Alex Heath for The Verge: Zuckerberg says Quest 3 is “the better product” vs. Apple’s Vision Pro

He says the Quest has a better “immersive” content library than Apple, which is technically true for now, though he admits that the Vision Pro is a better entertainment device. And then there’s the fact that the Quest 3 is, as Zuck says, “like seven times less expensive.”

I currently own both headsets and while I’m very excited about the potential in the Vision Pro, I actually find it hard to fully disagree with Zuck on this one. I think a lot of people have only used the Vision Pro would be surprised how well the Quest 3 does some things in comparison.

For example, the pass-through mode is definitely not quite as good as the Vision Pro’s, but it’s closer than you might expect. And while people are rightly impressed with how well the Vision Pro has windows locked in 3D space, honestly the Quest 3 is just as good at this in my experience. When it comes to comfort, I do think the Vision Pro is easier to wear for longer periods, but I find it more finicky to get in just the right spot in front of my eyes, while the Quest 3 seems to have a larger sweet spot. And let’s not even talk about the field of view, which is way wider on the Quest to the point of being unnoticeable basically all the time. I kinda think field of view will be similar to phone bezels in that you get used to what you have and anything more seems huge — you can get used to the Vision Pro’s narrower field of view, but once you’re used to wider, it’s hard to not notice when going back.

The Vision Pro has some hardware features that help it rise above (the massively higher resolution screen jumps to mind), but I’m just saying that if you’re looking for everything to be 7x better to match the price difference, I don’t think that’s there.

Beyond this, the products are quite different, though. As Zuckerberg says, the Quest 3 is more focused on fully immersive VR experiences, and while the Vision Pro has a little of that right now, it’s not really doing the same things. And when it comes to gaming it’s not even close. The Quest 3 has a large library of games available and that expands to almost every VR game ever made with Steam Link.

On the other hand, the Vision Pro is much for a “computer” than the Quest ever was. If you can do it on a Mac or an iPad, you can probably already do it on the Vision Pro. And I’m not talking about finding some weird alternate version of your task manager or web browser that doesn’t sync with anything else in your life, I’m talking about the apps you already know and love. This is huge and it’s Apple leveraging its ecosystem to make sure you can seamlessly move from Mac to iPhone to iPad to Vision Pro. And if you can’t install something from the App Store, the web browser is just as capable as Safari on the iPad. If all else fails, you can always just bring your full Mac into your space as well. I will say the Quest 3 can do this and has the advantage of working with Windows as well, but if you have a Mac, it’s much, much better.

This is more words than I expected to write about a CEO saying his product is better than the competition’s (shocker), but I do think that Zuck’s statement is less insane than some may think it to be. I’m returning my Quest 3 before the return window closes, but I’m really happy that I got to use it for a little bit to see what else is out there and how Apple’s entrant stacks up. I think the fact I’m in the middle of both return windows and I’ll be returning the $500 one and keeping the $3,500 one says something about which I find more interesting in the long run, though. Also please watch my YouTube videos 🤣