With Meta now selling two headsets, the Quest 2 and Quest Pro, is it worth going all in on the higher-priced VR experience or keeping it cheap?
Meta is all in on virtual reality, having renamed their entire business after their grand vision of a “metaverse”. Despite Mark Zuckerberg dumping billions of dollars into this initiative, VR remains relatively niche. With two flagship headsets now available, which should you get? The Quest 2, or Meta’s current flagship, the Quest Pro?
Price
- Meta Quest 2 price: $399.99 (128GB), $499.99 (256GB)
- Meta Quest Pro price: $999.99
There’s a gulf in prices between the Quest 2 and Quest Pro. While the Quest 2 initially launched at an eye-watering $1499.99, the company has now brought it down to a more palatable price point.
The Quest Pro headset is specifically designed to be used by professionals in the industry, making it an inherently less consumer-friendly option.
The Quest Pro has color cameras, as well as better support for passthrough, which makes playing titles like Demeo in VR a delight. However, for most VR users, this isn’t really anything that’s required in daily use. The new controllers that come with the Quest Pro also work with the Quest 2. With all of that in mind, what are the actual, tangible differences between the two headsets?
Specifications
| Spec | Meta Quest 2 | Meta Quest Pro |
|---|---|---|
| SoC | Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 | Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2+ |
| Resolution (Per-eye) | 1832×1920 | 1800×1920 |
| Display type | LCD | LCD |
| Refresh rate | 72Hz – 120Hz | 72Hz – 90Hz |
| Field of view | 89 degrees | 106 degrees |
| Lenses | Fresnel | Pancake |
| Features | Hand tracking, PC compatibility, voice commands, wireless | Hand tracking, PC compatibility, voice commands, wireless, Mixed reality |
| Controllers | Meta Quest 2 Touch controllers | Meta Quest Touch Pro controllers |
| Weight | 503g | 722g |
| Price | $399.99 – $499.99 | $1,499.99 |
As you can see from the specs, the Meta Quest Pro only has a slight bump up in terms of performance. The XR2+ has its advantages over the Quest 2’s regular XR2, but not for anything that you’d notice in terms of playing games or using apps.
In fact, if we wanted to be really cruel, the sad side of the Quest Pro is that it isn’t much different from the Quest 2 in terms of overall specs. The price might be higher, but unless you’re truly using the Quest Pro for professional-level applications, along with its new mixed reality support, then no, they’re not too different from each other at all.
Design
On the design front, the Meta Quest Pro looks significantly better, but once you dig deeper into the facts and figures, it’s only the lenses that make much of a difference here.
With the Quest 2 using older Fresnel lenses, you might start to notice chromatic aberrations in the corner of your eye. A lot of these issues were ironed out between the Quest 2’s original launch and the VR industry’s adoption of the pancake lens.
Due to the way that the Fresnel lenses display an image, by warping it in and then bulging it out, it can begin to destroy the image at the sides, with the hope being that your focus will never notice it.
Pancake lenses also allow you to wear glasses much more comfortably, due to its – as the name implies – flatter shape. The Quest Pro’s halo-designed head strap is also noticeably comfier than the Quest 2 for extended VR sessions. This is due to the way that the Quest Pro distributes its weight across the headset, compared to the front-heavy Quest 2. This is yet another benefit of those costly pancake lenses that the Quest Pro uses.
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Games
Both the Quest Pro and Quest 2 feature nearly identical libraries for games. Despite some better features and improved tracking, the Quest Pro is no better for gaming than its smaller counterpart.
In this case, we can’t actually say which one is better in this respect. Not only can the Quest 2 use the Quest Pro’s new controllers, but there’s barely a real difference in terms of performance.
The Snapdragon XR2+ is better, but the performance jump is not quite as dramatic as you’d expect. What it has done is provide Meta with the ability to bring much more to professional applications and mixed reality, but outside of that, the two Quest headsets sit alongside each other in terms of gaming.
Though, as we mentioned before, those pancake lenses make all the difference when it comes to comfort. Though, both headsets will be able to make use of passthrough via PC.
Which one should you buy?
Even with a Meta Quest 3 on the way, the best choice here is the Meta Quest 2.
As we mentioned in our Quest 2 vs Pico 4 piece, the major stopping point of us fully recommending a Quest 2 is that there’s a new device just around the corner.
With the fact that the Quest Pro is also just a very elaborate Quest 2, with additional support for mixed reality, it becomes even harder to justify the price increase over the smaller, older hardware.
The Quest Pro is just that, for the “professionals”. If you’re going to be using VR and mixed reality in your day-to-day, then of course, go for the more powerful hardware. However, it might still be wise to see how the upcoming Quest 3 shakes out and if it brings any valid upgrades to the table.
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