Just days of ahead of Apple's rumored headset announcement, Meta has announced that its Quest 3 VR headset will launch this fall for $500. It is still using LCD technology.

Meta, formerly Facebook, said that its next-generation mainstream VR headset features higher resolution, better performance, slimmer optics, and a slimmer form factor. It will come with 128GB for $500 and additional storage for a higher, unspecified price.


 Meta Quest 2 (left) and Quest 3 (right). Photo: Meta

- "Quest 3 is the supercharged all-in-one headset you’ve been waiting for — no wires required," announced Meta. "Quest 3 combines our highest resolution display and pancake optics to make content look better than ever. To power those extra pixels, this will be the first headset to feature a next-generation Snapdragon chipset developed in collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies. That next-gen Snapdragon chipset delivers more than twice the graphical performance as the previous generation Snapdragon GPU in Quest 2."

The company is no longer using the Oculus branding for its VR headsets.


Still LCD technology
Meta did not provide specifications but according to industry sources Quest 3 continues to use LCD technology – a 120Hz LCD panel with 2064x2208 per eye – so you should still expect to see greyish blacks and low contrast, subpar motion performance, and lack of HDR.

This is not high-end territory, but even Meta's $1500 Quest Pro uses LCD.

You may recall that the original Oculus Quest from Meta actually used OLED, although with lower resolution.


Quest 2 price drop
As part of the announcement, Meta said that starting June 4 it will drop the price of the existing Quest 2 by $100 to $300 for the 128GB version and $80 from $420 to $350 for the 256GB version.

This brings the base Quest 2 back to the pre-covid price level.

- "In an upcoming software update, we’re updating the Quest 2 and Quest Pro GPU and CPU. Quest 2 and Pro will see an up-to 26% CPU performance increase with an up-to 19% GPU speed increase for Quest 2 and 11% for Quest Pro," added Meta. "And we’re enabling Dynamic Resolution Scaling for both Quest 2 and Quest Pro, so games and apps can take advantage of increased pixel density without dropping frames."


Coming this fall
Meta confirmed that Quest 3 remains compatible with the existing catalog of over 500 games for Quest 2, despite coming with redesigned controllers. Additional big games will be announced later this year.


 The new controllers for Meta Quest 3. Photo: Meta

Quest 3 is not coming until "this fall" so why is Meta announcing it now? The company is seemingly getting a little anxious about Apple's rumored headset announcement on Monday at WWDC 23.

Mark Zuckerberg told us to expect more details about Quest 3 at the Meta Connect conference on September 27.