Less than a year and a half after the first Oculus Quest, Facebook is already launching the second iteration of its 6 degrees of freedom, autonomous and wireless VR headset. This delay was sufficient to propose a real generational leap.
Only a year and a half after an already wildly attractive first generation Oculus Quest, the Quest 2 has the effect of a real little bomb on the virtual reality headset market. Not content with bringing some very welcome ergonomic improvements to its predecessor, it also achieves a real generational leap from a technical point of view. And as if that wasn’t enough yet, it takes advantage of the immense improvements made to Oculus Link mode to establish itself not only as the best standalone VR headset ever released, but also as an excellent headset for PC, in every way equivalent or superior to the Oculus Rift S.
Strong points
- True roomscale experiences in a wireless, standalone VR headset.
- Lightweight, comfortable, well constructed, moderate heating.
- Spectacular jump in computing power compared to Quest 1.
- Impressive display finesse, almost non-existent grid effect.
- Very intuitive and simple to use.
- High-performance motion tracking from headset, controllers, and even bare hands.
- Both a standalone headset and a PC headset thanks to the Oculus Link function.
Weak points
- Low battery life — between 2 and 3 hours depending on the applications used.
- No more fine adjustment of the interpupillary distance (but an adjustment in 3 positions is still present).
- Narrow series facial foam, may cause problems for wearers of large glasses.
NB: The reported price drop is calculated by comparing the lowest price of the day with the average of the lowest prices charged by all merchants for the product last month, with security rules to exclude the prices of stores whose the VAT policy is not clear (so-called “gray” stores, typically in the case of imports from China).
Alternatively
The Pico 4 is a great success. The manufacturer certainly still has work to do to catch up on Meta on the software side, but the developments observed over the course of the updates carried out over the last three months and the good technical base of the headset suggest good prospects. The technical and ergonomic advantages of this helmet are indisputable. When used standalone or in PCVR, the Pico 4 delivers good image quality, high precision, solid battery life and good comfort of use. Only the games catalog still needs to be expanded for it to rise to the level of its main competitors.