A new Quest combined actuality headset has been introduced at Meta Join 2024. Thes Quest 3S mannequin is designed to be a extra reasonably priced various to the Quest 3, and it will launch worldwide on October 15 with a beginning value of $300 for the 128GB mannequin and $400 for the 256GB model.
That is considerably cheaper than the Quest 3 headset–the 512GB model has dropped to $500 and the remaining 128GB fashions shall be offered for $430 –but some {hardware} concessions have been made to convey its value down. Current inventory at a number of retailers aren’t reflecting the brand new costs but, however they are going to be up to date quickly.
Internally, it has the identical Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 chipset because the Quest 3, however with regards to lenses, it reuses the lower-1832 x 1920 per-eye decision fresnel lenses of the Quest 2 as an alternative of the Quest 3’s pancake lenses. There’s additionally a narrower visual field and no depth sensor like on the Quest 3, and the entrance of the headset has a spider-like association of front-facing cameras when in comparison with the pill-shaped design that the Quest 3 makes use of.
The Quest 3S will ship with Contact Professional controllers and customers will be capable of navigate by means of menus and apps utilizing gesture controls. Total, Meta says you may nonetheless get the identical mixed-reality options and efficiency as on the Quest 3, so you can play the identical video games on it and upcoming titles like Batman: Arkham Shadow.
It is also claimed that you will get higher battery life compared to the Quest 3, simply over two-and-a-half hours from a full cost below optimum circumstances whereas the Quest 3 averages two hours. One other new characteristic on this mannequin is an “motion” button for quick-switching between passthrough and immersive modes–the Quest 3 makes use of a double-tap gesture–and ideally, it appears like this would be the new entry-level Quest headset as Meta is planning to finish gross sales of the Quest 2.