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You can think of the $300 Meta Quest 3S as a basic Honda Accord of VR headsets. It doesn't have the same high-quality optics as the $500 Quest 3, which is more like a Touring-grade Honda for enthusiasts, but they both get you to the same place: Truly immersive virtual reality. After testing the Quest 3S for the past week, I see it less as a step down and more like an upgrade over the Quest 2. That headset also launched at $300 four years ago, but its price fluctuated up and down depending on supply chain issues, and, over time, it was hampered by aging hardware. But now Meta has a $300 VR entry that's powered by a much more processor, offers better hand and controller tracking, and lets you dip your toes into mixed reality (overlaying digital objects atop a camera feed of real life). While the Quest 3S might just appear to be a less capable Quest 3, it has the potential to be one of the most significant VR products Meta has made yet. Hardware As I mentioned in my initial hands-on, the Quest 3S doesn't look very different compared to the Quest 3, aside from its triangular sensor array. It still has a sturdy plastic case, a healthy dose of cushioning around your eyes, and an adjustable Y-shaped strap. You'll have a genuinely hard time telling the headsets apart while they're facing each other, I found myself peeking at their front sensors often while testing them on the same workbench. Look a bit closer, though, and you'll notice some key differences. For one, you can easily see the telltale concentric circles of Fresnel lenses on the Quest 3S. Meta also used them on the Quest 2, and they've historically been common among cheaper VR headsets. The Quest 3, on the other hand, uses pancake lenses, which have a smooth surface. (More on the technical differences between those two lens types below.) Devindra Hardawar for Engadget One way Meta was able to drive down the cost of the Quest 3S was by re-using the 1,830 by 1,920 pixel per eye screen from the Quest 2. The Quest 3's screen offers 30 percent more pixels (2,264 by 2,208 pixels per eye), to deliver a sharper and more realistic image. The Quest 3S doesn't have a headphone jack, either, so you'll have to plug in a USB-C adapter to get better sound, or connect to wireless headphones. While I'll go to my grave as a defender of 3.5mm audio jacks, I suppose it makes to lose it here. Most Quest 3S users will likely be just fine with its built-in speakers, and anyone who demands the fidelity of a wired connection likely wouldn't mind paying more for the Quest 3 (or shelling out for a $10 USB-C to 3.5mm adapter). Also gone is the nifty dial for adjusting lens spacing from the Quest 3, instead you have to manually push the lenses into three positions to approximate the best pupillary distance. This involves putting the headset on and taking it off several times (exactly the sort of friction that could easily turn off VR newcomers), but at least it's something you only have to sort once. It could be a bigger problem if you're sharing the headset with your household, though. Meta added an action button for quickly swapping between mixed reality mode, which shows a camera feed of your room, and a completely immersive VR view. This is something the Quest 3 doesn't have at all instead, you have to tap its right front corner to jump into mixed reality. Having a dedicated button is simply better for usability, especially for new VR users, so I don't mind that it slightly disrupts the curves of the Quest 3S's design. The Quest 3S also uses the same Touch Controllers as its more expensive sibling, and they're once again excellent. They've lost the clunky motion tracking ring from the earlier models, now they're simply light controllers that fit your hand like a glove. The joysticks feel smooth and accurate, and the buttons deliver some wonderfully responsive feedback. That's nothing new, though: I've been impressed by Facebook's gamepads since the first Oculus Touch controllers were released in 2016. Devindra Hardawar for Engadget What's most important about the Quest 3S is the hardware Meta brought over from its more expensive headset. There's the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 processor, which the company claims offers double the graphics performance as the Quest 2, as well as 8GB of RAM. That's only a slight leap from the Quest 2's 6GB of memory, but it's essential for storing more detailed textures. Now instead of worrying about how a game would perform on the slower Quest 2, developers can simply build for a single hardware specification. Less headaches for devs, ideally, should mean more software on the Meta Quest store. And the hope is that a wealth of new apps will lead to people buying more headsets. Which leads to more apps sold. It's a virtuous cycle that could potentially help Meta out of the death spiral the consumer VR market has been circling for years. Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget In use: Snappy and functional VR The first thing I noticed after donning the Qust 3S: Wow, it sure feels fast. Stepping through the headset onboarding process, downloading a few apps and navigating around the Meta home environment was simply snappy and responsive. That's something I remembered from the Quest 3, as well, but it feels like even more of a revelation on a $300 headset. There was none of the lag or occasional slowdowns I grew used to on the Quest 2. The actual VR experience looked detailed and immersive, as well. I didn't notice the resolution loss from the Quest 3 much, but it was easily apparent that the cheaper Fresnel lenses led to more artifacts. Edges looked a bit fuzzier, I'd occasionally see haloing around objects, and God rays from extra bright objects often appeared in games like Pistol Whip. There's no doubt the Quest 3's pancake lenses, which aren't as susceptible to the same visual issues, look far sharper. But here's the thing: I don't think the Fresnel lenses will make much of a difference for VR newcomers. I enjoyed VR headsets for years while living with those same artifacts. And if going with cheaper lenses helped Meta drive the cost of the Quest 3S down to $300, it was worth it. The biggest barrier to the world of VR isn't fidelity, it's cost. Once I started spending significant time inside the Quest 3S, I also noticed the visual issues less. I was far more interested in trying to conduct the perfect symphony in Maestro, which did a fantastic job of simulating the live orchestral experience thanks to the headset's accurate hand tracking and immersive audio. It was also fun to pick up a random pen from my desk and transform it into a virtual baton. The game certainly looks a bit clearer in the Quest 3, but I would wager many people won't be directly comparing the two headsets. I also spent an hour playing Mobile Suit Gundam: Silver Phantom which is less a game and more of an interactive anime film, but it was engrossing enough that I started to ignore the Quest 3S's artifacts. If you're immersed in a genuinely great VR experience, they simply don't matter. Naturally, I also checked out classics like Pistol Whip and Superhot, which are still a blast to play after all these years. Sadly, the Quest 3S doesn't solve the problem of looking like an absolute buffoon while using VR. That was particularly noticeable while playing I Am Cat, a game that had me climbing up walls, digging up a litter box and absolutely terrorizing the old woman in my virtual house. I was having a blast, but my six year old daughter started to wonder if I was going mad. I ended up streaming the game to the Meta app on my iPhone, and screen mirroring that to my Apple TV, to give her a live view of everything I was seeing. That, of course, led to her coming up with all sorts of ways for me to wreak kitty havoc in VR. (Pro tip: You can totally make the old lady eat a cat poop sandwich.) Just like the previous Meta standalone headsets, the Quest 3S can also stream more intensive VR experiences from gaming PCs, either wirelessly or via a USB-C cable. I was able to connect to my rig over Wi-Fi and play 15 minutes of Half-Life: Alyx without any noticeable lag. Sure, it didn't look as great as it did on the Valve Index, but that whole setup still costs $1,000. And, of course, the Index doesn't give you the option of playing wirelessly without a PC. I was also able to stream some non-VR Xbox Cloud Gaming titles, including Halo Infinite and Fortnite, after pairing my Xbox controller. W2D gaming isn't the ideal thing to do in a VR headset, but being able to virtualize an enormous screen still makes it worthwhile, especially if you don't have a large TV. While Meta positioned the Quest 3 as a mixed reality device, thanks to its color cameras and more capable room mapping, I never found it as useful as the Vision Pro. That's a headset I can wear for hours at a time while I move around my home. The Quest 3's cameras were simply too fuzzy to use for long, and the Quest 3S suffers from the same problem. It's fun to play Meta's First Encounters demo and have aliens invade your home, or jam out in Synth Riders, but the Quest 3 and 3S headsets need far better cameras to truly recreate reality. That's also why I couldn't stomach using Meta's Remote Desktop app to replicate my PC for too long. The virtual display looked decently sharp, but I had a hard time focusing on that alongside a fuzzy view of my office. I'd much rather just take off the Quest 3S and look at my monitor to get some work done. Devindra Hardawar for Engadget As an entertainment device, the Quest 3S is a comfortable way to sit back and enjoy movies, TV and 360-degree videos. Home theater heads might notice that videos don't leak nearly as sharp as they do on the Quest 3, and the contrast and black levels are lightyears away from the Vision Pro's MicroLED displays, but for most people the Quest 3S is perfectly fine. It's certainly better than watching something on a laptop or tablet (or god forbid, a phone). Throughout my week of testing, the Quest 3S would typically last around two hours and 20 minutes before needing a recharge. That's slightly better than what I saw on the Quest 3, which could drain its battery in just two hours. This is one area where the Quest 3S's lower resolution displays may be a benefit, since they're less demanding on the GPU. You could always plug in a 10,000 mAh external pack to extend the Quest 3Ss 4,324 mAh built-in battery, or just leave it plugged into a charger for extended play sessions. Devindra Hardawar for Engadget Pricing and the competition The Quest 3S starts at $300 with 128GB of storage, but you can double that to 256GB with the $400 model. If you need 512GB of space, then the $500 Quest 3 is your only option. Given the optics advantage of the more expensive headset though, the $400 Quest 3S doesn't exactly seem like a smart buy. If you need more than 128GB of storage, you're better off saving up until you can snag a Quest 3. Meta still doesn't have much competition in the world of inexpensive standalone VR headsets. HTC's Vive Focus 3 lineup, which now incldes the new Focus 3 Vision, starts at $1,000 and is geared more towards enterprises and business customers. HTC Vive's storefront also has far fewer games and apps than Meta's, so their platform doesn't make much sense for average users. Devindra Hardawar for Engadget Wrap-up The Meta Quest 3S is the best $300 standalone VR headset we've ever seen. It's comfortable to wear, and it delivers a snappy VR experience. It's so good, you likely won't notice that it's not as sharp as the Quest 3, or that it also has more visual artifacts. When youre truly immersed in VR, those problems will fade away. Alongside the company's Ray-Ban smart frames, its Orion augmented reality glasses, and the billions it's already spent on VR, Meta clearly believes the future of computing rests on your face. But even light smart glasses are still glasses, something that many people avoid wearing by shoving contact lenses onto their eyeballs instead. We don't know how, exactly, the public will respond to true AR glasses. But really, that's a problem for the future. For now, we can just enjoy the Quest 3S for what it is: Great VR at a relatively inexpensive price.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/meta-quest-3s-review-impressive-vr-for-300-130013596.html?src=rss
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Pokémon developer Game Freak has confirmed its servers were hacked in August. The breach meant internal materials from source codes to early and even scrapped character designs were circulating on social media over the weekend. Leaked documents and images flooded Reddit and X after Centro Leaks began dumping it all on Saturday afternoon. It allegedly includes source codes for past games and codenames for the Switch 2 and the upcoming Gen 10 Pokémon games. There are also references to a Pokémon MMO, future movies and a new anime series. The leak revealed tons of beta character designs and concept art. Mat Smith Get this delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here! The biggest tech stories you missed Engadget Podcast: Hunting data center vampires with Paris Marx Steam tells gamers theyre buying a license, not a game TikTok is reportedly aware of its bad effects on teen users The fluffiest robot of CES is back, thanks to Casio Moflin is an AI emotional support pet that thrives on cuddles. Casio Casio (of watch and calculator fame) is taking pre-orders in Japan for Moflin, the adorable robotic plushie with AI emotional capabilities, which debuted during CES 2021. Moflin, developed in a partnership with the Japanese startup Vanguard Industries, is meant to work like an emotional support pet and is as fluffy as it looks. Continue reading. Hackers made robot vacuums randomly yell racial slurs The attackers gained full control of the units. Last week, robot vacuums across the country were hacked, allowing attackers to not only control the robovacs, but use their speakers to hurl racial slurs and abusive comments at anyone nearby. Specifically, it was the Ecovacs Deebot X2s, which has a reputation for being easy to hack. The company says its developed a patch to eliminate the security flaw but that wont roll out until November. Maybe October is a messy house kind of a month? Continue reading. Do you want a giant Redbox machine? 23,000 Redboxes must go! Redbox is dead, but its cuboid corpses remain in malls and shops nationwide. The machines are heavy and cumbersome, with a former Redbox executive suggesting it costs $500 to remove one kiosk. Note: Some machines are actually embedded in concrete. Some devotees have taken to adopting them regardless. Yet another note: These boxes use massive amounts of energy. Walgreens told a judge it costs the company $184,000 each month to power 5,400 kiosks, roughly $35 per month for a single machine. That was fine 10 years ago, when the company drew in $2 billion in annual revenue. Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-111103297.html?src=rss
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The Terrifier franchise, with its distinctively horrifying antagonist Art the Clown, is having a bit of a moment right now. Coinciding with Terrifier 3s wildly successful opening weekend the indie horror movie reportedly pulled in over $18 million game publisher Selecta Play has announced that a Terrifier video game is in the works and will be released next year. Terrifier: The ARTcade Game is being developed by indie studio Relevo and styled after a classic beat em up. The teaser shows it to be a fitting combination of gory and goofy, with colorful pixel art and tons of over-the-top blood spatter. According to the Steam listing, youll get to play as Art the Clown and unleash chaos on several movie sets where films about him are being produced. There will also be local multiplayer modes. Terrifier: The ARTcade Game will be available for PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch and Xbox when its released in 2025. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/an-arcade-style-terrifier-beat-em-up-game-is-coming-next-year-205755240.html?src=rss
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