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Meta has made virtual reality (VR) accessible to many more people, offering good VR headsets for much cheaper than the competition. Right now, the 256GB Meta Quest 3S Batman: Arkham Shadow Bundle is $349 (originally $399.99), the lowest price it has been according to price-tracking tools. The bundle brings the Batman game (an excellent game with a list price of $49.99) and a three-month trial subscription to the Meta Quest+ service that’s normally $7.99 a month. All of this is $50 more than the 128GB model, and you also get to double your storage.
It’s true, the Meta Quest 3 has better graphics, but it costs substantially more than the 3S version (currently $499.99). Lifehacker staff writer Stephen Johnson got his VR headsets on to decide which of the two is better, with the Meta Quest 3S coming out victorious. You can see a more in-depth review of the Quest 3S here. There just isn’t enough of a difference to justify the price difference, with the Quest 3S’s graphics looking very close to the 3 and running the same games and apps.
The Meta Quest 3S has a Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 processor, 8GB of RAM, a display resolution of 1,832 by 1,920 (per eye), and a refresh rate of 120Hz. Once you put them on, the horizontal field of view is 96 degrees, and the vertical view is 90 degrees. The audio is stereo, which is nice, and the speakers are compatible with 3D spatial audio. When it comes to battery life, expect up to two and a half hours of juice before having to recharge (expect it to take about two hours for a full charge).
What makes the Meta Quest 3S special is how cheap it is to jump into the VR world, with other headsets going for much more (Apple’s Vision Pro is still $3,499). The bundle deal makes it even sweeter.