- Joined
- Jul 3, 1997
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- Real Name
- Ronald Epstein
I have been spending the last week putting my Meta Quest 3 through the paces and it has surpassed my expectations in both productivity and gameplay.
I am not new to Virtual Reality. A few years ago I invested in a Playstation 4 and VR headset. I found that experience exciting, but within a year I just stopped using it out of boredom. While there were a lot of really cool games that I had the chance to purchase, I found that the immersion made me feel a little "queasy" and I wasn't particularly blown away by the low-resolution screen-door effect that the headset provided.
Jump to the present day and with Apple's announcement of its Vision Pro, there is a lot of excitement about how the work environment can be brought into a virtual world. And, this is particularly interesting for me as I spend a lot of time on my Mac computers daily. The problem is, that it becomes difficult to plop down nearly $4k on a first-generation Apple product like this --- especially when the company has already announced that they are already in pre-production on a second-generation headset that could cost significantly less.
In the meantime, I came to learn that Meta's Quest 3 could also sync with Mac (or Windows) computers and bring the work environment into the virtual world. After doing a little research on this and getting real-world feedback on Meta discussion groups, I was convinced that this could work for me until the Vision Pro became more affordable.
(Click on play to see video)
I am just learning how to take screenshots and video within the headset so please excuse the rudimentary one above. However, I think it will give you a general idea of what it looks like to bring your productive world into a virtual one.
This is coming off of a Macbook Pro, but you can use just about any Mac or Windows PC/Laptop. You start with one main screen and you can expand it up to five which can be placed in any kind of configuration that you need. Above, you can see Home Theater Forum in the middle, my email client on the right, and a live feed of my Nest Driveway camera on the left (which is where the audio you are hearing is coming from).
The monitors can be easily resized and displayed flat or curved (mine is shown curved). While the Meta Quest 3 lacks eye tracking (the single best feature of the Vision Pro), it does support hand tracking. This means that you can use your fingers to point and your hands to resize the monitors bringing them closer to you for increased clarity.
While the above video does no justice in showing the sharpness of the text, I can tell you that while it won't match the clarity of a 4k-6k monitor, I had no problem reading small text -- and this is without wearing my reading glasses which I need to do while using my Macbook Pro or Studio Monitor.
As far as the keyboard is concerned, once in the virtual world, you create a "portal" or small opening around your actual keyboard at the bottom of your viewing area so you can easily reference and type. IMMERSED has recently introduced the ability for you to enter the type of keyboard you are using and have a virtual overlay of it. This seems to still be in beta and I haven't had much success using it.
There are many gorgeous public and private rooms available for you to enjoy while working at home or on the road. You can sit in a beautifully decorated cafe or perhaps you might prefer sitting in a space station with the Earth revolving in front of your massive display window. You can chat with other users while you work, or turn off the microphone for complete privacy.
Gaming so realistic I bought a headset for my girlfriend
I didn't want anything complicated to test the Meta Quest gaming capabilities so the first two games I purchased were Eleven Table Tennis and Premier Bowling. With its pancake lenses that provide 2064 x 2208 pixels per eye and a refresh rate of 120 Hz, I was in awe of what I was seeing before me. I found myself in a room that eclipsed my actual playing area. As I looked around, my 360-degree view sported graphics that were so beautifully crisp and detailed that I felt I had been transported somewhere else -- and I am not over-emphasizing the realism of it all as I had a rather nasty fall because I forgot I was in a virtual world (more on that in a moment).
Eleven Table Tennis placed a huge ping-pong table before me where I had the opportunity to square off with an AI partner. With vibrations coming from the hand controllers and realistic sounds of a ping pong ball in action coming from the headset speakers, I felt as if I were playing the game. The realism was astounding and I have since read that quite a few people got rid of their ping pong tables in their homes in favor of virtual ones as it takes up less space.
Even more immersive was Premier Bowling which placed me within my choice of a handful of different lane environments that included retro, disco, luxury, and party. Let me tell you, I felt as if I had been transported back in time and I was standing in the bowling lanes I used to frequent as a teen. The realism was off-the-charts right down to having people watching and cheering you on as you play. You can even join others around the world connected to their headsets for team play...
...that's when it dawned on me that I needed to share this experience with my girlfriend. I was so completely impressed with the realistic gameplay the Meta Quest 3 provided that I went and bought my girlfriend a headset this past weekend. We then set up space in her living room and played these games together. That is accomplished by creating your customer avatars which are projected into the game and mimic your movements.
To keep you safe, the Quest 3 performs a scan of your room before any gameplay, noting all furniture and obstacles that may stand in your way. So, as you play a game, you'll find grid lines suddenly appearing, warning you that you are moving out of your boundary, perhaps too close to a wall or couch.
It's hard to describe the level of realism as I describe my experiences in this review. So, let me tell you about my accident. I was playing Ping Pong with my girlfriend who had served me a ball that had lost its bounce and was slowly rolling toward me. I reached out for the ball thinking the table was real and would hold me up. Instead, I fell hard onto the floor. That's how convincing the virtual world can be perceived.
For a $500 device, this is a game-changer. Reading reviews comparing the Meta Quest 3 and the competing PlayStation 5 VR, it's wild to see how close they are to being comparable, both with their strengths and weaknesses. The quality of the VR looks so realistic that it sells itself to anyone who tries it. Hand this headset to a friend, have them play a few games, and chances are they are going to want one for themselves.
There is a big downside, however. If you plan to play with friends, sharing the headset is not a great experience. Taking the headset on and off between turns and handing it to someone else who will get their sweat all over it and possibly drop your $500 investment is not something you want to deal with. That's why I ended up buying a second headset so my partner and I could play together. On the other hand, as a single user, the Internet connection allows you to challenge other Quest users from all over the world to gameplay.
There seems to be a pretty decent selection of games to play, both free and paid. The prices of the games range from about $10 up to $30 for the mega ones. What I discovered is that you can obtain discount codes readily given out by other users via a Google search. That will potentially save you an additional 25% off the price of just about every available title.
The bottom line is that I am more than impressed with the Meta Quest 3. And, I didn't want to be given this is from Facebook and they have a bad reputation for abandoning their products. However, the company nailed this product by packing it with advanced display technology and high-resolution visuals, a super-fast Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chip, while making it affordable to the consumer. From what I have been reading, Meta is barely making a profit on the hardware, rather depending on a cut of all software sales.
This headset will certainly fill the void of not yet owning the Apple Vision Pro.
