I bought my Valve Index at launch in 2019. Anything before COVID feels like forever ago. During this holiday season, I decided to upgrade from Valve Index to Meta Quest 3. I tired of waiting for Valve to do something with their rumored Deckard headset and have zero regrets with the purchase.
If you are reading wondering if it’s worth upgrading, I’ll spoil it right now. 100% YES. Before you buy though, get a referral code from a friend with a Quest 3 OR use mine:
https://www.meta.com/referrals/link/gabrielangel411
As of writing this, accepting the referral after clicking the link nets you $30 store credit to buy Quest games and $30 for who ever referred you. Just follow the instructions once you set everything up.
Deciding to Upgrade Valve Index to Meta Quest 3
I actually had the original HTC VIVE since launch and the Valve Index was a huge upgrade over that. Better screen, audio and controllers. The one thing I did miss after upgrading was the wireless adapter I bought for the VIVE. I missed that freedom of playing VR completely cordless.
Although the Kiwi Pulley set I bought for the Index helped suspend the cable, I looked at the latest Quest headsets with envy for their wireless. That was definitely a big reason I started looking at the Quest 3 seriously. Another reason was the screen clarity.
The Valve Index screen tech was impressive back before COVID, but now it’s aging. Quest 3 offers about 30% higher resolution per eye. Racing and flight sim games make that divide even wider with the importance of far off detail and close up instruments. The pancake lenses are also thinner and allow less glare.
Mixed Reality Shows Promise
Improved mixed reality has a cool factor, but didn’t really factor much into my purchase decision for my recent upgrade. I was a bit interested in some of the full XR games releasing as opposed to the short experiences, but that was low on my list of priorities.
What finally pushed me over the edge though, was Batman: Arkham Shadow. When it was announced, I thought it might be another bad port like Hitman 3. Thankfully, it’s far from it. Reviews dished out glowing praise and basically confirmed the developers nailed the feel of the classic Arkham games.
Not just with button presses to handle the classic gameplay mechanics, but actual VR contextual actions. I’ll have to do a full writeup when I’m done with the game. Pulling things off the tool belt to physically use and become Batman is that special.
It made the Quest 3 purchase even easier knowing that I also wanted to finally play Quest exclusive Asgard’s Wrath 2 (loved the first game), the Lego mixed reality game and Assassin’s Creed Nexus.
Setting Up My New Quest 3
Everything was simple to setup with instructions in the headset and on the mobile app. It is a bit annoying it even requires a mobile app as part of the setup. I’m guessing Meta won’t change that anytime soon. They want that app on people’s phones just like it constantly nags me about installing Facebook messenger when I check my page on my phone.
The mixed reality passthrough view is not as great as marketing has you believe, but I was able to use my cellphone with the headset on. Phone annoyances aside, I love how much easier it is to setup room scale. Gone are the days of having to use the controllers to trace the room outline or paint it by pointing.
Using controllers to point/paint room boundaries is an option, but the default uses all the cameras on the front. It’s a nice polygon wave effect to scan the room for obstacles, then it calculates what your boundaries should be. Walking and/or looking around the room helps refine it more.
The hand tracking only tutorial also showed some impressive improvements from the previous Quest headset. More on that later.
Proving That My Upgrade to Meta Quest 3 Was Worth It
The aging Valve Index headset and cord annoyances kept me from playing much Virtual Reality. Now with my upgrade from Valve Index to Meta Quest 3, I’ve probably played more VR since the holidays, than the previous year before that. I do miss the superior audio of the Valve Index, but the wireless freedom is worth that tradeoff.
Quest 3 audio is not completely horrible considering it’s built into the body of the headset, but that was the first thing I upgraded. I ended up buying a head strap with speakers that go over the ear, more comfortable design and carries a backup battery.
Mixed Reality now seems like a must have feature for any headset, but it was not as impressive as Meta marketing would have you believe. Better lighting helps, but the reproduction of the real world in the headset reminds me of the old desktop cams quality.
It’s especially noticeable with how crisp the virtual menus are. The passthrough cameras are great, as you see in video reviewers capture from the headset. It’s just such a stark difference between the playback of those videos versus what you see in the headset.
With some tweaks to lighting and my OLED monitor brightness, I was able to barely read text on my real computer screen. What’s really cool is moving around the virtual menus so I could have them above and to the side of my real world monitor.
That reminds me of another thing. Moving things around with the controllers is easy enough, but I’m impressed how much the hand tracking has advanced. With the correct lighting, it was very easy to make gestures to open menus, pinch to select things and move or interact with things with my fingers.
Great for casual users and Netflix bingers.
I Can See Clearly Now or at Least Clearer
Quest 3 displays are noticeable clearer and the pancake lenses reduced the dreaded God Rays of Fresnel lenses quite a bit. The field of view is a tiny bit smaller, but not really noticeable. When I messed with No Man’s Sky and MS Flight Sim later on, I was happy to finally see more of the far off detail.
The list of impressive features is big, but there’s much more I have yet to explore. I have yet to try something like Netflix or YouTube viewing, but the hand tracking would be perfectly useable for casual browsing like that. The Steam Link App is magic though.
I’ll have to write a whole separate write up for Steam Link, but it’s as good as people say. Quick to pair up with a PC and then connect to my PC Gaming machine. Now I have access to all my PCVR apps without a link cable. It’s so good already, but feels like Valve is beta testing it with Quest for their own future sequel headset.
Around the time I started messing with all this, Microsoft and Meta announced the Windows 11 integration. Even before that there’s Game Pass (via Xcloud) integration in the headset. Geforce Now is also coming.
I’m obviously very happy with my Meta Quest 3 purchase, but I’m still curious to see if Valve can outdo them with Deckard. For now though, Quest 3 is the best headset for the money for gaming.
I definitely recommend some upgrades/addons: audio head strap with battery, face fan, charging station and silicon grips (like Valve index grips).
Remember, if you plan on getting one:
Get a referral code from a friend with a Quest 3 OR use mine:
https://www.meta.com/referrals/link/gabrielangel411
Accepting the referral after following the link, then setting up the headset, will earn you $30 store credit to buy Quest games and $30 for who ever referred you.
Make Meta pay!