Meta Quest 3 review: a new gold standard in standalone VR

Meta has faced plenty of criticism since entering the metaverse. But with its new Meta Quest 3 headset, it has pulled off something very special.

Meta Quest 3 full view
(Image: © Dan Oliver)

Our Verdict

The Meta Quest 3 builds on the best elements of Meta’s Quest 2 and Pro headsets, and provides us with a new gold standard in standalone VR. With improvements in colour passthrough, build quality, boundary setting, resolution, and lens design, the Meta Quest 3 is a worthy upgrade to its predecessor. And whilst finding the best use case for you may still take a little time, once you do, the Meta Quest 3 delivers on almost every front.

For

  • Colour passthrough opens up AR
  • Brilliant app experience
  • No need for external sensors
  • Fully standalone

Against

  • Passthrough could be sharper
  • Weight unevenly distributed
  • No facial tracking

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The Meta Quest 3 is the latest VR headset intended to lure us into the metaverse. However, since the launch of the Quest 2 in 2020, we’ve also seen the release of the Meta’s high-end headset, the Meta Quest Pro, which featured full-colour passthrough for mixed reality, a thinner form factor, pancake lenses, integrated facial tracking, and more. So the question is how many of these ‘Pro’ features have made it into the Quest 3? And has Meta addressed the issues that many people had with the Quest 2?

One of the biggest problems with the Quest 2 was the original requirement of a Facebook account to use it. We don’t need to go into the various arguments for and against using Facebook here, but it became an issue that overshadowed many of the product’s benefits. Thankfully, at the end of 2022 Meta changed this policy, and you can now use Meta headsets with a separate Meta account. Another issue with the Quest 2 was the lack of colour passthrough, which allows you to see a real-time view of your surroundings, and have VR elements interacting alongside physical objects. But this has also been addressed within the Quest 3.

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