Virtual Reality is becoming more and more advanced, you just need to try out Meta’s latest and greatest Quest Pro headset to know that - it’s the first in their line of premium headsets and it looks like it could change how we use VR forever taking everything we knew and loved about the now cheaper Quest 2 and loading it with even more advanced features and hardware.
Shipping from the 25th of October 2022, the Meta Quest Pro doesn’t come cheap. You’ll be looking at spending around $1,500 in the US and £1,500 in the UK if you plan to buy one. But I think that if you have the cash, it’ll be well worth it.
I’ve been trying it out and there are dozens of reasons why it’s an excellent VR headset, but there are three reasons why I think it’s the best VR headset yet.
The visuals are absolutely stunning
Thanks to a combination of quantum dot technology, thin pancake lenses, increased pixel density and local dimming, the visual experience on the Meta Quest Pro is actually really impressive. Colours pop out at you and there’s lots of detail in the ‘world’ around you. There’s still some way to go to make it perfect but as things stand the Meta Quest Pro does a great job when it comes to optics.
As well as immersive VR visuals, this headset features high-resolution mixed reality passthrough which uses cameras on the front of the headset to incorporate the real world into the virtual world. They have 4x the number of pixels as the Quest 2 did so the room around you is shown in much better quality with lots more detail than we’ve seen before.
It’s perfect for collaboration
Virtual reality isn't just about gaming, the new Meta Quest Pro allows for really easy collaboration with others. It features Horizon Workrooms, software that allows you to hop into the metaverse with your colleagues, hold meetings face to face with access to whiteboards and the potential to share your screen or show off new product designs.
Using your own personalised avatar, you can sit side by side in meeting rooms, breakout rooms and lecture theatres. Little cameras on the inside of the headset show your facial expressions and eye movements as they happen to make the conversation feel more natural, while spatial audio makes people's voices sound like they are coming from where they are sitting in relation to you.
It's really easy to use
Everything about the Meta Quest Pro is easy to use, and that's largely down to the controllers included in the box. They are undoubtedly the best VR headset controllers we've seen so far. Small and lightweight, they sit upright in your hands with your index finger across the trigger button and your thumb placed on a sloping rest by the joystick and A/B buttons. Because they're self-tracking they can pick up motion from a 360-degree radius so even if you swing them behind the headset, they'll still respond in the right way.
With new haptic feedback applying force and vibrations to the controllers, they are able to mimic how it feels to touch and hold objects as well. You even get a stylus tip integrated into the bottom which is there to help you sketch and write on a page or a virtual whiteboard in front of you. I quickly picked up how to use the controllers to navigate through apps because they just felt so natural to use.
On some apps, you can actually ditch the controllers entirely and use your hands instead thanks to the finger-tracking technology which is also built-in.
Already own the Meta Quest 2 but like the sound of these controllers? You can actually upgrade your current pair to these new ones, although it will cost you an extra $300.
