During the Facebook Connect event on September 16, a brand new headset from Oculus was revealed. While exciting in and of itself, the new headset comes at the expense of the Oculus Rift with production of that headset being put on hold indefinitely in order to shift focus to the new Oculus Quest 2.
Fortunately, the Oculus Quest 2 looks like one of the best headsets from Oculus yet, and it’s extremely affordable. Who needs the Rift when you have the Quest 2?
Oculus Quest 2 swoops in and boots the Oculus Rift out
© Oculus
If you’ve yet to jump into the wonderful world of VR, Oculus is looking to make it easier (and more tempting) than ever before with their brand new Oculus Quest 2 headset. If price has been the main issue for you, the Oculus Quest 2’s biggest selling feature is that it’ll cost a reasonable $299 when it hits store shelves on October 13.
Don’t worry, the lower price won’t come at the cost of quality. The Quest 2 improves upon the foundation set by its predecessor, the original Oculus Quest, and some impressive built-in features including the ability to run without a PC.
The total memory has been increased from 4GB to 6GB and there’s an option to purchase a 258GB version of the Quest 2 at $399. At the $299 price point, you’re only getting 64GB which is on par with the original Quest.
The Quest 2 will feature a sleek new Snapdragon XR2 chip and it looks like there’s quite a bit of emphasis being placed on the Quest 2 having better visual performance than the original Quest. At launch, the Quest 2 will offer 72Hz refresh rates, but will eventually update to support 90Hz refresh rates.
Graphically, the resolution comes in at 1832 x 1920, a step up from the 1400 x 1600 of the original Oculus. The physical headset itself will be around 10% lighter than the original Quest, making it easy to wear for longer periods of time. For example, if you want to put several hours into Beat Saber now that it’s getting a BTS expansion pack.
The only potential downside to the Oculus Quest 2 is that Oculus has made the decision to half production of the Oculus Rift in order to direct all of their focus and attention to the Oculus Quest 2. Even though the Oculus Quest 2 is touted as not requiring a PC, you can still connect it to your PC if you really want to thanks to its Oculus Link support.
Overall, the Oculus Quest 2 is a versatile, affordable VR headset that’s well worth a closer look. What’s nice is you won’t have to wait too much longer to get your hands on one as the Oculus Quest 2 is scheduled to release on October 13 at $299 for the 64GB version and $399 for the 256GB version.
