Apple Vision Pro vs Meta Quest Pro: Which one should you buy?

The Apple Vision Pro is way more expensive than the Meta Quest Pro. But does the high price mean it’s a better product? We try to find out.

After a seemingly endless series of leaks, the Apple Vision Pro was finally unveiled at WWDC 2023. This happens to be one of the most important product launches in Tim Cook’s leadership and could stand to redefine the AR/VR headset industry.

The Vision Pro is the only product in the company’s lineup with no cheaper variant, meaning that some people might get confused with the Pro moniker. However, with a price tag of $3499, the headset is positioned purely for professionals and early adopters.

While there are hardly any VR headsets in direct competition with the Vision Pro, we will quickly compare with its closest competitor, the Meta Quest Pro, to see which headset should be your pick if you’re looking to buy a powerful VR headset.

Price

• Apple Vision Pro Price: $3499
• Meta Quest Pro Price: $999

The Meta Quest Pro was introduced at $1499, but the price was reduced to $999 shortly after its launch, making it much more affordable. While the Quest Pro is the flagship product from Meta, it is still way cheaper than the Vision Pro, which will be priced at $3499 when it starts retailing next year. Leaks speculated that the Vision Pro would be priced at $3000, but what we ultimately ended up with was much more expensive.

Specifications

While both of these headsets are extremely powerful and are aimed at people looking to use them for more than just playing games or watching multimedia content. The Vision Pro can be controlled by your hands with finger gestures, your voice, and eyes. The headset has sensors that allow users to interact with apps by looking at them or scrolling through the pages with a flick of your wrist.

The Meta Quest Pro, conversely, has eye tracking and supports hand gestures. However, Meta feels that the controllers are the natural extension of your hand in VR. The Meta Quest Touch Pro controllers will be your companion when you use the Quest Pro.

Though Apple hasn’t shared detailed specifications of the Vision Pro, the company mentioned that the headset packs 23 million pixels across two displays — more than a 4K TV for each eye. The Vision Pro is said to be equipped with two 1.41-inch micro-OLED displays with a peak brightness of 5000 nits. This combination of a high-resolution screen with high brightness levels is unparalleled in the VR industry.

The Quest Pro, on the other hand, has an LCD panel with 1800X1982 pixels per eye, and only achieves a brightness of up to 500 nits. The experience is not going to be anywhere close to what Apple is offering. The display on the Quest Pro is only slightly better than the budget Quest 2.

Both devices are standalone headsets that do not require them to be tethered to a dedicated PC. However, the Vision Pro has Apple’s M2 chipset at the core and a dedicated chipset to control the sensors. The Apple M2, as we already know, is an extremely powerful chipset and is present in MacBooks. All this raw power is required to run the dedicated operating system smoothly and render high-resolution content. Since Apple isn’t relying on hardware controllers, the headset has to process a ton of data natively to understand the gestures and execute them correctly.

Meta’s Qualcomm XR+ is also a powerful chipset designed for VR/AR headsets; however, it isn’t remotely as powerful as the M2 chip from Apple.

Design

Quest Pro and Vision Pro have a premium glass design at the front. While the Vision Pro displays users’ eyes, making it look like a see-through headset, the Quest Pro doesn’t have such a feature.

The Vision Pro is made of materials like Glass and Aluminum, which should ideally make the headset heavy. Both headsets use Pancake lenses which are seen in most modern VR headsets barring the PS VR 2. The Pancake lenses help make the headset more compact and have a wider sweet spot.

The Vision Pro has a wired battery that keeps dangling from the side of the headset. This design choice has proven to be divisive, and seemingly goes against the rest of the headset’s slick aesthetic.

The Quest Pro has a battery pack behind the user’s head. However, this compromise on the weight part offers a seamless design offering a tangle-free experience.

Moreover, the Vision Pro is said to offer “all-day use when plugged in, and up to two hours of use with its external, high-performance battery,” while the Quest Pro’s battery can last for up to 2 hours, though it’s dependent on the kind of content you’re consuming. The headset can also be charged while it’s being worn.

Apps and Games

The Quest Pro runs on an Android-powered operating system, while the Vision Pro runs on visionOS built on iOS as its base. Though, in theory, both the headsets should have a vast app and game library, and while we have access to the Quest’s library, there is no current information about the apps on the visionOS, aside from the fact that it can access iOS apps.

That said, Apple is known to collaborate with significant app makers and game studios to bring native support to its devices, which results in the apps optimized to best utilize the hardware and software on the device. This results in a better in-app experience. We can expect Apple to announce such partnerships closer to the retail availability of the headset.

Apple Vision Pro vs Meta Quest Pro: Which one should you buy?

Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest Pro are premium VR headsets capable of offering high-resolution VR/AR content. They also differ regarding the overall design, features, and, most importantly, the target audience.

The Quest Pro is aimed at serious VR content users and is capable of 5G connectivity, making it useful in many scenarios like healthcare, education, robotics, engineering, and more. It is not the run-of-the-mill affordable VR headset that lets you enjoy 360-degree content and play games.

The Vision Pro takes it a step further. Apple plans to replace your computer, TV, and probably the iPhone with your VR headset in the distant future, and the Vision Pro is the first step towards attaining that goal. Since Apple has a vast ecosystem of devices, the Vision Pro is expected to seamlessly blend into their walled garden and extend the functionality of each paired device.

Apple will also ensure that the Vision Pro has some dependency on other devices like MacBook or iPhone to unlock its full potential and keep you engaged in their ecosystem of devices and accessories. Apart from the price, this ecosystem is the key differentiator between the two headsets.

The high price tag of the Vision Pro sets it apart from the crowd, and Apple has deliberately done this to ensure that the Vision Pro doesn’t become a mass-market device. Its future generation devices are more likely to be affordable. We’ll just have to wait for Apple to establish their XR devices supply chains to drive down the costs of their headsets before picking one up.

Also, as you can’t buy the Vision Pro till early 2024, the only choice you’re left with is Meta Quest Pro.

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