October 07, 2024
Oculus Quest 2 has been released, and I’ve had a chance to use it enough to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly of my Oculus Quest 2 review. Let’s start with the good stuff! The first thing most people will notice about the Quest 2 is how easy it is to use, which means it’s easier than ever for your friends and family to join in on your VR gaming experiences. Even if they aren’t familiar with headsets, the Quest 2 can be put on in seconds so they can get playing right away!
Oculus Quest offers us a new option that lets us take VR with us. Unlike other experiences we’ve had on mobile platforms, we can still expect a pretty solid frame rate. While developers need to work out kinks for room-scale experiences (something we will discuss in our future post), it’s still early days. This may not be true VR but it is easily as good as anything else on any other device out there right now. Oculus has also given developers plenty of time to make apps for Quest - which bodes well for a plethora of games and content available at launch! The bad: It needs more games!
Price. The Oculus Quest 2 is a great product. If you're looking for a VR device that doesn't require external tracking hardware or your smartphone as a middleman, then it's easily one of your best bets. But because you can't separate out costs on components, new users will have to spend money on items they don't yet need like controllers and cameras if they want to use them in conjunction with their brand-new headset. Still love it though :)
At $399 USD (with controllers), some may find themselves not wanting to invest in what is essentially an experimental piece of technology. Yes, it’s nice that you can walk around a room without being tethered down—but at that price, why would you want to get one? Once you factor in taxes and shipping costs ($80USD + 10% = $412 USD) on top of that price tag it becomes even more difficult to justify. Additionally, while they claim 16 hours of battery life on a single charge... I’ve yet to have mine last longer than 5 hours. You might find yourself tethered back down after all. This part certainly deserves an ugly rating!
