The Meta Quest 3S also relies on the Quest 2’s fresnel lens system instead of the pancake lenses used by the Quest 3. I won’t get into the weeds of how these lenses differ technically, but know that fresnel lenses are bulkier and cause blurriness at the fringes of your field of view.

It’s fair to say, then, that thanks to the newly-released Meta Quest 3S – coming in hot with the same amount of storage space wrapped neatly in a baseline $299.99 price – mixed-reality gaming is finally approachable to everyone who might have been in the market to upgrade from the Quest 2.

Meta Quest 3S is the latest iteration in the Meta Quest series that first launched in 2019 as the Oculus Quest VR headset. Even though it is not a performance upgrade over the Meta Quest 3, the intention is to make VR and mixed-reality even more accessible.

I reviewed Meta's Quest 3S, a budget VR headset with mixed reality and AI, to test its quality and value as an upgrade or a first headset.

The Meta Quest 3S contains many of the Quest 3’s signature features, including color passthrough, speedy performance, a compact design, and a robust app library — all for $299. Though it’s not as comfortable to wear and its battery life isn't the best, its low starting price makes it an enticing product for those curious about VR.

What if I told you the Meta Quest 3S is in some ways just a more powerful Quest 2 with color passthrough? “Yes, of course it is,” someone who’s read our coverage might say, but iFixit shows just how true that is in the teardown video it published today.