Oculus Quest
A new standard for all-in-one VR
IS VIRTUAL REALITY A FAD? The debate rages within our own team, with the pro-VR camp still holding out for a killer app, while the detractors insist that it’s doomed to pass by as another feeble attempt at gaming immersion. We’re going to try to remain as impartial as possible for this review, looking at Facebook-owned Oculus’s latest foray into virtual reality: the Oculus Quest.
One of VR’s early stumbling blocks was the lack of portability and flexibility. Not only did earlier headsets require a wired connection, but they also needed a machine capable of powering VR games. Oculus’s own first attempt at PC-less VR, the Oculus Go, wasn’t powerful enough to be a real competitor to PC-tethered models. Other attempts involved glueing smartphones to your face, but if there’s one thing we can agree on, it’s that the less said about those, the better.
Enter the Quest. With an updated chip, the Snapdragon 835 from Qualcomm, utilizing Kryo 280 CPUs alongside Qualcomm’s Adreno 540 graphics, this is the most powerful PC-free VR headset on the market. The Quest also has four exterior cameras that allow for proper positional tracking, similar to the original Rift. There’s 4GB of memory, 64GB of storage, and two 1440x1600 OLED displays. The headset is a sleek black box with tough fabric padding and adjustable headbands. It’s very comfortable, even for extended gaming sessions, and we had no issues with nausea while testing.
Hardware-wise, then, it’s powerful for such a compact unit. It’s never going to outperform a gaming PC, but Oculus is confident that the Quest will fill a gap in the market. Unfortunately, it takes a good two hours to charge the battery to full, and you’ll be lucky to get more than the same amount of time from the battery if you play continuously, which is a real shortfall for serious VR gamers. The 6m charge cable means you can still play while charging, but that effectively stymies the “wireless” selling point.
Weak battery aside, the Quest does actually function well. The lack of a
connected PC means that the graphical quality is never going to blow anyone away, but VR titles that utilize more stylized, less realistic visuals still look awesome on the Quest’s twin displays. Responsiveness and frame rates are very reliable, allowing for precision gaming in shooters and action games.
Your primary point of interaction in most games is via the two Oculus Touch controllers, funky handgrips with a large ring for motion tracking. They’re the same hardware used with the Rift S, and they’re just as effective now as they were then, feeling comfortable to use even for extended periods. They’re probably the best VR controllers we’ve ever handled.
We really did have a lot of fun reviewing this. Fooling around in VRChat and Beat
Saber led to some great office laughs; the fully wireless design made it easy to chop and change, swapping the headset between people, so everybody could have a try. The potential for family-oriented japes and party games is immediately evident, although we still have to question how appealing the Oculus Quest will be for serious gamers.
The graphical quality isn’t bad, it’s just not on par with PC-tethered headsets such as the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift S.
SUPERHOTVR looks awesome, as does stylish adventure Journeyof the Gods.
It’s worth noting that the Quest doesn’t link directly to other platforms, such as Steam, confining you to the Oculus store. Granted, this ensures that the available titles are compatible with the Quest’s hardware, but it ruins the product’s potential as an upgrade for VR gamers in possession of a sizable game library.
It is possible to stream games on Steam via a PC, but it’s a hassle, and there’s still a risk of input lag. We’d love to recommend the Quest, and it does serve a good purpose as an entry-level VR headset for gamers without a powerful PC, but for £400, we can’t quite do it. The Quest isn’t bad, but it’s not incredibly impressive. Even so, it’s a decent introduction to VR, with some fun applications in a party setting.