Oculus tinkered with standalone virtual reality with its Go headset, but it wasn’t until the Quest that the company really nailed a genuinely immersive VR experience without any cables. The Quest 2 is a bit smaller and lighter than the original, weighing 17.7 ounces and measuring 4.0 by 7.5 by 5.6 inches (HWD), not including the strap.
The eye mask easily pulls out to let you adjust the position of the lenses, or to insert the included separator that lifts the headset slightly away from your face so you can comfortably use it with glasses.
It’s fast and simple to adjust the headset with its default strap, but it doesn’t provide the most secure fit to keep it in place, and it can shift if you move your head quickly or sharply. The new design makes the controllers feel a bit thicker in the hand and easier to hold securely, and the battery door is less prone to sliding off during intense gameplay sessions. While you can use your hands to navigate the Quest 2’s menu system, you’re prompted to use the controllers when launching Netflix or YouTube VR, for instance. This is impressive in and of itself, as the Quest 2’s $300 price makes it the most affordable Snapdragon 865-based device available in North America by far (phones with the same chip sell for around $1,000). You can access plenty of entertaining software through the store without needing to use a PC, including Beat Saber, Rez Infinite, Superhot VR, Tetris Effect, and more. It’s a 16.4-foot (5m) USB-C cable designed to let you connect the Quest 2 to a compatible PC to access its VR software library. First, a PC simply provides far more power than even the Snapdragon 865 processor can offer, enabling more graphically advanced VR software like Half-Life: Alyx. The Quest 2 uses the same Guardian system as its predecessor, which lets you draw boundaries around your play space so the headset can warn you if you’re about to step out of the designated area (and perhaps bump into something). It works well, remembering the specific areas you choose, or letting you set up a stationary circle for games that don’t require a lot of movement or walking around.
The headset tracked my controller movements accurately, letting me carefully aim different firearms at pop-up targets with precision. The higher resolution helped me pick out distant targets and better align head shots, for an entertaining simulator experience. Superhot VR is a first-person shooter where time only passes when you move, letting you pull off incredible feats of disarming and marksmanship. The Quest 2 tracked my head and the controllers perfectly, letting me dodge bullets and pick off attackers like John Wick.
The original Oculus Quest was a VR breath of fresh air with its 6DOF head and controller tracking, strong performance, and, most importantly, standalone functionality. Optional PC tethering with accessory cable View More Cons Short battery life The Bottom Line The Oculus Quest 2 improves on nearly everything from the original at a more affordable price, making it the best $300 VR headset for newbies and experienced users alike.
Oculus Quest 2 review: better, cheaper VR
Oculus has kept that standalone Quest design with the same feature set, while improving its screen, reducing its weight, and — with one noteworthy caveat — making it more comfortable. Facebook-owned Oculus has become known for its all-black flagship devices, but the Quest 2 has a pure white body and a black foam face mask, giving it a two-toned appearance.
The Quest 2’s screen resolution has leapfrogged most other VR headsets, offering 1832 x 1920 pixels per eye compared to the original’s 1440 x 1600; Oculus also promises to upgrade the suboptimal 72Hz refresh rate to 90Hz after launch. Oculus is also offering an alternate strap option, though: a padded plastic ring that rests more easily around your head and tightens with a convenient wheel at the back.
Wired ones need their long cords pinned behind the straps, and Oculus apparently isn’t planning wireless earbud support anytime soon — Quest 2 team lead Prabhu Parthasarathy says latency is too big an issue. But it’s a little frustrating that Oculus isn’t including the improved strap and earbuds by default, since new headset owners won’t necessarily realize how much better their experience could be.
Early Quest 2 leaks prompted fears that Oculus might be ditching focus adjustment — the option to move a headset’s lenses to match different interpupillary distances, improving the experience for a wider range of users. Instead of moving a smooth slider on the headset’s underside, you have to remove it and snap the lenses to one of three distance settings, then put it back on to see the improvement. It’s also slowly being rolled out to third-party apps, including the workplace social tool Spatial — a good, low-pressure test case where you don’t need perfectly reliable fast-twitch motion. But gestures like pinching or turning your palm can be either accidentally triggered or fail to register, and when you’re using your hand to move a cursor, it doesn’t always point where you’d expect. Upcoming games include Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge, created by Lucasfilm effects studio ILMxLAB; a VR installment of Sniper Elite; a Jurassic Park puzzle game called Jurassic World Aftermath; a shooter set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe; and a VR adaptation of Myst. Stealth game Phantom: Covert Ops pushes the limits of the Quest’s power and screen with a large, dark, and low-contrast world, but its clever conceit — you’re infiltrating secret bases and assassinating enemies from a kayak — easily makes up for it.
That includes upcoming battle royale game Population: One, which will be released in the fall of 2020 and features cross-play across HTC Vive, Windows Mixed Reality, and Oculus headsets. The Quest got a huge boost last year with Link, a feature that lets it play PC VR games with a USB-C connection. While I expressed some frustration with the system this spring, it worked great with the Quest 2, in part because the official Link cable is an improvement over a much cheaper USB-C option like the Anker Powerline. The Oculus Quest 2 retains current-generation VR’s baseline flaws: it’s grainy, bulky, and socially maladroit compared to a modern phone or laptop.
Motion sickness can still be a problem in VR, but as developers have learned better design tricks and headset tracking has improved, it’s become easier to find experiences that don’t trigger it. Facebook already owned all the information it collected through Oculus, including some data that’s predictable (your app usage history) and some that’s less obvious (how you draw the boundaries on your play space.)
I don’t regularly check Facebook, but based on a recent scroll through the News Feed, it’s currently trying to sell me on distance learning and Nextdoor — not the latest VR shooter. The company’s new terms of use suggest you can lose access to content if you do something like make a Facebook account with a fake name, but Oculus says the details are still being worked out.
But Facebook moderation happens on such a huge scale that individual users can get stuck in the system, and the prospect of losing access to your purchased games and hardware is a scary one. Facebook could theoretically link VR activity to social media accounts before, but going forward, it’s automatically adding a whole new set of data points to an already vast catalog of your behavior.
As Road to VR outlined last month, for instance, Facebook’s invite-only Horizon social space includes the option to have a moderator invisibly surveil your conversations with another person for potential rule-breaking. This is an extension of standard gaming moderation practices — Sony and Microsoft, for instance, let you report abusive private messages.
Facebook has discussed opening a less restrictive store for a wider range of apps, but it declined to offer more detail at this time, suggesting that developers build for PC if they want to experiment. Some social VR developers are already complaining about Facebook suppressing competition, and the Quest 2 only increases its power to set the terms of engagement — and potentially the kinds of games that headset users see. Facebook’s VR head start is growing, and the coming year could set industry expectations for privacy, developer autonomy, and basic consumer-friendliness.
Oculus Quest 2 Review
The Takeaway: The Oculus Quest 2 is a wireless standalone virtual reality headset that creates shared digital spaces over the internet. There’s no external tracking sensors, wires, or PC needed, so you can take the Quest 2 on the move and share gameplay with a group using a Chromecast-equipped TV or streaming stick.
New apps, games, and software drop weekly with highly anticipated titles like Resident Evil 4: VR edition launching exclusively on the Quest 2 later this year. Unlike any other VR system that is able to fully track your body or room, the Quest 2 doesn’t rely on a separate console or computer.
A majority of the online crowd is made up of millennials, with fairly active experiences like rock climbing or military simulators drawing people in after the workday. The Quest 2 can provide a simulated office environment so you can work from beaches or mountain tops, a home gym, and even a personal movie theater that you can use by yourself or open up to others.
An accurate sense of scale, realistic physics, and expressive avatars converge to create a virtual online world that anyone with a Quest and Wi-Fi connection can access and interact with. This view is called passthrough and combines the real world with augmented-reality elements such as a virtual barrier dubbed the Guardian Boundary System and floor grid. Confirming your play space is properly sized and obstruction-free with the tap of a button causes the real world to disintegrate, and you’re whisked away into a virtual environment facing a universal menu. Similar to a phone’s user interface, here you can download games or apps, invite friends to meet up in virtual spaces, and even cast your activity to a Chromecast so others in the same room as you can see what you’re doing in the headset.
A built-in Snapdragon mobile chip is powerful enough to run the operating system and render immersive worlds without any lag for up to three hours before requiring a charge. Without any wires, sensors, or gaming consoles needed, you can simply put on this lightweight pair of goggles and take it on the move as a portable system.
This is a huge deal because high-performance wired headsets like the are much more expensive (the Index kit is $1,000) and have a cumbersome setup that requires base tracking stations and room calibration processes that aren’t travel-friendly. Yes, I’ve gotten lost in games of Superhot and played through the meaty campaign of the Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, but 90 percent of my time in VR is spent online in social multiplayer applications with both friends and strangers from across the globe.
When playing a shooter like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on a console, I can use a controller to crouch and aim instantaneously, relying on twitch reflexes and a headset to communicate with teammates. The sense of immersion and danger is heightened by the surround sound carried through the headstrap, with 3D audio that precisely captures the direction of footsteps or the angle from which a bullet is whizzing by without the need for external headphones. When the pandemic brought poker nights to a stop, my friend group moved to playing PokerStars VR and Venmoing the winner cash. While I’m all for playing poker against a cyberpunk skyline backdrop or aboard a yacht in Montecarlo, these venues are a far cry from the cramped suburban homes my group is used to.
Being together in these spaces lets us escape to the same shared dreamscape and interact with the same things, something I especially value since moving out of easy driving distance earlier this year. I enjoy poker night much more now that we can virtually rip cigars out of each others’ mouths and throw them around, shoot laser pointers in each other’s eyes, and interact with a sandbox of toys while waiting for action on the table.
Your Avatar connects to Facebook Messenger, which acts as your Quest’s social hub to keep in touch with friends, organize group calls, and launch into games together.
Surreal and free, Facebook does a pretty good job balancing the removal of trolls through built-in security tools while also letting players have fun with the medium.
While Oculus irons software kinks out and streamlines the metaverse closer to our grasp, there’s so much to do and explore both by yourself and with other people for a shared experience that truly feels refreshing. This is a smart move to get hardware sales flowing, as Half:Life Alyx generated huge headset interest when it launched as a VR-exclusive title in 2019.
Population:One doesn’t hail from an established franchise but taps into the trending battle royale genre and updates it with mechanics only possible in virtual reality. During lockdown I was able to watch comedy sets, award shows, and events live with an active crowd through Facebook’s Venues social hub app.
Pairing my mechanical Bluetooth keyboard to my Quest 2 and using the virtual office app Spatial allows me to work with three massive floating browser tabs in my view. While VR headsets are primarily associated with gaming, too few people realize the productivity benefits and potential to be a tool for the future of online work and communication.
Outside of gaming and productivity, fitness apps like Supernatural genuinely make you sweat and provide a stimulating workout environment that keeps you pushing for your goals. I’ve seen models come and go, attended virtual reality conferences, and owned a majority of VR headsets to date with the exception of Valve’s premium Index system.
Oculus Quest 2 review
It used to be that there were just two basic tiers; Google Cardboard, which had you putting your mobile phone in a special viewer, and wallet-emptyingly expensive headsets. It’s not without competition; HTC manufactures the Vive range, a selection of higher-end headsets including one geared towards office VR.
And because it doubles as a PCVR headset, you’ll also have access to a vast number of PC-based VR games, including the highly acclaimed Half-Life: Alyx.
But there’s nothing flimsy about the Quest 2; it’s a solid, sleek piece of kit that, while we recommend you take care, has survived being knocked off the table a few times.
We suspected the strap would work its way loose, lacking a proper locking mechanism, but the Quest 2 remained firmly in place and was comfortable . That said, we have reservations about its color as white has a tendency to show up grime and dust and, after a couple of months of use, the strap is starting to look a little gray.
It has built-in 3D audio (with an optional headphone socket), but in order to raise or lower the volume you have to reach for the buttons at the bottom front of the headset. To compound this frustrating requirement, you also need to run the Oculus app on an iOS or Android smartphone or tablet (not a PC) to complete setup.
Even if the Quest 2’s enforced Facebook login has you rolling your eyes, it’s worth tolerating for this headset’s excellent standalone performance. It sports a Snapdragon XR2 chip and 6 GB of memory, a major step up from the first Quest, and we were thoroughly impressed with the Oculus native games and apps we tried.
Beat Saber, a rhythm game that can be more than a little frenetic, worked flawlessly and its four cameras were able to track our controller movements even when we dialed up the difficulty. You can, should you so desire, use the headset’s hand-tracking feature with some apps but, while it’s novel, it’s not a patch on using the controllers, and pinching to activate an on-screen object feels unnaturally clunky.
In this case, your PC will be doing most of the heavy lifting so you’ll need to check your machine can run whatever game or application you have in mind. The upcoming VR version of Resident Evil 4 will be the first Quest 2 exclusive and, with Facebook putting their weight behind the headset, you can expect more down the line.
Vader Immortal, while it doesn’t have you playing as the infamous Sith Lord, is a fun foray into the Star Wars universe.
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is another stand-out title; dispatching zombies, then realizing how badly you’ve let yourself get outnumbered is quite something. Even if science fiction and horror leave you cold, you’ll find plenty of Quest outings to catch your eye. There are also social apps, hence the Facebook integration, so aside from just chatting in VR, you can watch (paid) movies with other people and share your gameplay.
It’s comparable in price to the PlayStation VR (when you factor in the controllers), but offers superior tracking, display quality, and doesn’t require any additional hardware. The Oculus website suggests that this Anker cable is a suitable, much cheaper, substitute and we’ve had absolutely no problems with it.
If you want Virtual Reality in 5K and have a powerful PC, the HTC VIVE Pro 2 is designed to deliver stunning visual quality and exceptional comfort.
Oculus Quest 2 review
You’ll find a power button on the right side of the headset, a volume rocker on the right underside, and a USB-C port and headphone jack on the left for charging and audio. A generous amount of foam padding made it easy to forget I had a hunk of plastic strapped to my face, while the headset’s adjustable elastic bands allowed me to find the right fit for my head.
A word of warning: I finished a rather long play session with a comically large red indent on my forehead, so you might want to make sure your Oculus Quest 2 isn’t too tight before you dive in. Oculus Quest 2 Chipset Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Display resolution 1832 x 1920 per eye Storage 64GB, 256GB RAM 6GB Battery life 2-3 hours (rated) Size 7.5 x 4 x 5.2 inches Weight 1.1 pounds The setup process only takes a few minutes; you’ll put the headset on, activate your account via the Oculus mobile app, establish your play area, and you’re good to go. The headset will automatically switch to Passthrough mode if you leave your Guardian boundary, allowing you to instantly see any surroundings you might come into contact with.
While Oculus announced this change in the name of simplicity and privacy, it’s worth keeping this policy in mind if you choose not to use Facebook for personal or security reasons. The snappy triggers and accurate motion sensing allowed me to snag easy headshots in Pistol Whip, and I had no trouble hacking away at color-coded blocks during the rhythm-action of Beat Saber. The controllers’ haptics are also impressive, as they allowed me to feel the distinct buzz of an ignited lightsaber during Vader Immortal while keeping me on track in Tetris Effect with a subtle pulse that matched the in-game music. While I appreciate having the option, I found that hand-tracking wasn’t as intuitive as I’d hoped, and had trouble getting my pinch-to-select gestures to register as I moved around the Oculus home screen.
While I eventually got the hang of navigating menus and moving documents around in the Spatial productivity app, I struggled to control hand-supported games such as The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets. This means the Oculus Quest 2 runs a lot smoother than the older VR headset and makes for smooth and snappy menu navigation.
Games like Beat Saber, Pistol Whip and Vader Immortal, ran smoothly and looked impressively crisp and clear. Highlights include rhythm-slashing game Beat Saber and the immersive time-bending shooting of Superhot VR, the latter of which made me feel like I was in a trippy sci-fi action movie as I controlled time and threw bullets back at enemies. As a Star Wars nerd, I completely geeked out on Vader Immortal, a first-person action-adventure game that had me sneaking around imperial strongholds and engaging in tight lightsaber combat. And I absolutely loved Pistol Whip, a neon-drenched arcade shooter that had me popping headshots and dodging enemy fire to the beat of pulsing EDM music.
Tetris Effect is already one of my favorite games of all time, but being able to enjoy its serene visuals in the Oculus Quest 2’s completely immersive 3D environment made the experience that much sweeter. And Polyarc’s Moss is an excellent fusion of traditional controller-based platforming and deep VR interactivity, allowing you to move obstacles with your hands while guiding an adorable mouse with your joysticks. The Quest 2 also excels as a multiplayer machine, allowing you to play in virtual spaces with friends at a time when gathering in-person is more difficult than ever. The Oculus Quest 2 is much more than a gaming device, with a healthy selection of entertainment and productivity apps that let you watch videos and collaborate with others in cool ways.
Oculus’ TV app also let me ride a virtual rollercoaster, which had my adrenaline surging and almost made me wimp out before I remembered I was sitting at my desk.
I could hear where the buzzes of nearby bees and chirps of birds were coming from while hanging out in my home screen oasis, and could easily pinpoint enemy fire while blasting away in Pistol Whip.
I had no problem coordinating with a friend as we tossed around bad guys in Path of the Warrior, and his voice sounded crisp and clear coming from his own Quest 2. But if you’ve yet to dive into VR or want to finally go untethered, the Oculus Quest 2’s price, game library and overall ease of use make it the best entry point into virtual reality yet.
Oculus Quest 2: Our Most Advanced New All-in-One VR Headset
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Oculus Quest 2 review
Facebook (now called Meta) just announced its latest VR headset – dubbed Project Cambria – at its most recent Connect event, with the company explaining that this new device will be home to groundbreaking technology which aims to help establish the earliest days of its ambitious ‘metaverse’. The Quest 2 allows you to (almost literally) step inside gaming worlds, as well as access 360-degree video content and apps covering all genres.
It’s similar to the original Oculus Quest in that it’s a battery-powered, standalone headset that allows you to freely roam around your physical and digital play spaces without fear of tripping over a wire. What’s more, where the Quest 2 is concerned developers now have the option to make their games run at 90Hz (this is important for increased comfort and even more realism while playing), and the headset itself is noticeably lighter than before, with double the battery life in the controllers. Though some will shudder at the newly-introduced Facebook account requirement (more on this below) or the recent introduction of ads, the Oculus Quest 2 is superb when playing with friends, whether you choose to do that through online avatars, or in the same physical room thanks to the option to Google Cast whatever you’re viewing within your headset to a nearby display. And yet, while Quest 2 is the most accessible and feature-rich VR headset we’ve tested to date, it still falls foul of some of the same pitfalls that virtual reality as a whole suffers from. There’s still the chance you’ll experience a degree of motion sickness, depending on your constitution, which is unavoidable on most headsets – even those that claim to have solved these problems – and might require you to introduce yourself to VR more gradually to avoid the telltale signs. The passthrough tech will essentially act as an overlay to your VR activities, and will be able to provide experiences based in social, productivity and gaming-focused areas. Developers will be able to patch in passthrough API features into their games and apps later this year, and the update could allow dev teams to add even more value and functionality to their projects. As mentioned, the tech is only available to Oculus Quest 2 developers at present, but we’ll update the review when we’ve had the chance to test out some of these passthrough features in the near future. Where a scuba mask’s window would be, you’ve instead got a padded cavity that houses a pair of goggle-like lenses that sit in front of a screen, giving you stereoscopic 3D visuals. It’s a similarly lightweight design to the first Oculus Quest (now available in white plastic rather than a dust-hugging, fabric-covered black) with its outer shell housing external cameras that help to track your positioning and that of the supplied controllers.
While most won’t notice any difference (the three settings cover the most common IPD ranges), it’s a shame that more delicate control has been lost. Oculus has managed this thanks to significant improvements to its tracking algorithms, which extend to the controllers too, now offering double the battery life (we’re talking weeks of constant play) compared to their predecessors.
They’re reasonably clear and loud enough to get across the drama and directional audio feedback of your games, while keeping your ears free in order to allow you some awareness of your physical surroundings. You’ll turn on the headset after its first charge, and be showed a few safety clips, and a very short intro video that introduces you to controllers and how their wand like point-and-trigger system can be used to navigate menus.
Facebook admits that may change over time as developers get more to grips with the increased specs potential of the new model, but for now anyone rocking the first-gen edition won’t get locked out of upcoming experiences. Resolution is markedly sharper, the whole system and its menus feels dramatically more responsive than even the snappy earlier edition, and, where it will become buttery smooth in motion in 90Hz apps.
It’s this last point that’s perhaps the biggest, most exciting change – should developers choose to take advantage of it, they can now activate a 90Hz refresh rate mode in their existing titles. Though a tolerance to VR motion sickness can be built up over time, be prepared to limit your play sessions accordingly, or keep a bucket handy. Many games thankfully have various comfort settings that can ease you in, such as snap turning, or features to make moving on the spot less sickening, so you should be able to find something that works for you.
VR can be educational – there are applications talking you through historical moments, such as a touching look at the life of Anne Frank, and one letting you visit the Chernobyl disaster zone.
There are great apps from National Geographic and other organisations that let you visit locations around the world for a spot of virtual tourism, while also opening up the very real dangers of climate change. With fitness studios and meditation spots also available in app form, if you can visit it in the real world, there’s a good chance there’s a VR alternative being developed, or already in existence.
Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and YouTube are all also available to download, offering digital living rooms for you to watch titles on. Should you be lucky enough to have a decent-spec gaming PC, you can use the Oculus Quest 2 to tap into tethered virtual reality experiences powered by your computer.
It’s simply a matter of plugging in a high speed USB 3.0 cable to your headset, setting up the PC-based Oculus launcher and store on your computer, and grabbing the apps that take your fancy. In addition, PC-based experiences, by virtue of the potential GPU horsepower behind them, can be more detailed and ambitious by an order of magnitude than their mobile counterparts.
With the greater power of a PC at hand, the Quest is capable of taking advantage of some really impressive adventures, such as the god-stomping Asgard’s Wrath and mind-blowing Lone Echo. Offering access to both these play scenarios through one headset line is a wise move by Facebook, reducing the amount of hardware it supports.
We wouldn’t want to see apps focus solely on the lower-powered mobile headset and give a cold shoulder to the more powerful made-for-PC experiences that can be achieved. What has however started to come through is third party accessories, like the Customizable Facial Interface & Foam Replacement set from VR Cover, pictured below:
On sale from VR Cover’s online store at $29 (about £25 / AU$42) it includes a replaceable facial interface that includes venting for passively reducing heat from the display to reduce the build up of humidity, as well as a pair (thick and thin) of leatherette padded foam cushions for the inside of the headset, which is far more comfortable than the default standard the Quest 2 ships with.
Self-contained and remarkably easy to use, Oculus Quest 2 represents the very best of VR gaming and experiences, in a package that even a technological novice can set up and appreciate.
Oculus Quest 2 can be enjoyed by anyone, thanks to the way it scales its Guardian room tracker from seated, to standing, to free roaming experiences. But Quest 2 is at its best when you’ve got a large (indoor) space to roam around, free of obstacles to break the illusion of wandering around a digital world.
There’s lots of ways to minimise this effect, including not playing racing or flying games, but it’s a consideration that doesn’t usually have to be made with other platforms and media.
Oculus Quest 2 Review: The One You’ve Been Waiting For
The Oculus Quest 2 doesn’t represent a reimagining of the standalone headset, instead offering a refined design that addresses many complaints about the original. It certainly makes for a nice changed compared to the dark colour scheme of most VR headsets available right now, but how clean the white fabric of the headstrap will stay over time is yet to be seen. It may not sound like a lot, but it is noticeable over longer periods of play, with less of a pressure build-up around the eyes and head where the headset comes into contact with your face. One of the biggest draws of standalone VR headsets is that you don’t need to be tethered to a PC, so a smaller form factor encourages you to take the Quest 2 out and about on your travels.
In order to simplify the experience, Oculus ditched the side strap adjustments in favour of two plastic sliders that sit at the rear of the headset. Oculus also boasts that the new strap system is more flexible than the original, accommodating all kinds of hairstyles and head shapes, but with relatively short hair, that’s not really a problem I’ve ever had with the Quest.
Otherwise, the Oculus Quest 2 is similar to its predecessor; it features a USB-C port and headphone jack, although the latter has been moved to the side of the headset, and there are four front-mounted cameras to help with positional tracking too, albeit slightly smaller this time around. Everything, from text to textures and shapes look more detailed and defined, and that really helps improve immersion and that ‘forgot where I am’ feeling that virtual reality provides.
The more eagle-eyed of you might’ve noticed I didn’t mention the IPD adjustment slider when discussing the various parts of the headset earlier, and that wasn’t an accident – it isn’t there anymore. Thankfully, Oculus has delivered, opting to feature the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 platform, with comparable performance to flagship smartphones in 2021.
It can handle the improved display with ease, with no noticeable stuttering or lag at any point during my time with the headset, even during the most intense Beat Saber sessions, but the XR2 is much more important than that. You see, Oculus is so confident of the XR2’s capabilities that it claims the VR games and experiences available on the Quest 2 will likely expand in new ways to take advantage of the extra power on offer.
The company didn’t give any specifics in questioning, but it’s likely that we’ll see longer, more detailed VR games appear on the headset over the coming months and years. Alongside the Snapdragon XR2 you’ll find an increased 6GB of RAM and either 128- (replacing the 64GB model) or a whopping 256GB of internal memory, depending on the variant you go for. Let’s take a minute to talk about tracking: like its predecessor, the Quest 2 uses the Oculus Insight system to intelligently calculate the position of the headset and controllers in real time. That may seem niche, but there’s a swathe of VR titles on the Quest that require you to reach behind your shoulder to access weapons and other gadgets, so it’s something you’ll likely experience often. It does use the built-in sensors to estimate its position in the physical space, but it takes a split second to regain full tracking upon redetecting the controllers, and that can make all the difference in a gritty competitive shooter like Onward. Fast forward to today and there are over 200 apps and games available to download via the Oculus Store, including ports of popular PC titles like Beat Saber, Arizona Sunshine and most recently, Holopoint. Couple that with the improved performance on offer from the XR2 chipset and it’s likely that the content available on the Oculus Quest will continue to grow over the coming months and years. With that being said, there are still plenty of VR titles – like the hugely popular Half Life: Alyx – that are simply too complex to port to the standalone headset, instead requiring a high-end gaming PC to power the experience.
The Oculus Quest 2 Virtual Reality VR Headset is the best you can buy
It was a huge step up from flimsy headsets designed to hold your phone and even Facebook’s own mobile VR product, the now-discontinued Oculus Go. Now, however, Facebook has introduced its new Oculus Quest 2 Virtual Reality VR Headset and it improves upon its predecessor in almost every way.
From a technology standpoint, the Oculus Quest 2 Virtual Reality VR Headset offers a litany of hardware upgrades.
I’ve been playing with the Oculus Quest 2 Virtual Reality VR Headset for more than a week and it has impressed me in a number of ways.
Right now, users can turn on the 90Hz feature in the menus and home screens as part of Facebook’s experimental mode, but the company says it will make it the default later this year. The controllers themselves now offer a better resting area for your thumb so you don’t accidentally press buttons as you flail wildly.
Disposable batteries are inefficient but much more convenient—plugging in the headset and two controllers every time you want to play typically results in frustration when you realize one of them didn’t charge correctly. It’s also worth noting that players look totally ridiculous when using the hand-tracking—like they’re playing “got your nose” with an imaginary baby or tickling a virtual Bigfoot. Awkward gestures aside, it’s still hard to imagine wearing the Oculus Quest 2 Virtual Reality VR Headset out in public on the regular. Facebook says an optional upgraded strap with a battery pack will help balance out the weight in addition to extending playtime, but that’s adding extra cash to an already pricy purchase.
It’s powerful enough to handle a fairly robust set of games, but simple enough that you don’t have to rearrange your life—or your living room—in order to make use of it. If you can spring the extra cash for games like Beat Saber or Vader Immortal, however, you’re in for an arm-flailing good time.
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