The Meta Quest 3 standalone headset has been revealed with a distinctive new slimline design, a big leap forward in terms of power, and an expected release this autumn with a price point starting at $499.99. With the announcement, Meta has also announced that the Quest 2 is dropping back down in price and getting a pretty significant speed bump of its own via a software update.
The Meta Quest 3 has a distinctive new tri-camera face, but this opens up new possibilities for augmented reality with a full colour camera. Despite the added camera, the headset is 40% slimmer than the Quest 2, while there’s redesigned Quest 3 Touch Plus controllers that eliminate the plastic tracking loop entirely.
While the specifications weren’t shared, the Quest 3 features an even higher resolution display with pancake optics, and there’s a new generation Snapdragon chipset that is twice as powerful as the Quest 2.
Presumably that’s talking about the original Quest 2, because the Quest 2 and Quest Pro are both getting a significant speed bump thanks to a softwar update. This gives 26% more CPU performance and 19% better GPU performance in Quest 2 and 11% in Quest Pro. This will allow developers to make use of dynamic resolution scaling.
On 4th June, the Quest 2 will be dropping back down in price after last year’s price increased. The base 128GB version will be $299.99 and the 256GB version $349.99.
All of this is coming just a few days before the expected reveal of an Apple VR headset, and from the timing along, you absolutely get the sense that Meta is very wary of what Apple might be able to do in this space. Meta Quest 3’s pricing and features could do a lot to keep Apple’s product honest.
At the same time, it won’t hurt Meta’s goals in VR to
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