The best VR headset, hands down.

The meta quest 3 is the successor to the meta quest 2 and that is VERY apparent during both initial setup and usage afterwards.Pros:Clarity, Clarity is an absolute GEM with this VR headset, the pancake lenses are so good and clear that when I tried to use a quest 2 it was like looking through the pancake lenses but rubbed all over with VaselineGameplay: the increased resolution and power compared to the quest 2 are absolutely insane. To put it in perspective, The quest 2 and 3 both do a game called "beatsaber" at a lower than native resolution. Looks a little pixelated but that's what the quest 2 could do. Quest 3 can play at the quality of a PC if you tweak it right (install mods to increase resolution, quest 2 would struggle)Weight: The weight distribution is also better, even though the headset is only slightly lighter, because the headset itself is closer to yout face, the weight extrudes less meaning its less front heavy causing less strain on your neck.Middle:Comfort- Comfy headset? Heck yes! But not really with the included strap. The included strap doesn't really even out the weight and puts too much pressure on eyebrows, nose, and cheeks. I found that a halo strap (usually around $35+, mine is the bobovr m3 pro) is a MUST have. The weight makes it feel like you aren't even WEARING a headset.Cons:Space for glasses- if you wear glasses then you will need either an additional spacer for the face cover or lense inserts (I use the Zenni inserts, meta approved). They definitely helped a ton, before when I used glasses with it it put a ton of pressure on my face, which made it bruised in the middle right between my eyes, however, the lense inserts are so good cannot even feel them!Misinterpreted con:Battery life-Battery life is technically worse, however, this is because of passthrough (most of the time, anyways). Passthrough requires the headset to process both a GAME and the environment around you, It isn't just a camera displaying an image, it's 4 cameras stitching together an image in real-time and sensing depth ad well as keeping track of where you are in the plane of the 3d vr world to ensure proper tracking. Hence why it uses more Battery. The quest 3 also uses more battery in heavier more "intesive" games that take advantage of the quest 3's extra performance over the quest 2. An easy and not too expensive remedy is a Battery bank. For games in which you have to move around I recommend the bobovr m3 pro or S3 because they feature Battery packs, the m3 pro has a 5000mah battery bank that increases battery capacity by around 2-3 hours and the s3 around 4-6. And these batteries are hot swappable meaning you can buy more, charge them as you play, and when your existing batteries die you can change them! For basically infinite playtimeI totally recommend this headset for anyone either still on the quest 1, sharing a quest 2, or as your first VR headset ever. Battery life isn't really a problem and a battery bank (18watts or higher) is a great way to fix any battery life issues you'll have, especially for Mixed reality passthrough games

I've been a big fan of Meta's VR headsets since the original Quest, and the Quest 3 is their best one yet. The visual quality is a huge leap forward, with a crystal-clear display, wider field of view, and impressive HDR support that makes everything look vibrant and lifelike. The new pancake lenses also drastically reduce the "goggles" effect I used to notice on earlier models.

One area where the Quest 3 really shines is the passthrough capabilities. The full-color, high-resolution passthrough is a game-changer, allowing me to seamlessly transition between virtual and physical environments. This is perfect for quick checks of my surroundings or integrating virtual elements into the real world. The only minor downside is the graininess to the passthrough image on my particular headset, but it's expected with new tech.

The ergonomics are also top-notch, with a comfortable fit and well-designed controls. I can use the Quest 3 for hours at a time without any discomfort. The improved hand tracking is also a welcome addition, letting me interact with virtual objects in a much more natural way.

In terms of performance, the Quest 3 handles even the most graphically intense VR experiences with ease. Load times are fast, and I haven't experienced any stuttering or frame rate issues. The battery life is around 2 hours, doesn't sound like much but believe me if you've experienced vr before its quite a good amount, still though with the price, i'd expect a little more battery juice from the get go without the need to buying extra accessories.

Overall, the Quest 3 is a fantastic upgrade that solidifies Meta's position as a leader in consumer VR. If you're in the market for a high-quality, versatile VR headset, I can't recommend the Quest 3 highly enough. It's a true game-changer!

Cons: Short battery life, strap shipped with headset gets dirty easily and needs an upgrade and extra accessories (ie more money) to play from the get go.

Accessories I used for this review: Power bank to have around just incase you are in a game and the battery is low, a plastic head attachment to the main strap, helped alot, silicon wrap around the face interface area (highly recommended), was much more comfier and helped with sport games, silicone straps for the controllers (helps with sweaty hands)

How you view this device is going to largely depend on if you've used VR stuff before, and how much. If you have used a Oculus Quest 2 then this is a huge QoL improvement in mixed reality. If you haven't used VR before, or if you're enthusiast level and have tried everything, then some of the flaws are going to pretty apparent right out the gate.

Pros:
- Solid color pass-through & hand tracking makes for a much more usable mixed reality experience than its predecessors.
- Room scanning is rather cool and a much better way to define boundaries than drawing.
- The quality of the lenses and controllers mark a significant improvement over its predecessors, though good not great (esp when compared with some new devices coming out).
- The price point! There's no way that Meta isn't losing $ on each unit, and nothing is even close for comparable functionality -- even upcoming devices are either 2x more expensive for the Immersed glasses that are really only for virtual desktop viewing (but with much better resolution and lighter glasses) or 7x more expensive for the Apple Vision Pro (which certainly promises a lot but $3.5k is steep even for Apple).

Cons:
- The base strap can be terribly uncomfortable if you don't calibrate it right, and it's generally a bit of a pain.
- App support! It feels like this device can do so much and yet so little takes advantage of it. Take room scanning, for example -- it can clearly track the geometry of any surface in the room, yet when doing boundary recognition it ONLY creates walls, and you have to manually input (via tracing with the controllers) any couches, tables, windows, etc... This could and should be improved. Some apps like Gravity Sketch are incredible, a ton of fun to work with, and are consistently maintained. But many more are effectively deprecated or unnecessarily limited in their use, and most are not near the boundary of even what this device can do.
- Peripherals. In reality you'll at least want a better strap, maybe an extended battery, and some kind of storage to keep it from just sitting loosely on the floor (travel case or charging dock). Meta are terrible in this department. Everything is overpriced (trying maybe to get back some money on the loss for the base model?), and it seems that at launch half the most important thing didn't even work, which has led to recalls and scarcity of devices like the elite headstrap with battery. I would *highly* recommend looking into 3rd party devices for affordable options, though ofc that's its own risk to make sure they meet compatibility specs.

Overall I think this device is really cool, especially when you find apps that take advantage of the VR or MR to do something unique. It's also rather intuitive, and frankly when it's working right you feel like someone from a movie with future-tech. At the same time there are too few apps that take advantage of what the Quest 3 can do, and you should at the very least assume another ~$100-200 for hardware peripherals to make the device comfortable and stored well.

I've been on the quest train since I got my quest 2 a good 3-4 years ago (iirc I got it soon after release). So with hundreds of hours under my vr belt I can honestly say that the quest 3 is a worthwhile upgrade over the 2. At least for me it's significantly more comfortable, the controllers are even better than the already fantastic quest 2 controllers and the res bump is noticeable but not earth shattering.

On the downside; the battery life is noticeably worse than the 2 when using passthrough but roughly similar when in full immersion (unsurprising given the faster processor and extra sensors used for passthrough), the color passthrough is definitely usable but nowhere near as clear as represented in review videos (yes I've tried all the "fixes" suggested online, it looks like a calibration issue from what others are suggesting as factory resetting a few times tends to fix it but I'm not willing to reset and have to download hundreds of gigabytes of data again for slightly better passthrough), and finally the biggest thing for me is the axing of the 256gb model and significant price bump for both 128 and 512 models. 128 is just not enough for a standalone vr headset when soon there will be AAA games that'll easily consume half that just to install one game. This forces anyone but the most wet behind the ears vr enthusiast to pony up yet another ~$200 (by the time taxes are added) just to get more memory.

Finally my last complaint is that the quest 3 is obviously pushing ar but there really aren't many compelling ar games yet beyond basic tech demos. If meta is serious about expanding ar then they'll need to put some work into apps that take advantage of it. For example they launched not long ago an app to use the quest 3 as a virtual computer monitor but it's super buggy and not all that usable in the current state (just a display, no mouse or keyboard integration yet and worse is it annoying changes the resolution way down of my computer, despite me having a 4k display!). What's the point of having massive virtual monitors in ar if you have to awkwardly use physical peripherals to control and are limited to much less than 1080p resolution?

Anyway that's about the jist of it, I'm excited to see the quest 3 grow into the new technical upgrades it's been given but as of right now it's just a better version of the quest 2 imo, not quite a completely next gen vr headset.