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What hardware should I get?

Welcome to Virtual Reality! There are a lot of available VR headsets to pick from to jump into / upgrade your VR experience. This is a non-exhaustive list explaining what headsets would be good for what usecase.

Before choosing a headset, its important to consider what is important for you:

  • How much money are you willing to spend? Are you comfortable buying used products?
  • Are you new to VR? How much custom tinkering are you willing to do to get experiences to work, or do you want something that works out of the box?
  • Do you have a gaming computer?
  • Are you playing racing sims? Motion intensive games? Shooters? Social VR?
  • Do you want to prioritize comfort over feature set?
  • Do you wear VR headsets for long hours? Do you sleep in VR?
  • Do you want to do work in your headset?
  • Do you want extra features like eye tracking, mouth tracking?

 

Overview between common VR headsets

The following is a general overview of common VR headsets, and the general pros, cons, and general target audience for each. If you wish to get more technical details for various VR headsets, I suggest VR-Compare.com.

Quest 1

Severely outdated, which also means it can be found used for very cheap (aim for about 50-100 USD). Too old to run most stand alone applications, but still capable of functional PC VR streaming.

- Very Cheap.
- Oled screen has great colors
- Can still do PCVR streaming

- Old, OS updates haven't come in years. Most stand alone software for meta will not run
- Low resolution
- Not particularly comfortable with its default strap
- Built in audio solution for speakers and microphone are pretty bad
- Passthrough is black and white
- Hand tracking is lackluster
- Meta headset, Meta software, Meta privacy policies. Agree to sell your soul and digital data to the Zuck.

This headset is for people who have a gaming capable PC but want to spend the least possible money on a VR headset that actually works, even if it means a small amount of tinkering to get things working well, and don't care for standalone at all.

Quest 2

An extremely common headset even today. While now slowly becoming dated due to its old SOC, they still can be great for new VR users, both for standalone meta software and for PC VR streaming. They can be found used cheaply as well (I would pay no more than 150 dollars used).

- Cheap, popular
- Can run the vast majority of stand alone software well
- Can do PCVR streaming
- Resolution is decent

- Will eventually soon lose support
- Not particularly comfortable with its default strap
- IPD is limited to 3 specific settings
- Passthrough is black and white
- Mic audio is meh
- Meta headset, Meta software, Meta privacy policies. Agree to sell your soul and digital data to the Zuck.

This headset is for VR newbies who have a gaming capable PC and want to a cheap VR headset with decent visuals, and / or people want a cheap headset that can play a vast majority of Meta's stand-alone titles without needing a PC at all.

Quest 3

Meta's current top of the line headset. Has their newest SOC which has a large performance jump over the Quest 2, pancake lenses that have near edge-to-edge clarity on the lenses, and Wifi 6E for better PC wireless streaming. Generally a great all around headset if you are welling to put up with Meta software shenanigans. Hard to beat feature-wise at its price point.

- Runs essentially the entire standalone library and is set to do so for years
- Resolution is good, with really good optics that are clear throughout and wider FOV
- Wifi 6E can be of great aid for better wireless VR streaming from your PC
- Good color passthrough, you can just barely use your phone or PC monitors through it

- Not particularly comfortable with its default strap
- Battery life is relatively short even compared to a quest 2 and has high current charging requirements, so be sure to buy trusted battery extenders only!
- built in mics are still "eh"
- Meta headset, Meta software, Meta privacy policies. Agree to sell your soul and digital data to the Zuck.

This headset both caters to newbies who are willing to spend a bit more dosh, but also is a viable upgrade option for those on low end / cheap headsets to something that is all around good, though not necessarily great at any one thing.

Quest 3s

 

Quest Pro

Rift (original)

 

Rift S

 

Valve Index

Vive (2016)

 

Vive Pro 1

 

Vive Pro 2

 

Big Screen Beyond

For comfort customized for you, straight forward steamVR compatibility, and great mic quality. This headset is not for people new to VR but rather built for VR enthusiasts who want a comfy headset for spending thousands of hours in (or to sleep in).

- Small, light and comfortable
- 3D printed custom interface for your face specifically
- Relatively high resolution, microOled means excellent color contrast
- Very good microphone (some users even use this headset mic as a desktop mic as well)

- Expensive
- Notable glare issues in very dark scenes
- No speakers are included
- Fixed IPD significantly lowers resell value
- Face scan required using an iphone (you can borrow one as they use a webpage) to purchase
- Needs a relatively beefy PC to push at its full resolution

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