Meta Quest 3S Review: A £290 Marvel!

But can it beat Vision Pro?

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Hi, I’m Mark. I’m a Vision Pro early adopter. Quite a serious one, too; back in February, I spent a lot of money importing Apple’s mixed reality headset from the United States into the UK.

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Back then, I didn’t fancy waiting an unspecified amount of time for the future of computing (allegedly) to reach these shores. This resulted in some hefty import VAT and charges, and the acquisition of an incredibly nascent piece of technology which would very likely not fully work in my country.

I did this, because it’s my job. I’ve spent the last four and a half years building an online reputation which has been fuelled primarily by my coverage of Apple products. When Tim and co. decided to launch the first version of their take on the next generation of computing, I’m hardly going to turn a blind eye, am I?

There’s just two problems with Vision Pro: it’s incredibly expensive and frustratingly heavy. The former I can live with, the latter has been an issue since I unboxed it.

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So, when Meta got in touch and asked if I’d like to check out their latest mixed reality headset which starts at a mere £289.99 and appears to offer much of the same functionality as Vision Pro, I jumped at the chance.

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Specs and price comparisons

Pete Matheson and I traded headsets in the past, so I’ve had the opportunity to compare the Apple Vision Pro to the Meta Quest 3 before but not the 3S.

The Meta Quest 3S is a different monster. Running the same Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chip and 8GM of RAM as the more expensive Meta Quest 3. In fact, you have to dig into the spec sheet to find the differences between the two. The biggest difference is the display resolution…