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Meta has officially unveiled the follow-up to its popular Quest 2 VR headset, the Quest 3. You can technically count the Quest Pro as the first follow-up but the Quest 3 is an actual successor. Whereas the Quest Pro was meant as a more high-end option than the Quest 2.
The headset was officially announced by Mark Zuckerberg on his personal Instagram account on the morning of June 1. It comes with some big upgrades to the hardware and thereby, will be able to deliver an improved experience. Though, the experience on the Quest 2 was already very good. The new headset, Meta says, comes with higher resolution displays in a slimmer and more comfortable design.
It’ll retail for $499 and arrive later this year with a Fall launch. Meta hasn’t mentioned an exact date, but the company says there will be more to share about the headset when Meta Connect returns on September 27. So chances are it’ll launch on or sometime soon after the date of that event.
Meta Quest 3 will come in a more expensive version
The headset will start at $499, but Meta will offer a more expensive model. This will come down to more storage, while everything else should be the same. For the $499 version, you’ll get 128GB. Which is probably plenty for most people.
Meta says however, that it will “offer an additional storage option for those who want some extra space.” While Meta doesn’t say how much extra storage there will be, expect this second sku to be 256GB just like with the Quest 2.
Speaking of Quest 2, with the Quest 3 coming out Meta is dropping the price of its predecessor. From June 4, Quest 2 will go back down to the $299 price for the 128GB model. And just $50 more will let you bump to 256GB of storage.
Quest 3 will come with a next-gen Snapdragon chipset
There’s still plenty to discover about the upcoming headset that Meta has yet to share. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing more to know right now.
Without getting into too many specifics, Meta says that the Quest 3 will come with a next-generation Snapdragon chipset from Qualcomm. This will allow the headset to produce twice the graphical performance of the Quest 2, the company claims. So prepare for a big upgrade in terms of visuals when it comes to new games and apps.
In addition to this, the headset now has “a 40% slimmer optic profile compared to Quest 2.” Other upgrades include the newly redesigned Touch Plus controllers which will support hand tracking out of the box. Meta removed the outer tracking rings on these new controllers as well. Which the company says makes them feel more like a natural extension of your hands. Overall the headset seems to be a huge improvement.