Meta's cheaper Quest 3S could just be an upgrade

Meta has finally announced the heavily leaked Quest 3S VR headset, and the leakers were right: it's a $299.99 headset that looks like a mix between the Quest 2 and Quest 3. But now that the specs are official, I can tell you that it's a lot closer to the Quest 3 than expected for a refresh that costs almost half as much. If you don't already have a Quest headset, the 3S might be a very tempting purchase.

The Quest 3S offers the same mixed reality features and performance as the Quest 3—it even has the same Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chip—which means you can enjoy the same games and experiences on both devices. The Quest 3S uses the same Touch Plus controllers as the Quest 3. And the Quest 3S actually has longer battery life than the Quest 3: According to Meta, the 3S lasts 2.5 hours with average use, while the Quest 3 only lasts 2.2 hours.

There are a few differences. The Quest 3S is slightly larger than the Quest 3. Its front sensors are arranged in two triangular formations, while the Quest 3 has three pill-shaped notches. It doesn't have a depth sensor like the Quest 3. And perhaps most notably, the 3S uses lower-resolution displays than the Quest 3—the same 1832 x 1920 per-eye resolution as the older Quest 2—and the Quest 3S also has a narrower field of view.

But in a demo of the Quest 3S yesterday, as I lurked through damp sewers in Batman: Arkham Origins and fought through some bad games in Horizon Worlds (a replica of the office of The officeyay!), I didn't miss the Quest 3's upgrades. And the headset felt good on my head during my half-hour demo, thanks largely to its Y-shaped split strap—I would have happily worn the headset for much longer if Meta had let me.

The 3S also has an “action button” for switching between passthrough and immersive modes, but I wasn't able to test it. The Quest 3 and Quest Pro already let you switch between immersive and passthrough modes by activating the “double tap” feature, but a dedicated button may mean you have to switch back and forth more often to get a glimpse of the real world around you.

Pre-orders for Quest 3S are available starting today, ahead of the headset’s October 15 launch. Meta also offers Batman: Arkham Originswhich will be released on October 22nd when you purchase either Quest 3 or Quest 3S.

With the Quest 3S, Meta's VR headset lineup is pretty straightforward. There's the 128GB Quest 3S for $299.99, the 256GB Quest 3S for $399.99, and the 512GB Quest 3 for $499.99. The 512GB Quest 3 originally cost $649.99 when it launched last year, and now Meta plans to sell its leftover 128GB Quest 3 headsets, which started at $499.99, for $429.99.

With the Quest 3S now part of the lineup, Meta also plans to stop selling the Quest 2 and Quest Pro. “We will sell our remaining headsets through the end of the year or until they sell out, whichever comes first,” the company says in a blog post.

With the Quest 3 and Quest 3S, Meta has a strong lineup. While VR headsets are still relatively niche—and the company's Metaverse ambitions haven't even come close to being realized—for those new to VR, Meta offers great hardware and plenty of VR experiences to lose yourself in. And perhaps best of all, you don't have to pay $3,499 to get started.