Meta Quest 3 release date and everything we know so far

The Oculus Quest 3, now officially known as Meta Quest 3, has been announced and we won’t have to wait much longer to get our hands on the highly anticipated VR headset.

Meta’s cheaper Quest 3 headset, separate from the more expensive Meta Quest Pro, will be more expensive than the Oculus Quest 2. This is to be expected for a new 2023 headset, and to soften the blow Meta has dropped the price of the Quest 2, so you can at least try VR if you’re on a tighter budget, even if it’s not the latest and greatest version. And the Quest 3 will be a standout, with Meta calling it its “most powerful headset” yet.

There’s now a lot of new and official information about Meta Quest 3, and it’s certainly shaping up to be a contender when it comes to topping our list of the best VR headsets you can buy. For now, read on to find out everything we know about the upcoming headphones.

Meta Quest 3: what you need to know

• What is Meta Quest 3? Meta’s VR headset following Quest 2
• Meta Quest 3 Release Date: “Autumn” 2023, but most likely September or October
• Meta Quest 3 Specs: We don’t have all the details, but Meta claims they’re the “loudest headphones” yet
• Meta Quest 3 design: Similar to the Quest 2 but thinner and the controllers don’t have tracking rings

Meta Quest 3 price

Meta has so far only confirmed the price of the 128GB model of the Quest 3, which will retail at $499 / £499. official announcement page it also mentions “an additional storage option for those who want extra space.”

We’re not sure exactly As this updated model will provide a lot of extra storage, but there’s very likely to be 256GB total. No pricing has been announced for this model either, but expect something in the region of $599/£599 or potentially as high as $699/£699.

Meta Quest 3 release date

Quest 3 has been confirmed to launch in “Fall 2023,” meaning that barring any delays, we should see it launch somewhere between September and December 2023. The official Meta page for Quest 3 states that further details will be revealed at the Meta Connect event taking place on September 27th.

Given the Meta Quest Pro release schedule, which was detailed at Meta Connect 2022 and launched soon after, we expect Meta Quest 3 to launch shortly after the Connect in September or October. We’ll have to wait and see what Meta decides.

Meta Quest 3 specifications and features

We now have official information, straight from Meta’s mouth, about the specs and features we can expect from the Meta Quest 3. It’s always been a safe bet that the headset would continue to be a standalone device, and that’s certainly remained true. You won’t need a PC or external device to play the best VR games out there.

The most immediate improvement to the Quest 3 is a high-fidelity color passthrough feature, which should let you view your surroundings through a high-quality camera. Not only will this help you plan your playspace, but it should also help augmented and mixed reality experiences become even more immersive.

The Quest 3 has also been confirmed to sport a 40% slimmer optical profile than the last generation Quest 2. This will reduce the weight of the device and should allow for more comfortable gaming sessions overall. Likewise, the Touch Plus controllers have been reworked with a more ergonomic design. Other improvements in this area include improved hand tracking and controller haptic feedback, similar to the PS5 DualSense wireless controller.

It has been speculated that Quest 3 will adopt uOLED (an upgraded version of OLED) displays. However, we have also seen conflicting reports suggesting OLED displays and mini LED displays instead. What analysts seem to agree on is that some sort of visual enhancement is coming to the Quest 3, so expect better display quality and higher resolutions.

So far, Meta’s details remain vague on this front. We know the Quest 3 will feature a higher resolution display than the Quest 2, paired with pancake lenses for improved image clarity and overall reduction in device weight. These lenses should also improve motion viewing, hopefully reducing motion sickness and the dreaded image ghosting that plagues many VR headsets, even the PSVR 2.

Finally, Meta has confirmed that the Quest 3 will be powered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon chipset. In Meta’s words, the new chipset “delivers more than double the graphics performance of the previous generation Snapdragon GPU in Quest 2.” We should therefore expect a rather significant jump in visual quality.

With the official launch date approaching, an unboxing of the headset has appeared online, giving us a better look at the aesthetics and design of Meta Quest 3.

Meta Quest 3: What we’d like to see

In our Oculus Quest 2 review, it was hard to find fault with a VR headset that proved to be immersive, comfortable and easy to use. Yet while it clearly leads the VR market, it still ran into some of the pitfalls that technology as a whole suffers from. Here is a list of the updates we want to see on Oculus Quest 3:

Better prevention of motion sickness
One such technological pitfall, and perhaps an inevitable one, is motion sickness that can often result from using any VR headset. Depending on your tolerance for buzz and blur, the Quest 2 can be one hell of a vertigo-inducing one. While there’s still no clear path to making any VR headset immune to user dizziness, it’s still something we’d like to see improved on the Oculus Quest 3.

A better fit
The same goes for the fit of the device. While the Quest 2 is indeed a comfortable weight when on your head, it can still be a little claustrophobic to get a good snug fit. Again, this is a problem that nearly all VR headsets experience, and an entry-level problem that the next generation of hardware should at least try to fix better. The aforementioned design rumors suggest that the new Oculus device could address some of these issues.

Improved media sharing
Sharing screenshots and videos on Oculus devices has never been easy, and it’s an issue Quest 2 has been trying to fix with some video updates. The process could be even more streamlined, so we’d like to see Oculus 3 make the whole deal more accessible.