Meta’s latest virtual reality headset offers almost everything that makes its top model the best on the market but at a price that is far more palatable as an entry into VR.
The Quest 3S costs £290 (€330/$300/A$500) – about 40% less than the £470 Quest 3 and cheaper than 2020’s Quest 2 that it directly replaces.
The new device is a halfway house between the Quest 2 and Quest 3. It takes the same top Qualcomm VR chip from the Quest 3 that dramatically improves performance and slots it into a body similar in design and operation to the Quest 2 to keep the cost down.
An easy-to-adjust strap fits across the back and top of your head while pivotable arms and a foam faceplate help make the Quest 3S one of the more comfortable headsets to wear for prolonged periods. Meta sells various additional straps and faceplates for those who want a different fit.
The speakers in the arms are good enough for providing appropriate spatial audio for any experiences you might be in, though you can connect Bluetooth headphones or use a USB-C headphones adapter for wired listening.
The screen and lenses are the same as the Quest 2 and provide a relatively sharp image to each eye at up to 120 frames a second, which keeps the action smooth, helping to keep disorientation and motion sickness at bay. But here is where Meta has cut corners to keep the price down; the Fresnel lenses have only three distance settings and are blurry if you look around the edges.
It comes with two hand controllers that are some of the best in the business: light, comfortable, accurate and intuitive with capacitive buttons that can tell when your fingers are on them but not pressing them for hand gestures. They each take a single standard AA battery, for which I recommend buying rechargeables to save your wallet and the planet.
A spacer for glasses is included and prescription lenses are available for £50.
Specifications
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Screen: 120Hz LCD (1832×1920 per eye)
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Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2
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RAM: 8GB
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Storage: 128GB or 256GB
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Operating system: Horizon OS (Android)
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Connectivity: Wifi 6E, Bluetooth, USB-C with Oculus Link, stereo speakers, microphone
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Headset dimensions: 191.5 x 102 x 142.5mm
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Headset weight: 514g
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Controller weight: 103g (without battery)
Faster, smoother performance
The Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chip is about twice as fast as the previous version in the Quest 2, making everything that little bit smoother, more detailed and crisper. Apps load faster and the system is more responsive. The battery lasts about the same two hours of intensive play as the Quest 2 and 3, which is more than enough for most.
It can also be used plugged into a USB-C charger, while extra battery packs are available for those who want to play longer, but after two hours I was ready for a break. A full charge takes about 110 minutes.
New colour cameras on the front of the headset enable much clearer pass-through vision that is night and day better than the Quest 2. It isn’t quite as good as the Quest 3, but is more than good enough to see what’s around you and use it as part of mixed reality experiences. In a pinch I can walk up and down stairs and just about read my phone with the headset on.
Sustainability
Meta says the battery should last at least 500 full charge cycles, but it does not offer battery swap or repair services. It does offer out-of-warranty replacements, refurbishing and reselling of returned devices.
The company sells various replacement parts and accessories including straps, face cushions, glasses spacers and individual controllers, but does not publish product environmental impact reports.
Solid software with a great library of games
Meta’s Horizon OS software has come on in leaps and bounds in the last few years. It supports multitasking for up to three floating windows and more in a dock, instant switching between immersive and pass-through views, and great sensing of your environment, with virtual boundaries to stop you bashing into objects.
You need a Meta account registered to an email address to use the Quest, but a Facebook, Instagram or other Meta social media account isn’t required. Meta offers various parental control and supervision tools and will provide security updates until at least October 2029.
The app store for the Quest is large, with games ranging in price from a few pounds to about £45, with plenty of quality to play across a wide range of genres including fitness and workout apps. Some of the biggest brands in games have titles on the Quest including Assassin’s Creed, Medal of Honor and Resident Evil, plus a solid stable of cross-platform games, such as Superhot VR, Red Matter 2 and Arizona Sunshine 2.
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Many of the best are from Meta’s own publishing studios, including the extremely popular Beat Saber rhythm game, the critically acclaimed Asgard’s Wrath 2 role-playing game and the new Batman: Arkham Shadow, the latter of which comes bundled with the Quest 3S if bought before 30 April 2025.
But things are less rosy outside games. There are only a few streaming apps available for the headset, including YouTube and Amazon Prime Video. The rest rely on the browser, which has a new cinema mode that puts a big screen in your view; fine for streaming at home but no good for offline viewing while travelling. Unlike when playing games, here is where you can see the weakness of the display compared with the Quest 3 and premium rivals.
The virtual screen just doesn’t look as good as a TV or tablet, and I’m not convinced people will want to spend hours in the headset watching a movie unless it provides a better experience than other devices. It is a similar story for browsing and using the few productivity apps available. The text isn’t that sharp, particularly when you look to the sides of the screen.
Having apps such as WhatsApp in the headset is handy for responding to messages while you’re doing something else, but typing either with your fingers on the floating keyboard or the controllers is slow. Dictation and voice commands are available, but only in English in the US.
Meta’s attempt to create a social experience, called Horizon Worlds, is also not very compelling. You can wander around cartoonish worlds, play simple games, watch events and hang out with friends in a virtual space. But Ready Player One it is not, and it would take a lot of convincing to get my friends to join me in a headset rather than play a multiplayer game or meet in real life.
The Quest 3S can also be used when connected to a PC for games and apps, either wirelessly or wired, including with Steam VR, which opens up a larger world of PC VR gaming. But for those keen on going that far the Quest 3 is probably a better fit.
Price
The Meta Quest 3S costs from £289.99 (€329.99/$299.99/A$499.99) with 128GB of storage.
For comparison, the Meta Quest 3 costs £469.99, the Pico 4 costs £349, the Vive XR Elite costs £799 and the Apple Vision Pro costs £3,499.
Verdict
The Quest 3s offers the best bang for your buck in virtual reality headsets. It’s not the best Meta makes, but it combines the top VR chip from Qualcomm, access to a large library of games and some of the best controllers available in a comfortable all-in-one design.
The colour pass-through camera makes for good mixed reality experiences, even if that’s just finding the controllers in your real-life room. The battery lasts a solid two hours, which is about as long as you’re likely to want to play before taking a break.
Bundling the headset with the new Batman VR game means you have something compelling to play out of the box with plenty more in the Horizon store. Compatibility with PC VR also opens up a much larger library if you have a gaming PC available.
The older generation lenses and screen do not make much of a difference compared with the higher-end Quest 3 and rivals for games. But they do for the less compelling productivity and media consumption uses.
That makes the Quest 3S the headset to buy if you want to dip your toe into the waters of VR gaming or as gift. Just don’t break it, as getting it repaired could be tricky.
Pros: cheaper, good screen, top standalone VR chip, large library of games, great controllers and haptics, good colour pass-through, solid speakers and mics, standalone or PC VR, console-like simplicity.
Cons: difficult to repair, screen and lenses not as good as Quest 3, not great for productivity use, tricky to use passwords from managers, no 3.5mm headphones socket, battery life could be longer.