The Oculus Quest: Introduction
The oculus quest is a brilliant new standalone VR headset from the makers of the oculus go and the oculus rift. It sits somewhere neatly in between but offers the best of both worlds. Like the oculus core, it’s completely free of wires and any kind of tether and shenanigans, but like the rift, you also get that for six degrees of freedom as well as you can actually move around within your virtual landscapes as well as just looking about. You want me to tether up to a PC or anything like that? Everything you need to get busy with some virtual reality experiences is bundled in the box. Just slip on the headset grab a hold of the tube bundle controllers and you’re ready to leap around in your living room and accidentally turn on it in the face or punt a dog into the telly. I’ve been thoroughly testing the oculus quest for the past month and what fun month it’s been and so far I’ve got to say I’m very impressed indeed despite the rather steep asking cost.
The Oculus Quest: Price
This base model cost 399 pounds here in the UK(for 64GB of storage) and 499 pounds for the 128GB model. That’s double the cost of the oculus core and that’s before the factor of the cost many games or anything like that. Is it worth it? Well, it’s my fault to do oculus quest review and for more on the latest regrets tech.
The Oculus Quest: Ergonomics
Now, first up like most VR headsets the quest is rather bulky and not too light either at 571 grams. At first, it kind of feels like you’re strapped in a budget to your face but it is amazing how quickly you get used to it and I found I can comfortably play games for a good hour or two before fatigue starting the saying as long as I didn’t strap it on too tight or anything like that. The adjustable straps mean that it’ll fit any size of bonds quite happily and I also follow there was a comfortable amount of padding around of the actual mask bit so it doesn’t get mushed into your face. The rest of the design is pretty straightforward.
You simply got a power button on the right edge and a volume rocker on the bottom both of which are easy enough to find once you’re used to their headset. Also, a focal adjustment switch as well if different people are using it.
The Oculus Quest: Setup
Setup is nice and simple as you would kind of hope. All you going to do is download the free oculus app onto your mobile phone and then just sign in either with your Facebook account or set up a fresh new oculus account and then stick on a card for any purchases you might want to make and then you’re ready to rock.
The Oculus Quest: What’s the difference?
Now the main thing that sets the oculus quest apart from its rivals and makes it so bloody lovely is the fact that it offers six degrees of freedom just like its Big Brother the rift except in a completely standalone format. So you don’t need to scatter cameras all around the room to track your motions. Unlike the more basic oculus go which is also a cable-free the oculus quest can track your head motions when you’re moving forward backward side to side within a virtual space rather than simply just when you’re twisting your head about. And that’s thanks to the four external cameras one in each corner of the Oculus Quest mask. This really makes a big impact on some games.
The Oculus Quest: Experience
With the oculus quest, for instance, you can duck out the way of bullets as they come flying at your face dive for cover or easily move around an object to examine it from all angles. Hand mapping also works beautifully! Thanks to those who built-in exterior cameras. The quest controllers each feature a responsive joystick and multiple triggers. You can easily pick up and manipulate in-game objects. This again really helps with the emotion no matter what kind of game you’re playing. In action games, you can quickly grab up weapons and stop firing them off. In adventure games, you can pick up an object to manipulate it or/and solve a puzzle. It really does make a big difference.
Now when you first use the quest in a room that it doesn’t recognize. You have to set up a save zone by drawing a virtual boundary to play in. You’ll then get a visual warning in the middle of a game if you stray too close to a real-life obstacle. The headset recommends having a space of at least two square meters to play. But that only really applies to more energetic crazy games like beats. If I found that most of the games I could quite happily just play in my living room which is frankly a little tiny box. The quests built in all that display is just as strong as any other VR headset that I’ve tried recently. With a crisp 1440 by 1600 pixel resolution per eye. That’s more than even the rift can manage. Visuals are bright and punchy.
Otherwise, with all virtual reality sets, you can still quite easily notice the grainy nature of your virtual world. If you stop and really study what’s going on around you. The question really delivers on the audio front as well you. Won’t need to wear earphones as the built-in speakers direct sound writer your ears providing an immersive surround sound experience without drowning on everything that’s going on around you. Definitely, a good thing if you don’t want to be completely cut off from reality.
The Oculus Quest: Battery
Battery life is decent to a fan and generally got at least three hours of use out of a single charge. Which is plenty for a single game in session. Any more than that you’d probably start feeling rather queasy. Those controllers just take a single double a battery each. Slap a Duracell in them and they’ll keep on going for a good while.
The Oculus Quest: Disadvantages?
Of course one of the disadvantages of the tether quest compared with the lights of the Oculus Rift and the PS VR and stuff like that is the fact that it has to provide all of its own smarts. You’re not actually tethered up to a super-powerful computer. In this case, you’ve got a Snapdragon 835 chipset backed by four gigs of ram.
The Oculus Quest: Specs
As I said earlier it comes with Snapdragon 835 and it does its job really good. Core comms mobile chipset is getting on a bit now fast approaching the third anniversary of its launch but Qualcomm did manufacture this chip with free ram and VR functionality in mind unlike the more basic Snapdragon 821 chipset found inside of the oculus go. This thing is designed to combine six degrees of positional tracking enhance 3d graphics and surround sound audio into a real-time immersive experience. All that while maintaining a nice high frame rate. That is exactly what you get with the oculus quest.
The Oculus Quest: Games and graphics
Some games such as robbery call have noticeably been pared down a bit from their oculus rift incarnations. But the visuals are far from disappointing. Those 3d environments and charismatic enemies are still slickly rendered and the gameplay remains beautifully fluid. It really is incredibly rare to see a dropped frame in any title even the most demanding VR games. Undoubtedly the oculus quest will, unfortunately, start to show its age before some of its rivals. Like the oculus rift in the PS VR are however given the complete freedom of movement everything that you get with the quest I’d say that’s a fair trade-off.
Downloading games and apps can be done direct through the headset itself once you actually stick a card on your account. And though since the quest is such a young device and so different from its peers the selection of titles is sadly rather limited right now. Thankfully the catalog is broad enough to cover pretty much every genre to some degree. So there is something for everyone right now. I thought there isn’t much free-to-play content and most games cost around 20 quid mark even the really short ones like I expect you to die. The catalog should hopefully be expanded pretty quick though and quite a few RIF titles have already been successfully ported over to the quest in a pretty good format as well. So fingers crossed for that new cool games!
The Oculus Quest: Conclusion
In conclusion, the oculus quest offers the best of both worlds for VR gaming. Complete freedom of movement without the need to construct some sort of weird permanent tech dungeon in your spare room It’s not cheap and the range of games is rather limited as with all newborn consoles. But if you’ve got the cash spare and you’re looking for an incredibly immersive gaming experience you really can’t go wrong. That is what I think of the oculus quest right now a month after the launch. Definitely impressed as I see. But what you reckon are you tempted by the oculus quest of you maybe got a rift or a Gore and you’re thinking of jumping ship onto this bad boy. Well definitely let us know in the comments down below.