Meta Quest Pro release date, pricing, features and specs

After years of teasers and leaks, Meta Quest Pro is officially here. Unveiled at Meta Connect 2022, the high-end headset is aimed at mixed reality, boasting full-color data transmission and a design specifically designed for MR comfort.

Add to that a complete redesign with a much thinner head-mounted display, eye and face tracking, improved performance and upgraded controllers, and you have the most powerful standalone VR headset on the market right now – on paper, anyway.

The question is, will a game with such a high price tag be as popular as Meta Quest 2?

Here’s everything you need to know about Meta Quest Pro, formerly known as Project Cambria.

The Meta Quest Pro is available for pre-order now after an announcement on Meta Connect on October 11th, with the headset shipping later this month. the 25th of October in the UK, USA, Europe and other regions of the world.

It’s always been clear at Meta that the Meta Quest Pro will cost a lot more than the $399/£399 entry-level Meta Quest 2, but I’m not sure anyone expected such an expensive headset.

However, Meta Quest Pro costs a lot. $1499 / £1499 / €1799though it will come bundled with a charging dock, light blockers, and stylus tips – more on that in a moment – to sweeten the deal even more.

It’s certainly a price increase over the Meta Quest 2, but compared to other high-end PC-based headsets like the $1,399/£1,299 Vive Pro 2, it delivers relatively good value for money. You don’t need a high end PC, and face tracking and a lightweight design are unique features of the Meta headset (unless you opt for optional Vive accessories).

You can pre-order Meta Quest Pro on the Meta website right now ahead of release later this month, and at retailers including Amazon and Best Buy in the US and Amazon. Argos as well as curry in the United Kingdom. As soon as the headset goes on sale, we expect the headset to become available in more popular third-party stores.

We’ll go into more detail on where to buy the Meta Quest Pro, and to get a better idea of ​​what’s on offer in the VR market, take a look at our selection of the best VR headsets.

Meta

• Brand new compact design
• Eye and face tracking
• Color Passage
• New controllers
• Improved performance

As rumored before launch, the Meta Quest Pro is a big departure from the standard Quest formula, with additional sensors, new functionality, and a much lighter, more compact design.

What is most obvious is the redesigned form factor offered by the Meta Quest Pro, and in particular the much smaller and thinner head-up display (HMD) than the Quest 2.

This is due to the use of a pancake optical system, a significant upgrade to the Quest 2’s Fresnel lens system, and most of the alternatives on the market right now. Despite being a more compact HMD, the headset boasts specs such as a 40% thinner optical module, 37% higher pixel density (about 2K per eye), 75% higher contrast ratio, and a mini-LED backlight delivers crisper, clearer image. vivid virtual experience with very little SDE (screen door effect).

Meta

In an effort to make the HMD as compact as possible, Meta moved the battery to the back of the headset and it’s curved to fit the head. This not only makes the front of the headset lighter, but also prevents it from feeling overly heavy like some of its competitors.

Emphasis is placed on mixed reality with an open peripheral design that essentially allows you to see the real environment along with the virtual reality screen for a more comfortable and immersive MR experience. This is coupled with a small number of cameras on the front of the headset that provide 4x more detail than the Quest 2, and most importantly, it’s all in color.

This allows you to take your home environment into a virtual world and do things like hang virtual pictures on your bedroom wall or place virtual objects on your real desk. This is one of Quest Pro’s biggest and most exciting features, and we can’t wait to see what the developers do with the proposed updated technology.

Meta

For those more interested in the traditional VR experience, the headset comes with magnetic side light blockers to block out part of the outside world, and there will also be an optional Quest style full light blocking accessory.

Just as important as mixed reality is the inclusion of inward-facing cameras that track both your eye movements and facial expressions, with virtual avatars simulating you in real time – a real boon for social VR applications with finer non-verbal communication – and it can also perform eye-tracking rendering, which delivers maximum resolution exactly where you look at the display.

Of course, with all the fancy tech comes a performance boost: Meta has partnered with Qualcomm to include the new Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 1 — the first VR headset to use an improved chipset — along with increased 12GB of RAM for a 50% boost in performance and better heat dissipation. , as well as 256 GB of memory by default.

The new headset comes with new Quest Pro controllers that do away with the standard controllers’ tracking system and instead track their position using internal sensors. This allows the controllers to work independently of the headset’s tracking system, and Meta says this should essentially eliminate tracking dropouts – even when the controller is behind you.

Meta

This is paired with a sleek new form factor, free of the large tracking ring found in previous Meta controllers, and improved haptic feedback for a more immersive experience when working with virtual items. The Meta also includes an optional stylus that lets you use the controllers to write, which is great for collaboration on work-centric apps like Horizon Workrooms.

The only real downside compared to the Quest 2 is battery life. The Quest 2 can officially run for around 2-3 hours, but that has been reduced to 1.5-2 hours for the Quest Pro, likely due to the lighter form factor.

The meta (of course) claims that the headset is not designed for all-day use, but there is a 2m USB-C cable in the box that will let you use the headset longer, which is ideal if you want to use the Quest Pro for work.

Charging is primarily done via a sleek contact charging dock that allows you to conveniently charge your headset and controllers without fiddling with USB-C cables and replaceable batteries.

• 265mm (L) x 127mm (H) x 196mm (W) (length 265mm assumes minimum strap length)
• 722 g
• Tracking/Sensors: 10 advanced VR/MR sensors to support 6 DOF inside-out SLAM tracking as well as color mixed reality and eye/face tracking.
• Display panels: 2 LCD panels with mini LED backlight. 1800 x 1920 pixels per eye, 37% more pixels per inch and 10% more pixels per degree than Meta Quest. 2.25% sharper across the entire field of view at the center, 50% sharper at the periphery, and 1.3x sharper. color gamut than Quest 2
• Display update: max. 90 Hz; 72Hz also supported
• Field of view: 106º horizontal and 96º vertical
• Snapdragon XR2+ platform
• 12 GB RAM
• 256 GB storage
• Wi-Fi 6E
• Bluetooth 5.2
• Built-in speakers and microphone; Also compatible with 3.5mm headphones via dual left/right jacks. Spatial audio support included
• 1-2 hours battery life. The 2m charging cable can be used to provide extra power during use. Full; charging in 2 hours
• Accommodates 55 to 75mm IPD range (wider than Meta Quest 2’s 58 to 72mm range)

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