My Meta Quest 3S review
With the Meta Quest 3S, Meta has brought a very affordable virtual reality and mixed reality headset onto the market. But is it any good and who should buy it? I answer these questions in this compact review. If you want to see a longer, detailed test of the headset, look at the information cards or the description. My name is….
In the package you will find the Quest 3S as well as the two controllers, the spacer for glasses, a quick setup guide, a USB-C charging cable and an 18 watt power supply.
The Meta Quest 3S is a so-called standalone virtual reality and mixed reality headset. This means that it works completely independently and doesn’t need a PC or console. In order to be able to use the VR headset and download content for it, you need a Meta account, which you must create beforehand. This is done via a smartphone app with which you must also connect and activate the headset.
With the very simple setup, you can switch between a room-filling experience and a standing experience. With the room-filling experience, we can set a boundary that appears within the headset as soon as we approach a real wall.
The user interface with the library and the shop is easy to use. With the Horizon Store, Meta provides by far the largest mobile virtual and mixed reality store. There is definitely something for everyone here. If you are interested in the best games for Meta Quest, take a look at my ultimate games guide, which I have linked in the info cards. You also get 10% off all Quest games if you use my links.
In addition to the mobile games, you can connect the Quest 3S to a gaming PC via cable or wirelessly with WiFi 6e and play all SteamVR or Meta PC VR games without any problems.
This means that a total of several thousand VR games can be played on the Quest 3S, including gems such as Half-Life: Alyx.
The design of the Quest 3S is simple in white, you cannot see any fingerprints. The face insert is black. There are cameras for tracking and mixed reality on the front and sides. The standard head attachment is individually adjusted to the head both at the back and at the top. For very long sessions, however, I would recommend the optional Elite Strap, which is much more comfortable and is also available with a battery, see link below.
The face insert is made of fabric that is quite comfortable on the face.
All in all, the Quest seems to be of high material quality, it weighs 503g with the standard strap.
The on/off switch is on the left side and the volume control and an action button with which you can switch between virtual and mixed reality are on the bottom.
The Quest 3S has complete room tracking, so you can not only turn and tilt your head, but also move around the room completely, giving you what are known as 6 degrees of freedom. The two controllers supplied can also be located very precisely in the room. This is done by the cameras built into the Meta Quest 3S. I was able to test the tracking extensively and can give green light; even if the controllers are behind your back, the tracking continues for about 1 second. That's more than enough to take a virtual backpack off your back, for example, or a sword, or for bow and arrow games.
The tracking only pauses if you hold the controllers directly in front of the headset or exactly in front of each other. Overall, the controllers also make a good impression and I was able to use all the buttons without any problems.
A big advantage over most PC VR headsets is the fact that the Meta Quest 3S is wireless, so you don't have to worry about where the cable is and you can immerse yourself in virtual reality without being disturbed.
The Meta Quest 3S has an LCD display with a resolution of 1832x1920 at 90 or 120Hz. This means 20 pixels per degree. This puts the 3S in the lower range of current VR headsets.
The screen door effect is present, but it is only noticeable when you look closely and is not disturbing when playing in my opinion.
The colors are very clear and are not washed out, but of course not as beautiful as with an OLED display. The black levels are also acceptable, but still do not come close to an OLED display. Black levels are important in dark scenes or in general when you want to watch films. You can find a guide to watching films in VR in the description!
I did not notice any ghosting or motion blur.
In order to achieve a reasonable price, Meta decided to install Fresnel lenses. These are no longer quite up to date and have the disadvantage of so-called god-ray effects. Compared to other headsets that also have Fresnel lenses, this annoying effect is surprisingly minimal. I didn't notice any disturbing chromatic aberration, only minimal at the very edge when I press the face pad hard against my face.
The sweet spot, so the point at which you have the clearest image with your eyes, is good in my opinion. However, you have to bear in mind that this is very individual and also depends on your own face shape.
Thanks to the good face insert, no annoying light gets into the headset.
The field of view is rather average compared to other headsets, but is perfectly sufficient for good immersion. My values here were 88 horizontal and 88 vertical. However, you have to keep in mind that these values are very individual, you will likely have higher values. The values displayed are my own personal values.
The IPD can be changed in three stages, these are 58, 63 and 68mm, this should cover the majority of different faces.
The performance of the built-in Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 processor with 8GB RAM delivered a smooth expereince in all the games I tested, I never had any performance problems.
The resulting battery life depends extremely on what you are playing. If you spend a lot of time in the menus or just watching films, the battery can last well over 2.5 hours, but less for demanding games like Arizona Sunshine 2 or Batman Arkham Shadow.
You can, however, connect a power bank to the integrated USB-C port and power the headset while you play. Alternatively, you can buy the mentioned Elite Strap with battery, which you can find linked in the description below.
For those who wear glasses, there is a separate face insert that offers more space in the headset. Even larger glasses fit easily under the Meta Quest 3S.
The integrated sound, which comes through small slots on the head mount, offers, in my opinion, sufficient sound to immerse yourself in the experience. Of course, for technical reasons, it is not extremely powerful. However, you can connect your own headphones via USB-C or Bluetooth. There is no audio jack integrated; USB-C is the only built-in connection.
The built-in microphone is of good quality and you can record well with it and other players can understand you very well in multiplayer mode.
The built-in stereo RGB passthrough cameras allow us to see our real environment. This is displayed in 3D. This also allows us to play mixed reality games. There are now a lot of these in the Horizon Store; I can recommend my mixed reality playlist, which you can find in the info cards and the description. For the perfect mixed reality experience, I recommend playing in a well-lit environment, otherwise the image will be very pixelated.
Hand tracking is also supported by the Quest 3S. Since Meta has been developing this for a long time, it works very well and reliable and you can use it to operate the menus well and also play special hand-tracking games that no longer require a controller.
The Meta Quest 3S will be available in the 128GB version for 299 USD,289 Pounds or 329 Euro and in the 256GB version for 399 USD, 379 Pounds or 439 Euro. There is no expansion slot for SD cards.
So, who should buy the Quest 3S?
The headset is clearly aimed at virtual and mixed reality beginners who want to get into the new technology as cheap as possible. There is currently no other headset that it as good as the Quest 3S at this low price.
You can play all available virtual and mixed reality games, both mobile via the headset and connected to a gaming PC. Everything is very easy to use and everyone can handle it, everything is self-explaining and you absolutely don't need to have any knowledge of technology. If you're afraid of VR motion sickness, you don’t need to, because there are hundreds of games that are guaranteed not to make you sick.
Do you want to spend a little more and have better lenses, a higher resolution and more storage space? Then I recommend the Meta Quest 3 for 499 USD
Here you can watch my Quest 3S review video:
https://youtu.be/qMYh0G8tflE