Today, Amazon has dropped the price of the Meta Quest Pro from $1499.99 down to $1099.99. That’s a pretty steep discount considering the fact that the Quest Pro was released only a few months ago. Of course, that’s still much more expensive than the Quest 2, which starts at $399.99. The Quest 2 is still our go-to recommendation for pure gamers. The Quest Pro would probably make for an excellent gaming headset, but the price and features gear it more towards mixed reality and AR developers. Once you delve into the specs, you’ll understand that there is a reason for this price madness.
Save $400 Off the Meta Quest Pro VR Headset
Let’s start with the display. At first glance, you’ll notice that the Quest Pro is thin. Very thin. The front visor, in fact, is nearly 40% slimmer than the Quest 2 and that’s achieved by the new pancake lens system. Whereas the Quest 2 uses a single LCD with a resolution of 1920×1832 per eye, the Quest Pro uses dual LCD panels with the same resolution. Meta claims 37% greater pixels-per-inch and 30% larger color gamut. The Quest Pro should also support dynamic foveated rendering and features a manual IPD adjustment slider.
Hardware wise, although the visor is thinner, the overall headset is heavier. That’s because the headstrap is counter-weighted and the battery is rear-mounted to provide better balance than the Quest 2. You’ll be able to wear this headset for much longer without any neck strain. The headstrap is more robust as well, more similar to the optional Elite Strap than the fabric headband that the Quest 2 came with. Internally, the Quest Pro is now equipped with an upgraded Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2+ CPU that promises 50% more power and more effective thermal dissipation.
The Quest Pro gets a rather significant upgrade in tracking ability. The Touch controllers, for example, no longer have an LED ring. Instead, they have their very own cameras for independent self-tracking ability. The visor has some new tricks up its sleeve as well. In addition to the standard inside-out tracking cameras, there are inward-facing cameras that can track your eye and face movements. There are very few (if any) games that can take advantage of facial tracking right now, but it opens up a whole realm of possibilities for productivity and social applications, like avatars that can mimic your facial gestures or full control using your eyes instead of your controllers. And of course, dynamic foveated rendering is only possible with eye tracking.
To further reinforce the concept of the Quest Pro as a mixed reality tool, the visor has full-color sensors that allow for high resolution color video. That means you’ll be able to see the world around you and potentially have the Quest Pro display AR elements, much like a refined version of the now defunct Google Glasses. Few games can take advantage of this feature (although there was a video of Beat Saber being played “out of screen” in an AR environment), so the cost attached to this featureset is wasted on a pure gamer.
To sum up, there’s a hefty price to pay to be at the forefront of a technology that has yet to be widely adopted. Whether or not it’s worth it is your decision, but the Quest Pro is clearly not intended to be a straight upgrade from the Quest 2 for the average VR gamer. If you can afford it, you’ll be in for a treat. And if you can’t, the Quest 2 exists.
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