I went hands-on with Meta Quest Pro. Here are my first impressions of Meta’s first “high-end” standalone headset:
Visual quality and field of view
The rumors were wrong: Quest Pro does not have 2160×2160 panels. The resolution increase over Quest 2 is marginal and is actually lower than Pico 4. But text and UI in Quest Pro to do look sharper than Quest 2, thanks to the new pancake lenses. Every Meta headset since Oculus Go has used the same Fresnel lenses, including Quest 2, so this is a significant change.
Meta claims the new lenses offer 25% better sharpness in the center and 50% at the edges, and those claims match what I saw. But don’t confuse sharpness with resolution – many apps still had the same aliasing and shimmer you’re used to in standalone headsets.
The much more noticeable improvement in visual quality, however, was the contrast and colors. The combination of Mini-LED backlighting and quantum dots creates a visual experience that is halfway between regular LCD and OLED. These displays can a lot closer to black than the murky grays of Quest 2 and Pico 4, and the colors are more vibrant, too. Until OLED returns to standalone VR, it’s the next best thing.
The rumors about the field of view were also wrong. It’s no bigger than Quest 2’s, but it’s is noticeably wider – even wider than any Oculus consumer headset.
Mixed reality color transfer
Quest Pro’s new main feature is color transfer for mixed reality, and it’s clearly designed around this use case.
The headset rests against your forehead, making the visor appear to float in front of your face. You can see the real world above and below you, so you’re not limited to the headset’s field of view. But if you expect the passthrough to look just like real life, you’ll be very disappointed.
The good news is that the headset tracking is absolutely rock solid, so virtual objects really do feel like they’re part of the real world. When putting the controllers down in a virtual table demo, I had to lift the headset to check which table was real.
But in most of my demos, the passthrough was grainy and the colors were faded, like a video shot from an old phone camera. It didn’t look much sharper than Quest 2’s, and I couldn’t read my phone or even clearly see the keys of a laptop half a meter away.
However, for one demo, I got a headset that Meta said was a new firmware version with improved passthrough. In this headset, the passthrough was significantly sharper. I could read text and even see people in the distance clearly. The downside was that it seemed to run at a lower frame rate, so this clarity was lost when moving my head. I’m really curious how the passthrough will turn out for the launch.
Light Blockers & VR
I only got to try the side light blockers in the box, not the Full Light Blocker sold separately for $50. The problem for VR is that they don’t block the real world below you not at all. You don’t feel completely immersed in the virtual world as you are constantly reminded of the real world by the light streaming in from below.
I don’t understand why Meta didn’t just include the Full Light Blocker in the box instead of the side light blockers, or really what is the point of the side blockers. For most mixed reality apps, I want to see the real world, and for virtual reality, I want to be completely immersed.
The only scenarios I can think of where I’d prefer the side blockers is if I’m trying to use mixed reality, but bright lights in my room reflected in the lenses, or in mixed reality apps where a significant percentage of the room is completely virtual.
Ergonomics & Adaptation
I’m usually not a fan of “halo band” headsets like PSVR, Rift S and now Quest Pro. Everyone’s head has a slightly different shape, and mine is just more comfortable in headsets with a Quest 2 Elite strap design, including the original Oculus Rift, Valve Index, and Pico 4. Halo straps tend to put out too much pressure. practice on my forehead and eventually I get a headache.
When I first set up Quest Pro, it was did hurt my forehead, but with about 20 seconds of repositioning I found a fit that felt no more cumbersome than wearing a hat. And not touching my cheeks or nose was refreshingly liberating.
That said, it’s impossible to draw any conclusions about comfort from short 5-10 minute demos. My dream is a headset that I can wear for hours as comfortably as headphones, and only a full review will reveal how close Quest Pro comes to that dream.
What I don’t like about Quest Pro’s design is the eye relief dial to adjust how close the lenses get to your face. It’s way too stiff, so you have to hold the headset firmly to move it, and it’s not obvious when you moved it as close as possible.
Those new controllers
Perhaps the most obvious change in the Touch Pro controllers is the most important: they no longer have tracking rings. The practical benefit here is that you can bring the controllers much closer together, as plastic that you can’t see in VR won’t slam together. This may sound trivial, but it actually opens up whole new classes of precise hand-to-hand interactions that aren’t possible on any other headset (Pico 4’s tracking arc is an improvement, but there are still corners that knock them against each other) .
The tracking quality felt just as precise as regular Touch controllers, but in one demo it took a few seconds for the controllers to align themselves relative to the headset. The controllers moved as I moved them, but during those few seconds they were not in the correct position. We don’t yet know how this alignment works, so this may have been a pre-release software bug.
The improved haptics blew me away with the level of precision possible. It actually felt more precise – in terms of feeling like the sense of touch was coming from the exact part of the virtual object it should – than PlayStation VR2’s controllers, but keep in mind I’ve only had very short demos with both. , so this could just be related to the specific implementation in the demo apps.
Touch Pro is actually compatible with Quest 2 and will retail for $300 later this year. That’s a high price, but I could see Quest 2 owners highly appreciating upgrading haptics to get this experience.