I finally got to try the Meta Quest 3! Here are my hands-on first impressions, both good and bad:
How is the mixed reality quality?
I was hoping that the Quest 3 would be able to create a convincing illusion of holographic objects in my surroundings. Unfortunately, I found that it didn’t. The color passthrough was definitely a lot more detailed than Quest 2, and had decent color and dynamic range. But it just isn’t detailed enough. In my opinion, it looks like a 4k 360 video from the previous generation of 360 cameras.
Lens
One of the best things I liked about the Quest 3 are the lenses. The pancake lenses have a huge sweet spot. It looked very clear to both my eyes without adjustment. I also like how there are no god rays. It also has a noticeably wider field of view. A minor nitpick is that the viewports look like they have a wavy-shaped edge.
Detail
I thought the difference between Quest 2 and Quest 3 would be small. I was wrong about that. Quest 3 is very noticeably more detailed than Quest 3. I could not see any screendoor effect even if I tried, and I could not see individual pixels. This is the most detailed VR headset I’ve tried (I have about a dozen).
Graphics
Some of the Quest 3 games looked not much different from existing Quest games, but Asgard’s Wrath 2 looked incredible. Sample videos on YouTube don’t do it justice. In the headset, it looks like a desktop VR game, or even somewhat like a PS3 game. I hope to see more Quest 3 games like it.
Summary
Although I’m a bit disappointed that the Quest 3’s mixed reality isn’t more convincing, I’m very excited for it and it looks like a major upgrade that’s worth the $499 price. I’ll post a full review as soon as I receive it!
just 2 questions: When passthrough is active, do you see your room in 3D ? (like it should be, since Quest 3 has 2 cameras with the correct eye spacing !)
In passthrough mode, When you move your head fast to look around, do you notice a lag in the image you see ?
Thank you !
Hi Sergio. Yes the passthrough view is in 3D. There is minimal lag, but the framerate does not seem to be very high. It seems to be 30fps or something.
Too bad…. I hope this can be fixed in future firmwares
👍
Thanks Michael!
Mic, with all my respect, although indeed the Quest 3 is much better than the Quest 2, and you are right regarding the seethrough (what annoys me most is the deformation of close objects), I disagree with following: “I could not see any screendoor effect even if I tried, and I could not see individual pixels.” The pixels are still visible, the screendoor effect is still there. Bit by bit it is getting better, and probably for the moment it is impossible to do better specially due to the GPU and the android limitations, but before receiving my Quest 3 you made me dream too wide.
Thanks Michael. Are you sure you’re seeing the individual pixels of the headset as opposed to the graphics themselves? FWIW mike from virtual reality oasis also agrees that there’s no sde on quest 3. “SDE is a thing of the past.”