The base model Quest blends a bit of the higher-end Quest 3 and older Quest 2 for a Goldilocks-style compromise. Like other Quests, it’s a standalone unit that operates wirelessly — until it’s time to charge it, of course. It plays a wide selection of games from the Quest store, like Batman: Arkham Shadow and Supernatural (once it relaunches), and if you don’t mind some added latency, you can wirelessly stream Steam games from your PC.
While the much pricier Quest 3 uses lighter, flatter pancake lenses for its optics, the 3S uses fresnel lenses just like the Quest 2 generation. But other than that, it’s got many similarities as the $600 Quest 3: the same Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 processor, the same cameras with color passthrough video, and the same controllers. What you pay much more for in the Quest 3 is higher image quality, thanks in part to those refined optics and a higher resolution per eye. But the Quest 3S still looks fine with its 1832 x 1920 pixels per eye.
It’s a shame we’re no longer seeing the previous kinds of low prices the Quest 3S used to fall to, like when it was $249 around Black Friday, but with the way things are going this is as good as it gets for now.