games very easily, with virtual desktop you can emulate Xbox controllers with the touch controllers and play while viewing your desktop screen in VR which also looks fantastic with the quest 3. Now for the bad bits. 1. The battery life is quite short. 2. Annoying meta account login that shouldn't be needed 3. The annoyance of having to have an internet connection for many PCVR games which is difficult when you want to have your router right next to your PC for fast wireless display and doesn't have internet connection. 4. The really short charging cable that comes with the headset which is not long enough to play while being plugged in in most scenarios. 5. The lack of a decent head strap coming with the headset itself. 6. The complete lack of development from meta on the oculus link PC app making it clunky, annoyingly buggy such as the mouse or desktop not displaying inside the headset and black boxes around the vr view in some games such as Garry's Mod VR mod. 7. The apparent fact that when the headsets battery finally completely dies in a few years and can no longer be charged, the headset dies with it, even if plugged into the mains.

Updating this review now as fully tested out the Meta Quest 3. Updated review here. Can connect to pc vr games and steam vr with or without the link cable. As long as have wifi can connect without lead, however battery will reduce but if connect using link cable via Thunderbolt 4 connection on pc then will charge headset whilst playing games etc. Graphical display is so much crisper than previous quests etc and playing games varies depending on the game but some of the game si play show the graphics very well. Really impressive graphics thorughout even though some cheaper games have basic graphical display. Changed the headset band to elite aftermarket version as felt that the original headband was not sturdy enough. Microphone and headphone side of things are really good as even though build in, the headphones can be heard clearly and same with microphone speak being very clear. I have not come across any issues and hopefully won`t do. It is worth getting a link cable (Kuject Link Cable 5M £19.99), which cost me £16 and USB-C to USB-C. (you do not need one which also connects the origiall charger to the cable, just connect a USB-C to USB-C to Thunderbolt 4 port on pc) Original review below. Had the original Oculus Rift CV1 and decided that it was time to upgrade to the latest in VR. Meta Quest 3 came in a much smaller box than i thoguht it would but this does not have the seperate sensors like the old one. Setup was very easy and took less than 10 minutes as it was doing update for initial use and then connecting to network and setting up avatar. Once this was done, everything was easy to navigate and i also managed to get it to connect to my pc via the link cable i purchased which also charges it whilst in use. If you decide to connect to pc then use the Thunderbolt 4 port as will charge whilst in use. Love the design of the headset and the display is so much more defined as well as the pancake lenses. Viewing through the headset is a pleasure with the graphics looking absolutely amazing (compared to the original Oculus Rift) Might have cost more but worth every penny. Not tried games as of yet due to time but once i do, hopefully will update this review

VR gaming and home cinema are both incredible. This headset is a huge upgrade from the quest 2 (Q2) in terms of its visuals and comfort; greater clarity and less eyestrain. The reduction in eyestrain vs the Q2 is a huge feature for me, perhaps this is due to the proper inter-pupillary distance settings it has vs Q2. Text is easily readable and movies/video look really good on the cinema size screen. A head-strap like the Bobo vr m3 is an essential accessory as the stock one is very uncomfortable and you certainly wouldn't want to spend 2 hours plus to watch a movie with the stock head-strap but you can with a good replacement one. A proper head-strap is a game changer for comfort; with one you won't need to take the headset off because your face can't take it anymore, you just finish playing when you're bored or have other things to do (like with normal consoles) , I don't know why Meta don't stock decent head-straps as default like Sony and Valve. FYI I thought the elite head-strap wasn't much good either, defo not worth £70. Graphics are what you might expect of mobile gaming; think ps3 rather than ps5. The better chip vs Q2 hasn't really been put to much use at this point imo with only one Q3 exclusive and some OK graphics updates, hopefully in the future this will change. Haven't used MR much yet but I feel it could be quite good. The visual experience of passthrough is not that great imo (grainy) although obviously much better than the rubbish Q2 MR. Visual experience is good enough to do basic tasks like picking up objects and moving around but not typing or reading a monitor. There is not much warping and the latency is very low. Doesn't produce much eyestrain which is a game changer in usability however. Summary: actually useful VR/MR headset. The headset is cheaper than a massive TV and more useful. Gaming in VR is epic. Not much eyestrain, great clarity and is actually comfortable to wear with a decent 3rd party head-strap. VR/MR has come a long way indeed.

I recently got my hands on the Meta Quest 3 128GB, and it has truly transformed my perspective on mixed reality. This headset promises to merge virtual elements seamlessly with your actual surroundings, turning your home into an exciting new playground, and it absolutely delivers on that promise. One of the standout features of the Meta Quest 3 is its powerful performance. Compared to the Quest 2, the Quest 3 boasts more than double the graphic processing power, thanks to the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2. This upgrade is immediately noticeable, providing a smoother and more immersive experience. Whether you’re gaming, exploring virtual environments, or using productivity apps, everything feels more responsive and visually stunning. Speaking of visuals, the Quest 3’s 4K+ Infinite Display is a game-changer. With nearly a 30% increase in resolution from the Quest 2, the clarity and detail in every scene are remarkable. The colors are vibrant, and the sharpness makes the virtual world feel incredibly lifelike. Coupled with the enhanced 3D audio, which offers improved sound clarity, better bass performance, and a 40% louder volume range, the overall sensory experience is incredibly immersive. Whether you’re listening to subtle environmental sounds or dynamic music, the audio quality adds a significant layer of realism to your experience. Safety and privacy are also well-addressed with the Meta Quest 3. The headset includes privacy features and supervision tools, making it suitable for everyone in the family. It’s reassuring to know that there are measures in place to ensure a safe experience, especially for younger users. The guidance and account features for users aged 10 and up provide peace of mind for parents and guardians. The Meta Quest 3 is a breakthrough in mixed reality technology. Its powerful performance, stunning visuals, and enhanced audio make it the most impressive Quest headset to date. The integration of virtual elements into your real-world environment is seamless and exciting, turning your home into a new realm of possibilities. Whether you’re new to mixed reality or a seasoned user, the Quest 3 offers an extraordinary experience that is both safe and incredibly immersive.

Quest 3 is an amazing device which manages to over deliver compared with it's previous iterations. The experience: The moment you put these on, you start seeing the future of VR, amazing hand tracking, amazing immersion, your mind wonders of excitement, shake and awe, thinking, is this real?! Then the excitement fades off almost instantly (in my case after 2 hours), the view through camera is very poor I can barely see text in my phone and everything feels like you're tripping on mushrooms. Few moments later it starts becoming quite annoying as you have to take them off every time you want to want to read messages from your phone, because that view through camera is shit. Few moments later the confusion installs, and suddenly I get this feeling of vomiting, my heart is pumping, my head is dizzy, and all of the sudden this amazing technology becomes nightmare. That day, I used them for 4 hours and slept another 16 hours just because of the headache and vomiting sensation. (For me VR for 1 hr. a day is not a VR, is a tech preview if I can't use it 10 hours a day). Few Days Later: I give it another try and this time I want to test PCVR, applications and Desktop, all of which are products of a lot of poor developers. Applications are mostly beta, unfinished, poorly made, retarded graphics, (If you want VR to look like Red Dead Redemption 2, you are inn for a big disappointment), plus it costs in average between 10 to 20$ for any application. So things are expensive on Quest 3, and are made mostly by a lot of poor developers. Did I mentioned that most feel BETA? Yes I think I did, most applications are VERY VERY VERY poorly made. Verdict: I never had in my life so much excitement and disappointment at the same time. The device is amazing but poor developers base, beta, uncorking and just bad applications make this device unusable or at best it just feels like a technology preview to me. I've tried many applications and many things, it's just not there yet. On this note, it will be amazing in 3-5 years when Meta actually manages to attract professional grade developers, not just tech enthusiasts who don't know how to make an application properly. Until then, I am afraid I will give it a NO.