Meta Quest 3 Serves Up Wireless Mixed Reality At A $499 Price Point
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has officially unveiled the Quest 3 in an Instagram post, promising a lighter headset with a drastically more powerful chipset for $499 this fall. In addition to the chipset, the new headset will feature Meta's "highest resolution display ever." The device also comes with new controllers similar to those shipped with the Meta Quest Pro, which lack the infrared rings previously seen on the Quest and Quest 2's controllers. Curiously, they also seem to be missing the camera lenses that give the Pro controllers inside-out tracking ability. The controllers also feature TruTouch haptics, so expect more tactile feedback from your games and interactions.
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As expected, the headset focuses significantly on mixed reality, likely a direct challenge to Apple which is rumored to unveil its own head-mounted mixed reality device at WWDC next week. The device's "high-level machine learning" and "spacial understanding" suggest that Meta is improving more than the visuals of its mixed reality experiences. The company promises the headset will interact with virtual content and the physical world simultaneously, creating limitless possibilities.
The most powerful Quest yet
So what will $500 get you? The Quest 3 is packing a next-gen Snapdragon chipset which promises to make this the "most powerful Quest yet." and offers "double the GPU processing power" of the Quest 2. This also makes it more powerful than the premium Meta Quest Pro. There is no word on the amount of RAM, storage, or battery life the device has, nor is there any mention of things like Wifi 6E support. We may learn more in a few hours as the Meta Quest Gaming Showcase unfolds, and Meta has promised more details will be revealed at its Connect conference in September.
The headset has also shed some of its size, with a "40% slimmer optic profile" than the Quest 2. It's currently unknown what impact this will have on the device's overall weight. It appears to ship with a fabric strap similar to its predecessor and lacks the in-built halo strap of the Quest Pro.
Meta has also announced it will be changing the price of its most popular device, the Meta Quest 2, back to $299 — the same price point the headset was when it dominated the market. This move shows Meta isn't withdrawing support for Quest 2 as it did with the original Quest earlier this year. The Quest 3 will be available in all countries where the product is currently supported this fall.