With the Quest 3 and the Quest 3S, Meta has a strong lineup. Even though VR headsets remain relatively niche — and the company’s metaverse ambitions haven’t even come close to fruition — if you’re new to VR, Meta offers great hardware and a ton of VR experiences to get lost in. And perhaps best of all, you won’t have to pay $3,499 to get started.

Considering a Meta Quest 3S as an upgrade from your Quest 2? Here's what you miss out on (and gain) from picking it over the classic Quest 3.

Meta Connect 2024 just revealed its new Quest 3S headset, but how does it stack up to the lower-end Meta Quest 2?

Speaking of lenses, the Meta Quest 3S reverts to fresnel lenses. The Quest 3’s “pancake lenses” help make graphics in your peripheral vision look sharper, making the whole experience more immersive. Since this device has fresnel lenses like the Meta Quest 2, I expect the viewing experience will be largely similar.

With a $300 starting price, the Meta Quest 3S is a full $200 less expensive than the Quest 3. Clearly Meta’s strategy of flooding the market with devices is still in full effect with this one.

Learn more about Meta's new Quest 3S, a budget-priced mixed-reality headset with many of the best features of the $500 Quest 3.

The Meta Quest 3S doesn't officially go on sale until October 15, but I was able to try on the headset early to see how it fit, what it could do and how it compares to the pricier Meta Quest 3. During the hands-on session,

The Meta Quest 3S is a great budget-priced VR headset, but not everyone likes the cloth head strap it ships with. Here are the alternative head straps you can expect to use with it.

In essence, the Quest 3S is nearly the same headset but with downgraded optics. On the plus side, since both headsets use the same processor, running at a lower resolution reduces the load on the APU, which could theoretically improve performance in games and also account for the increased battery life.

The Quest 3S is available for preorder on Meta's website ahead of its formal launch on Tuesday, Oct. 15. It starts at $299.99 for 128GB of storage — you can bump that to 256GB for $399.99 — and it comes bundled with two freebies: a three-month trial of Meta Quest+ and a copy of Batman: Arkham Shadow.