Also: Meta’s new $299 Quest 3S is the VR headset most people should buy this holiday season
At $300, the Meta Quest 3S may be one of the easiest gaming consoles — let alone VR headsets — for me to recommend. It’s priced the same as its now four-year-old predecessor, the Quest 2, yet offers significant improvements in performance, capabilities, and user experience. In many ways, it’s identical to its more advanced sibling, the Quest 3. But for $200 less, you’ll also have to settle with the drawbacks, most of which I’ve built a tolerance for with each passing day.
The Quest 3S’s design is very much a hybrid of the Quest 2 and Quest 3; it’s sculpted with hard plastic and fabric, weighs similarly at 514 grams, and comes with a flexible, Y-shaped head strap that hangs on just enough for more expressive movements. It’s a form factor that just…works — and opens up several ways for you to further customize the fit and finish.
Since the default fit is too front-heavy for me, I’ve attached a Kiwi Comfort Head Strap 
I’m also in the camp of VR users who wear glasses, so the glasses spacer that’s included in the box is essential to my Quest 3S experience. Otherwise, the extent of vision adjustment begins and ends at the three IPD (interpupillary distance) presets: 58mm, 63mm, and 68mm.
Perhaps the most notable design aspect of the Quest 3S is its displays, which are fresnel lenses that project at 1832 x 1920 per eye. That’s a downgrade from the Quest 3’s 4K pancake lenses, but more forgivable when you realize it’s the same configuration as the Quest 2. You won’t see every pore or landscape texture when using the Quest 3S, but for most games and experiences, the output is satisfactory.
Also: Meta’s new 512GB Quest 3 deal is one of the best VR deals right now
It helps that the new sensors scattered throughout the front and sides of the Quest 3S enable full-color passthrough, a feature championed by the Quest 3 and completely absent on the Quest 2. With the headset on and a press of the Action Button, which switches between virtual and mixed reality (MR), I was surprised to be able to make out incoming text messages on my phone screen.
The larger upside here is spatial awareness, always knowing where you are within your real-world environment, and therefore reducing the chances of knocking into things.
The Meta Quest 3 (left) and the Quest 3S (right).
Kerry Wan/ZDNET
While testing the Quest 3S, I cycled between various VR and MR experiences, most of which loaded noticeably faster than they did on my Quest 2. I also ran some more graphics-intensive titles like Asgard’s Wrath and was pleasantly surprised to see frame rates mostly stabilize at 60 frames per second, if not higher.
Also: I tried Meta’s Horizon Hyperscape demo: Welcome to the metaverse’s first holodeck
Sure, the headset got much warmer 10 minutes into the play session, but never to the point of discomfort. Did I miss the crispness and vibrancy of the Quest 3’s pancake lenses? Absolutely. But for $200 less, I can’t complain about the Quest 3S’ performance.
All things considered, I’ve been averaging two hours and 20 minutes of usage before needing to recharge the Quest 3S, which is about what I expected from the 16.7-watt-hour battery.
ZDNET’s buying advice
If you’ve used any Quest headset in the past, the bulk of the Meta Quest 3S. Now that it’s been a year since the flagship headset launched, Meta has cut the price of the 512GB variant down to just $499 ($150 off).