The base model Quest blends a bit of the higher-end Quest 3 and older Quest 2 for a Goldilocks-style compromise. Like other Quests, it’s a standalone unit that operates wirelessly — until it’s time to charge it, of course. It plays a wide selection of games from the Quest store, like Batman: Arkham Shadow and Supernatural (once it relaunches), and if you don’t mind some added latency, you can wirelessly stream Steam games from your PC.
While the much pricier Quest 3 uses lighter, flatter pancake lenses for its optics, the 3S uses fresnel lenses just like the Quest 2 generation. But other than that, it’s got many similarities as the $600 Quest 3: the same Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 processor, the same cameras with color passthrough video, and the same controllers. What you pay much more for in the Quest 3 is higher image quality, thanks in part to those refined optics and a higher resolution per eye. But the Quest 3S still looks fine with its 1832 x 1920 pixels per eye.
It’s a shame we’re no longer seeing the previous kinds of low prices the Quest 3S used to fall to, like when it was $249 around Black Friday, but with the way things are going this is as good as it gets for now.
.png "TCS subsidiary HyperVault to build 1GW AI data centre campus in Hyderabad")