The Quest 2 is far and away the most
popular VR headset on the market today; and if you're watching this, you probably
already own one, or have at least used one and you're wondering whether Meta's newest
offering, the Quest 3, is worth upgrading to. First things first, both the Quest 2 and Quest 3
are standalone VR headsets, meaning you can enjoy virtual and mixed reality experiences on both
without needing to connect them to an expensive gaming PC. Although you can connect them to a
gaming PC and play PC VR games on them if you'd like to, but we'll talk more about that later
on. Other VR headsets like the Valve Index for example cost more than even the Quest 3 does and
require a gaming PC in order to use them, so the standalone nature and affordable pricing of the
Quest headsets is what has made them so popular. At $499.99 US for the 128GB model, and
$649.99 for the 512GB model the Quest 3 costs about twice as much as a Quest
2. So just what exactly are we getting for double the money? Well let's start by
looking at what all comes in the box with each headset. You of course get the
headset itself, a pair of controllers and a USB C charging cable and wall adapter.
The Quest 2 also comes with a glasses spacer, and a rubber cover for the facial interface if
you choose to use it. There is no glasses spacer for the Quest 3 because the facial interface
itself is adjustable. I like this because now I don't have to worry about the glasses
spacer getting lost or stepped on and broken. The facial interface on the Quest 2 is made
from a foam material, which I actually find to be fairly comfortable, but it also does a good
job of soaking up your sweat which is kinda gross when you're sharing your headset with friends.
Not to mention when the Quest 2 first came out some people had allergic reactions to this foam
material causing their faces to break out. To mitigate this problem and make cleaning your
sweat up easier you can use the rubber cover, but I find that to be much less comfortable on
your face. Personally I like the aftermarket facial interfaces from companies like VR Cover
made from PU Leather, but they don't exactly come with the headset, sooo yah. The Facial
interface of the Quest 3 is a cloth material which at first I found to be kinda stiff and not
all that comfortable compared to the Quest 2's foam interface, but as I've been using it, I feel
like it's been getting broken in and become more comfortable to wear. It does however have the
same sweat absorbing problem the Quest 2 has, so I'm waiting for VR Cover's official
Quest 3 interface to replace it with. The lenses on the Quest 3 are a very nice upgrade
over those of the Quest 2. The Quest 2 uses Fresnel lenses which have these concentric rings
you can see and they have a much smaller sweet spot than the pancake lenses used on the Quest 3.
For those who don't know what the sweet spot it, that's the spot in the lenses you have to get your
eyes to look through to get everything in focus. For anyone that has used a Quest 2 you know this
sweet spot is quite small and can require a fair amount of adjusting the headset to get it just
right. The sweet spot in the Quest 3's lenses is noticeably larger, it's not gigantic and it does
still require some adjusting to get it right, but it is easier to locate and much
more forgiving than the Quest 2 is. When it comes to finding the sweet spot
in the lenses, another aspect of that has to do with the distance between your pupils.
This distance is not the same on all people, so both the Quest 2 and Quest 3 have what is
called IPD adjustment to help with this. The Quest 2 has 3 preset positions you can choose
from which work well for most people. Of course not everyone falls into one of these three
settings so this solution isn't perfect. You can get it to stay between two settings if
your IPD is somewhere between two of them, but it can be a little tricky getting
the lenses to stay between 2 settings as they're not designed to do that. The Quest
3 on the other hand has an IPD adjustment wheel on the underside you can adjust while wearing
the headset, allowing you to set it anywhere between 58 and 70mm. And yes, this distance
is displayed in the headset as you adjust it. Moving on to the head strap, I am not a fan
at all of the stock head strap for either the Quest 2 or the Quest 3. The stock
strap for the Quest 3 is a little bit better than the stock strap for the Quest
2 as it's a little bit easier to adjust, but in all honesty I ditched the stock head
strap on my Quest 3 almost immediately after using it for the first time. There weren't any 3rd
party straps available yet when I got my Quest 3, but within the first week after it's launch some
very industrious people had already created a 3D printable adapter that allowed me to use one of
my Quest 2 head straps with the Quest 3 which I did until I found a head strap I wanted to
buy. Right now I'm using this one from Saqico, I think is how it's pronounced, which I
much prefer to the stock head strap. If you'd like to check it out I'll place a link
to it on Amazon in the video description. The Quest 3's controllers are smaller and
slightly lighter than the Quest 2 controllers. This is due in large part to the omission of the
tracking rings. The Quest 3 has slightly stronger controller haptics in my opinion than the Quest
2 controllers whose haptics often go unnoticed because of how weak they are. The battery life
on both the Quest 2 and Quest 3 controllers is outstanding in my opinion. Each controller uses
just a single AA battery which lasts a very, very long time. I don't know how long exactly,
but by extrapolating how long I've used my Quest 3 controllers and the battery percentage used
thus far, I calculate that they'll last somewhere around 40 or 50 hours and I know the Quest 2
controllers are somewhere in that same range. Both the Quest 2 and Quest 3 support
hand tracking which allows you to navigate menus and even play some games
without the need for controllers at all. When it comes to weight, the Quest 2 is
actually a little bit lighter than the Quest 3, coming in at 17.7 ounces or 503 grams
while the Quest 3 weighs 18.2 ounces or 515 grams. Now while the Quest 3 is slightly
heavier it doesn't feel like it is. In fact it actually feels a little bit lighter
and that's because, according to Meta, the Quest 3 is 40% slimmer than the Quest
2. So with the weight of the unit closer to your face the balance is better and therefore
feels lighter. That 40% slimmer by the way, does not include the facial interface. With
the facial interfaces attached they appear to be pretty close to the same, but once you take
them off you can see a noticeable difference. Other physical differences between the headsets
are all pretty minor, they both use USB C charging ports, but the Quest 3's has been moved to the
headband here. Both have 3.5mm headphone jacks, but the one on the Quest 3 has been moved to
the right side opposite the charging port. The power button on the Quest 3 has also
been swapped from the right side to the left side and the volume rocker is more or less
the same on both headsets. The Quest 3 can be used with a charging dock accessory which
is what these 3 little contact dots are for, the Quest 2 on the other hand does not
support this kind of functionality. The last difference on the outside of the headset
is one of the most obvious ones and that is of course the cameras. The Quest 2 has 4 infra red
cameras on the outside which are used for tracking as well as for the passthru which allows you to
see the real world. The Quest 3 has 6 cameras and a depth sensor. Four of the cameras are infra
red for tracking and the other two are full color cameras for the pass thru. These color cameras are
used in conjunction with the depth sensor allowing you to not only see your real world surroundings
but also get very accurate depth perception, so when you reach out and touch something in the
real world it's right where you'd expect it to be. Since we're on the subject of the passthru
let's talk about it because there really is no comparison, the Quest 3's passthru is WAY
better. On both headsets when you want or need to see the real world you simply double
tap the side of the headset and this will activate passthru mode. On the Quest 2 you see a
pretty blurry black and white representation of the world around you. It works well enough when
you need to see where you are in your play space or to get a drink or something, but if you're
wanting to check your phone or do something on your PC you can forget it. You'll need to take
the headset off to be able to do those kinds of things. The Quest 3's full color passthru
on the other hand is a HUGE improvement over the Quest 2's passthru. I don't know what the
resolution of it is but it's much sharper and clearer than that of the Quest 2. You can
use your phone and even do stuff on your PC with the headset still on your face. Now
while Quest 3's passthru does look better, it's still far from perfect. It's still
kinda blurry and grainy and there's some distortion as the headset tries stitching
together camera and depth sensor data. It is because of this improved passthru though
that the Quest 3 is able to offer some pretty compelling mixed reality experiences. There
aren't all that many mixed reality games available at the time I'm making this video,
but the few I've tried are pretty cool. None of them are much more than tech demos at this
point in my opinion but they do at least help give an idea of what kind of things we can
expect to see in the future. Some of these mixed reality games do work on Quest 2 like
this one in Ocean Rift. It allowed me to turn my room into an aquarium, but there are
others that only work with the Quest 3. Of course the passthru isn't the only
thing that's better on the Quest 3, it also boasts a 30% increase in the pixel
count on it's LCD displays. The Quest 2 uses a single LCD panel with a resolution of
1832 x 1920 pixels per eye and operates between 72 and 120Hz. The Quest 3 has
dual LCD panels, so one for each eye, with a resolution of 2064 x 2208 pixels per
panel and also operates between 72 and 120Hz. This means visuals on the Quest 3 are sharper
and clearer due to this increase in resolution. In order to push all these extra pixels the Quest
3 was upgraded with Qualcomm's Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 processor which has roughly two times the
GPU performance of the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1 found in the Quest 2. This of course means the
Quest 3 is capable of higher quality visuals, higher resolutions and more detailed game
environments. A great example of this is Red Matter 2. It was already one of the best
looking games available on Quest 2, which I reviewed and you can check out in the cards
right here, but the developer, Vertical Robot, updated it for the Quest 3 and it is absolutely
amazing what they've done. The game looks so sharp and crisp on the Quest 3 it's hard to believe it's
running on a mobile processor. It doesn't have the same level of lighting and shadow effects you find
in the PC version of the game, but when it comes to the resolution and textures, it looks every
bit as good as the PC version. It's mind blowing. Both headsets have access to the exact same games
library; most all games on the Quest store will run on both the Quest 2 and the Quest 3. So if
you upgrade from the Quest 2 to the Quest 3 you can still play all your old games. So far there
aren't many Quest 3 exclusives I'm aware of. But in my opinion it would be foolish for a developer
to make an exclusive Quest 3 game at this point in time. Meta has sold something like 20 million
Quest 2 headsets since it launched in 2020, and at the time I'm making this video I'm
unable to find any official sales figures for the Quest 3, but I'm certain there are
no where near as many Quest 3's out there, so for the foreseeable future I expect the
majority of game developers to focus on making their games playable on the Quest 2 as
it has a much higher install base. This simple fact makes upgrading to a Quest 3 a much
less attractive proposition as you could argue what's the point of paying more for
a Quest 3 when all the games are being made to run on the Quest 2? To counter this argument
though, there are some developers who have made, or are working on, updates to their games to take
advantage of the additional power of the Quest 3, so for those that do upgrade to the Quest 3
you'll be treated to a better version of the game, this of course assumes the game developer
updates their game for the Quest 3 where if they don't then the game will look more
or less the same as it does on the Quest 2. To use either headset you first have to set up
your play area which in the headset is known as the Boundary. You do this manually on the Quest
2 by drawing out where you want your play space to be and you can do this manually on the Quest
3 as well, but it also has an automatic boundary that scans your room to determine your play
space. This room scanning is required for some mixed reality experiences, but not for
any of the Virtual Reality games I've tried. Thanks to it's increased power and resolution, the
Quest 3 is a much better device in my opinion for media consumption than it's predecessor. When I
first got my Quest 2 I tried out a popular app called BigScreen which allows you to watch
movies and stuff on a giant virtual screen and I wasn't all that impressed with it to be
honest because I felt the resolution was too low; the image didn't look good to me because I
could see the individual pixels and I found this distracting and visually... painful... for lack of
a better way to describe it. Because of the Quest 3's increased resolution, apps like BigScreen look
noticeably better. I can still see the pixels, but it's much less harsh on the eyes, so for
me the Quest 3 is passable for watching video content. Just to be clear, I'd still rather
watch movies and TV shows on an actual TV, but when comparing the Quest 2 and Quest 3 side
by side for this, I much prefer the Quest 3. While many things about the Quest 3 are superior
to the Quest 2 there is one thing I've found to be far worse and that is the microphone. The
overall sound quality of the microphones on both headsets is actually very similar. They're
not broadcast quality or anything like that, but they sound plenty good enough in
my opinion. The Quest 3 though has a problem with plosives. When you say stuff
like Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers the mic on the Quest 3 pops where as
the mic on the Quest 2 handles them just fine. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Now I don't think Meta is using a lower
quality mic on the Quest 3, what I think is causing this is due to the positioning
of the mic. On the Quest 2 there are 2 mics, one on each side on the bottom of the headset.
The Quest 3 also has 2 mics on it, well actually it has 3. There's one on the front of the headset
that picks up the ambient noise in the room for noise cancellation and stuff like that, but the
two that pick up your voice are located right here behind the face plate. The sound of your voice
then has to enter through this little vent here, which is also where the air enters in to cool the
processor. So this directs the air from your mouth as you're speaking directly into the mics causing
them to pop. This is just a poor design decision by Meta. It takes what is actually a decent
sounding microphone and turns it into poo! Being standalone devices both the Quest 2 and
Quest 3 run off a battery which lasts around 2 hours on both devices. I do feel the Quest
2 lasts a little longer than the Quest 3, when they're new, but my Quest 2 is a couple years
old now and the battery has degraded and doesn't last as long as it used to which I've remedied by
buying a head strap with a hot swappable battery pack. Unfortunately this is the nature of lithium
batteries. Over time they degrade and don't hold a charge as long as they did when they were new,
so no matter which headset you choose to go with, at some point you're going to want to buy some
kind of solution to extend your battery life. As for charging the batteries, it takes
about as long to charge them as they last, so for a new headset, charging takes around 2
hours once the battery has been fully depleted. At the beginning of the video I
said that both the Quest 2 and Quest 3 can be used for PC VR and
that we'd talk about that later, Well it's later! To use either headset with a PC there are two ways
to go about it. The first is to use what is called Quest Link. This requires the use of a USB C cable
connected to your headset and your PC. The other way, which is my preferred method, is wirelessly
via AirLink. This requires you to connect your PC to your WiFi router with a network cable and
then you can wirelessly stream you PC VR games to your headset. There are other apps you can use for
this as well like Virtual Desktop and Steam Link, but using a Quest headset for PC VR is a
video all it's own, so I'm not going to go into any more detail than that here. As for how
each headset looks when using them for PC VR, the resolution is noticeably better on the Quest
3 over Quest 2 at the same render resolution and game settings. Having said that, the Quest 2 does
look really good if you have a powerful enough PC; WAY better than any stand alone
Quest 2 games look mind you, but due to it's higher resolution
displays the Quest 3 looks noticeably sharper and clearer when comparing
it side by side with the Quest 2. I know this has been a looong video, but
I thank you for sticking around until now. We've gone over a lot of stuff and I hope it's
helped you get a good idea of the differences between these two headsets. So back to our
question at the beginning of the video; is it worth paying double the money
for the Quest 3 over the Quest 2? Well I'm sure you know by now the answer is;
it depends. For someone like me who wants the best standalone headset available today, then the
answer is obviously yes. For someone who already has a Quest 2 and is looking to possibly up their
game, then it's going to depend on whether or not you feel the upgrades to the Quest 3 over the
Quest 2 are worth the additional cost to you or not. And for someone on a budget, or someone
simply looking to get into VR for the first time, then the Quest 2 is a great choice as it provides
a very good VR experience at an affordable price. Subscribe!
