It’s that time of year again. Where we gather around our laptops, tablets or smartphone and watch Mark Zuckerberg wax poetic about the virtues of virtual reality. Yep, it’s Meta Connect time. Taking place from September 25 – 26, Meta Connect will bring together fans and VR visionaries alike to talk shop, and of course, to show off Meta’s latest VR headset.
According to UploadVR, some pics of the nascent headset made their way to Arcalive, which for all intents and purposes is the South Korean counterpart of Reddit. Dubbed the Meta Quest 3S, it’s the company’s attempt to give consumers in what’s proving to be a continuingly challenging economy — a cheaper headset. No pricing as of yet, Meta’s got to keep some secrets, but speculation has the new headset sitting somewhere between $300 and $400. That’s right in that affordable sweet spot that the Quest 2 used to hold — provided the speculation turns out to be true.
That pricing doesn’t come without a few sacrifices, however. If reports are correct, the 3S will have same Qualcomm Snapdragon XR Gen 2 chipset as the Quest 3. But where the Quest 3 uses pancake lenses, which are touted for their clarity, lack of eyestrain, and artifact-inducing godrays, the 3S will make use of the older fresnel lenses. Although it’s considered the inferior lens, utilizing fresnels means, the screen won’t have to be as bright, which could translate into better battery life.
And speaking of battery life, the shots taken of Archive reveals what appears to be the 16.7Wh battery powering the Quest 3S. It sits right between the Quest 2 (14Wh) and the Quest 3 (18.9 Wh), which again, leaves the battery life a mystery. And while I can imagine the 3S outlasting the Quest 2, I’d be impressed if it can win against the Quest 3.
But the bigger difference between the Quest 3 and 3S is what’s not there. This marks the first time that a Quest headset won’t have a headset jack. It’s a trend we’ve grown accustomed to in smartphones, and Apple with its $3,500 also ditched the headset jack. It’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things as it’s one less wire to worry about. Hopefully, you’ll have a pair of good wireless earbuds lying around, preferably something with some spatial audio baked in.
Still, these pictures could be great hoaxes and Meta could go in a totally different direction, but we’ve got less than two weeks to find out exactly what Zuckerberg has up his sleeve.
