Strong Points
Great looking display
Strong internal structure
Great value
Cons
Facebook Integration
Battery lasts only 3 hours
Limited adjustability
The biggest attraction of the Meta Quest 2, along with its impressive performance, is its affordability, which makes high-end virtual reality more accessible than ever before. There are some compromises, but we think most VR enthusiasts can easily ignore them.
Editor’s note (December 20, 2022): This review has been updated to reflect current information like pricing and storage, as well as the rebranding from Oculus to Meta.
Credit: Review / John Higgins
Before we get into the details of the Quest 2, let’s take a look at its basic specifications.
Price: $399 for the 128GB entry-level model, $499 for 256GB Weight: 503g (17.7oz) Tracking: Supports six degrees of freedom Storage: 128GB or 256GB Display: 90Hz LCD display with a resolution of 1,832 x 1,920 pixels per eye Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 RAM: 6GB Battery: 2-3 hours with typical use
While the original Quest was black, the new device only comes in grey plastic, but it does have a familiar look – more on the design later.
The headset is dotted with four cameras on the front for features like hand tracking and environmental tracking. Hand tracking in particular is a great feature (and was added to the original Quest via a software update), allowing you to avoid using the controllers for basic tasks.
What I Like
Friendly design
Credit: Review / John Higgins
The original Oculus Quest looked good, but in a world of black plastic tech, it’s nice to see the new Quest 2 take a different approach. The new grey and black highlight look makes the headset feel more familiar and friendly, even if you can’t see the design when you’re actually using it.
While the overall shape of the Quest 2 will be instantly familiar to anyone who’s seen or used a Quest before, there are a few differences in the new headset. Most notably, the Quest 2 is smaller and lighter in almost every way, which is good news, of course. At 502 grams, it’s still not the lightest head-worn device around, but it’s nearly 70 grams lighter than the original.
Part of the weight reduction is due to a new soft strap that replaces the partly plastic strap on the Quest. I found the new strap design to be easier to adjust, although the first time you adjust it, it might take a bit of fumbling to figure out exactly where the adjustment points are.
On the front of the headset are the four cameras used for tracking, and on the right side is a USB-C port for charging and a headphone input. On the left side is the power button, and at the bottom is the volume rocker. The controls are a little hard to find the first time you use the headset, but you’ll get used to the placement.
The headset fits relatively comfortably; the straps can be adjusted to fit any head size and shape, and the faceplate is well-padded so you can wear it for hours. If you want a better strap, you can purchase the Meta Quest 2 Elite Strap for $50, which is said to offer better comfort and adjustability. We didn’t test it for this review.
The controllers are also a bit different; they’re a bit larger, but feel very natural in the hand. Both have two triggers, a joystick, and two buttons for gaming. The right joystick has the home button, and the left joystick has the menu button. The buttons are very well placed, and the layout doesn’t confuse you, even when you’re wearing the belt.
Internal upgrades
Credit: Review / John Higgins
We’ll talk more about the display in a moment, but one of the biggest changes to the Quest 2 is the inclusion of a dedicated virtual reality chipset, the Snapdragon XR2 processor, which replaces the previous-generation Snapdragon 835 that was also found in smartphones and other devices.
Technically, the XR2 could offer features like 5G connectivity and seven simultaneous cameras, which the Quest 2 doesn’t offer. Instead, you get faster load times and better graphics processing. Gaming is probably the main reason people buy a virtual reality headset, and the XR2 can handle more graphic-intensive VR games.
The increased processing power is certainly noticeable. Combined with an improved display, the graphics on the Quest 2 are far superior to the original Quest. Details are sharper and everything looks more realistic. Playing games like the Vader Immortal series feels more immersive than ever, and it’s easy to get lost in the world. But it’s hard not to get sucked back into it when you get the shock of a dead battery.
Speaking of the battery, it only lasts a maximum of three hours, just like the previous generation headset. If you’re going to play for three hours, you’ll have time to take a break and rest your eyes, but it would be nice if the battery life was longer so you don’t have to charge the headset after every use.
The XR2 platform offers better graphics performance than ever before in a standalone VR headset, but VR still has a long way to go. Games are great, but they’re not ultra-realistic yet. It’s like the Nintendo Switch, which offers a very enjoyable gaming experience without the powerful graphics performance we expect from the PS5 or Xbox Series X, and with that said, there are no headsets that offer that ultra-realistic graphics performance yet. There are other gaming-focused headsets, such as the PlayStation VR, but its performance is still dependent on the PlayStation 4.
A solid display
Credit: Review / John Higgins
Meta has upgraded the display on the Meta Quest 2. Overall it looks a lot better than before, but there are some aspects where it’s a slight step back.
Let’s start with the good stuff: the resolution is noticeably higher, which helps eliminate the pixelated “screen door effect” seen on the previous generation Quest. It’s not gone completely, and it would be nice to have an even higher resolution display, but that would likely introduce other issues with battery life.
The Quest 2 also supports a 90Hz refresh rate, but as of now there’s no content to explore at the higher refresh rate. At launch, only the Meta home environment and browser will run at 90Hz, and while those aspects of the Quest certainly look smooth, the feature won’t really be useful until games support it. Hopefully that will happen in the near future. Nearly everything else you do on the Quest will be limited to 72Hz for now.
The new display does have its downsides, though. The original Oculus Quest was OLED, but the new headset is replaced with LCD, resulting in less deep black levels and less realistic colors. It’s a trade-off I’m happy to accept for the increased resolution, but it would be nice to have the best of both worlds in the next iteration.
What I don’t like
Limited adjustability
Credit: Review / John Higgins
We said the Quest 2 has a solid display, and yes, it does have one solid display – this replaces the original Quest’s two displays (one per eye), which does impact adjustability a bit.
Without getting too technical, the original Quest had a slider that allowed you to adjust the headset to suit interpupillary distances (IPD) (the distance between your eyes) between 59 and 71mm. With the Quest 2’s single display, the adjustment range is more limited, with three different options to choose from:
The middle adjustment seemed to work for me, fitting my IPD perfectly, but other reviewers have had worse experiences. If your IPD is halfway between the three adjustments (58mm, 63, 68mm), the image can get blurry. It shouldn’t be too much of an issue, but it would have been nice if Facebook had kept the slider adjustment on the original headset.
Meta-Interference
Speaking of Facebook, the controversial company absorbed Oculus in 2014 and has since integrated it more and more deeply into its own services. The Meta Quest 2 is the first Facebook headset that requires users to sign into the headset with Facebook rather than just using their Oculus account. That’s not good news, considering Facebook’s track record on privacy has been shaky at best.
Facebook goes a step further: if you are adamantly opposed to the way Facebook has used your data over the past few years, you might want to create a fake profile to use with your headset, but be careful: if you do this, you could lose any purchases you’ve made in the Oculus store and your headset could become permanently inoperable if it finds out you’re faking it.
It’s unclear at this time how tightly your Facebook account will be integrated with Meta usage, but we don’t think your Facebook status will prevent you from accessing any purchased apps.
In a social VR app built by Facebook, the potential for data misuse is even higher. For example, Road to VR’s report explains that Facebook moderators will be able to invisibly monitor user behavior in the Horizon social app. Not only that, but everything users see and hear will be continuously recorded on the headset. The recordings will be on-device, but Facebook says that if a user is reported, the recordings will be sent to Facebook to be checked for violations.
This means that Facebook is still collecting and using your data, and you have to accept that if you want to use a Quest 2. Thankfully, Meta has removed this requirement; now you can avoid any potential privacy concerns by simply creating a separate Meta account instead.
Yes, it’s definitely worth it
Credit: Reviewed / Christian de Looper
If you can ignore potential privacy issues and the idea that you might not be able to perfectly mold the headset to the shape of your head, the Quest 2 is absolutely worth the purchase. Its display resolution exceeds that of many much more expensive headsets, and you get access to a huge and growing number of apps, all for under $400.
Even if you have the original Quest, it’s worth considering. The Quest 2 is a significant step up, especially for those who use the headset regularly. It may be worth waiting until developers update their apps to take advantage of the higher refresh rates and resolutions, but the most popular apps should do so at some point. And expect new apps and games to support those features soon.
Though it’s not without its quirks, the Meta Quest 2 is the most compelling virtual reality headset to date. The apps and games are getting better and better, and the price is cheap enough that even the average person can afford it. Virtual reality as a whole is still in its infancy, but with the Quest 2, and in 2020 in general, it often trumps actual reality.
Metaquest 2
The Meta Quest 2 is still the best combination of hardware and value you can buy.
Prices were accurate at the time of publishing this article but may change over time.
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Meet the testers
Christian de Looper
Contributor
translator
Originally from Australia, de Looper has a long-standing passion for gadgets and consumer electronics. He reviews products across all sectors of the consumer tech industry and is dedicated to helping people find the best products for their lifestyle.
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