The Oculus Road map for VR headsets as being going in a pretty distinct direction. While most would hope to see be revisisions in devices with every new launch, the fundamentals behind VR are big factor for Oculus and it’s owner Facebook.
The initial launch of the first consumer grade VR headset from Oculus was a very expensive, and ultimately incomplete product; having launched without motion controllers. The experiences were very limited to say the least.
Overall the price of the Oculus Rift began to drop, and more users to a hold of it, and of course the motions controllers were bundled with the unit. VR still required a pretty decent computer to provide the graphics needed for the impressive experiences avaialble at the time. No matter how you cut it, the cost was still fairly high.
The launch of the Oculus Quest is the true step forward (ignoring the Oculus Go) that shows direction that Oculus aims to take going forward. The quest is a complete standalone product running Android with Oculus own system UI. While similar somewhat to the Oculus Go. The Quest offers complete positional tracking and motion controllers thanks the in-out tracking via 4 sensors on the front of the device. This new change means no more base stations for tracking like the original Oculus.
The big questions would be – how much does such a device cost, and can it offer the same experiences as the Oculus Rift or new Oculus Rift S. Immediately we can be certain the quality won’t be as good, so let’s talk about the specs to understand why that is.
The Oculus Quest Specifications
- Display panel: OLED.
- Display resolution: 1440 x 1600 per eye
- 72Hz refresh rate.
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor.
- 4GB RAM.
We can see that the display resolution is higher than the original Oculus rift, going from 1080×1200 to 1440 x 1600 per eye. While the Snapdragon 835 is a fairly decent and powerful chipset from Qualcomm, its no match for even a mid-range graphics card in a PC. So we have no doubt that qualify wont be as good, and certain experiences and games simply wont be able to run on the standalone hardware.
That being said, for what we do get, the €449 price tag, for a fully functional VR headset would be absolutely fantastic value, but there is sadly one heavy caveat that limits the how valuable the Oculus Quest is currently and that is the lack of content, and the otherwise sheer cost of content available right now.
That is the nature of any new eco-system that lanches and the console launch aspect the Oculus quest entails, but the €449 price tag quickly becomes a lot more when your dropping €20+ on new games, with some just not offering more than a few hours worth of content.
There is no doubt the content will grow and eventually we will see more and more experiences and games avaialble, but is that enough to make the Oculus Quest worthy, and would waiting for the 2nd generation with likely better chipset not be worth the wait.
It can’t be said with certainty when Oculus will refresh the quest hardware an how pricing will look once they do, but make no mistake, the Oculus Quest is a first of its kind, much like a new generation console, and lack of content is the biggest drawback, and even more so for a VR device.
Oculus Link
During Oculus Connect 6 event, Oculus were keen to announce Oculus Link. Something that could change everything about the Oculus Quest. Essentially Oculus Link is the missing link between the Quest and all of the content already available for the Rift and Rift S.
While we still have yet to find out exactly how well this will work, but with some hope users will be able to connect their Oculus Quest directly to their PC via USB Type-C cable and using their Quest VR headset like a Rift. This opens up a massive list of content for the Quest, and basically makes it the complete package when it comes to high end VR gaming and portable wire-free VR gaming.
This may solve the problem for some with regards to lack of content, but can also be a bit of a slap in the fact for those that purchase the Rift S over the Quest, but that all depends on how well it works and if all content will be available. The Oculus Link cable is set to cost around €80, but Oculus will be releasing the spec for third party companies to make their own cable.
Using the Oculus Quest
Let’s take a closer look at the Oculus Quest and how it operates. VR requires a well balanced device, with a comfortable strap that provides easy adjustments.
The quest offers a very similar design to the original Oculus Rift. We have the fabric overlay that offers modern design and as we mentioned earlier the strap is again a design taken from the original Rift. Having a soft strap instead of the hard plastic on the Rift S makes for easy portability.
Content/Games
The list of content currently available for the Quest is pretty short and a good portion is ported from Rift content, and in some cases you have to buy it a second time around, but some is cross-buy.
