***Quest Pro Owners Club***

The quest pro looks so compact compared to the quest 2, the weight distribution should be really good. I didn't realise how flat it was until i saw it today.
 
Nice one! - I will say, grab the official Link cable. as my original analyst regarding battery life was based off a cheap cable that did not give it enough juice to charge and play. The official link cable massively improves the playtime by many hours.
PCVR is where this HMD really shines. The touch controllers tracking are on another level!

Controller Tracking

But the Pro is very well balanced on your head though... ;)

I already have the official link cable. I've not tried it for a while as I use Q2 wirelessly most of the time, but I upped the bitrate to 500 and tried it last night in Skyrim and most of the issues I had with compression weren't an issue any more.

I would say that for Steam VR the Index is a better experience in terms of configurability and 'just working' as I had some glitches getting the link cable to work, plus it's far easier on the index to change things on the fly such as refresh rate.

Whether I ditch the Index or not depends on if the FOV is comparable and if the PC performance is as good. I can see me having to upgrade to a 4080 or 4090 next year (if you can get them for RRP) to get better VR performance because of the encoding overhead of a Quest headset over the Index.

I also have a spare broken Quest Elite Battery Strap so I will see if that can be adapted for use as an add-on battery. Might be able to incorporate it into a top strap.
 
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I just gave the Quest Pro a quick go before packing it away, making sure it's all updated and working correctly for Christmas day.

First impressions:

It's a hefty, solid device and feels premium. It's easy to adjust the eye relief, IPD and the strap tightness. I will probably invest in cotton covers or replacement pads when VR cover do them as the default pads feel a bit hard.

Initially after the firmware update the passthrough mode didn't work - even when trying to do the guardian. I thought I had a faulty headset for a minute. However restarting the headset fixed it.

Fit and comfort is a bit awkward. The way it sits on your forehead feels a bit precarious for someone like me who is used to the face clamping of Quest and Index. It sort of floats in front of your eyes which feels weird at first (I didn't try the blinders). I will probably need a top strap to stabilize it, but I already have one for the Go which I could use. Though it feels a bit ludicrous a VR headset this expensive would need comfort mods, but everyone's head is different. With no tilt for the headset visor you have to adjust it by tilting the whole headset which again is awkward. The Index and Quest 2 are better in this regard.

The clarity is incredible, with a very colourful and crisp display, clear right to the edges, though brightness falls off at the sides. The SDE is a bit more noticable than Quest 2 but not as bad as the Index. The view is wide and oval and the FOV far better than Quest 2, even with the lenses dialed out for glasses. Wearing glasses is easy with this headset, especially without the side blinders, though I will almost certainly get prescription lenses.

The controllers are easily the best part of the package. They feel incredibly premium, solid in your hands, with a great grip and amazing haptic feedback. The tracking is incredible, feels as good as my CV1 or Index. I can't wait to play some games with these. I would definitely recommend these as an add-on purchase for Quest 2. These are probably the best VR controllers on the market.

Audio sounded really clear, better than Quest 2. Also the Pro has separate left and right earbud sockets which is great as I have compatible earbuds I used to use for my Quest 1.

I've not tried the facial tracking, I shall leave that for when I get to play with it properly.

The only game I tried was Cubism, a 3D puzzle game, because it's quick to download and has a passthrough mode. Playing this in Passthrough mode is amazing! It really adds to the experience when the puzzle is floating in front of you in your room rather than in a blank void. The passthrough itself is grainy and low-res with some distortions and colour artefacts as I expected, but in practice when using it it works very well.

My wife tried the headset on and really liked it as she said she didn't feel claustrophobic in it like she does in other headsets, and loved the colour passthrough. I can see her wanting to play Cubism and Puzzling Places on it.

I tried putting the headset in my spare Quest 2 case, but even though it fits from a width and depth point of view it's too tall due to the forehead pad to be able to close the case. No doubt there will be cases for this which can incorporate the charging dock in future.

So it looks like an excellent headset, but with some potential caveats.

Edit: Changed the bit about the forehead pad not being replacable, as apparently it is.
 
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I already have the official link cable. I've not tried it for a while as I use Q2 wirelessly most of the time, but I upped the bitrate to 500 and tried it last night in Skyrim and most of the issues I had with compression weren't an issue any more.

I would say that for Steam VR the Index is a better experience in terms of configurability and 'just working' as I had some glitches getting the link cable to work, plus it's far easier on the index to change things on the fly such as refresh rate.

Whether I ditch the Index or not depends on if the FOV is comparable and if the PC performance is as good. I can see me having to upgrade to a 4080 or 4090 next year (if you can get them for RRP) to get better VR performance because of the encoding overhead of a Quest headset over the Index.

I also have a spare broken Quest Elite Battery Strap so I will see if that can be adapted for use as an add-on battery. Might be able to incorporate it into a top strap.

Can't say I've had many issues with Steam VR and a Oculus/Quest headset, though where a game has an Oculus runtime option, I select that.

I just gave the Quest Pro a quick go before packing it away, making sure it's all updated and working correctly for Christmas day.

First impressions:

It's a hefty, solid device and feels premium. It's easy to adjust the eye relief, IPD and the strap tightness. It looks like the forehead and rear pads are not changeable which is bonkers. I will probably invest in cotton covers when VR cover do them.

Initially after the firmware update the passthrough mode didn't work - even when trying to do the guardian. I thought I had a faulty headset for a minute. However restarting the headset fixed it.

Fit and comfort is a bit awkward. The way it sits on your forehead feels a bit precarious for someone like me who is used to the face clamping of Quest and Index. It sort of floats in front of your eyes which feels weird at first (I didn't try the blinders). I will probably need a top strap to stabilize it, but I already have one for the Go which I could use. Though it feels a bit ludicrous a VR headset this expensive would need comfort mods, but everyone's head is different. With no tilt for the headset visor you have to adjust it by tilting the whole headset which again is awkward. The Index and Quest 2 are better in this regard.

The clarity is incredible, with a very colourful and crisp display, clear right to the edges, though brightness falls off at the sides. The SDE is a bit more noticable than Quest 2 but not as bad as the Index. The view is wide and oval and the FOV far better than Quest 2, even with the lenses dialed out for glasses. Wearing glasses is easy with this headset, especially without the side blinders, though I will almost certainly get prescription lenses.

The controllers are easily the best part of the package. They feel incredibly premium, solid in your hands, with a great grip and amazing haptic feedback. The tracking is incredible, feels as good as my CV1 or Index. I can't wait to play some games with these. I would definitely recommend these as an add-on purchase for Quest 2. These are probably the best VR controllers on the market.

Audio sounded really clear, better than Quest 2. Also the Pro has separate left and right earbud sockets which is great as I have compatible earbuds I used to use for my Quest 1.

I've not tried the facial tracking, I shall leave that for when I get to play with it properly.

The only game I tried was Cubism, a 3D puzzle game, because it's quick to download and has a passthrough mode. Playing this in Passthrough mode is amazing! It really adds to the experience when the puzzle is floating in front of you in your room rather than in a blank void. The passthrough itself is grainy and low-res with some distortions and colour artefacts as I expected, but in practice when using it it works very well.

My wife tried the headset on and really liked it as she said she didn't feel claustrophobic in it like she does in other headsets, and loved the colour passthrough. I can see her wanting to play Cubism and Puzzling Places on it.

I tried putting the headset in my spare Quest 2 case, but even though it fits from a width and depth point of view it's too tall due to the forehead pad to be able to close the case. No doubt there will be cases for this which can incorporate the charging dock in future.

So it looks like an excellent headset, but with some potential caveats.

There is a teardown video where the rear pad does pull off, so I expect some mods for this.


In regards to the SDE, due to the insane clarity of the Pancake lenses, it makes it more pronounce over the Quest 2 due to the Fresnel lenses doing a good job of hiding it, but when you get into PCVR games, you just don't see it.
I look forward to your thoughts when you try PCVR out in it, especially cranking the render resolution up.
For those reading this, when we talk about SDE, this is nothing like the Rift S or Index. The Quest Pro is far superior here.

As for the comfort, it is hit and miss depending on your head shape, but after some adjusting over a few days, you will find that sweetspot where it just sits right.
The fitment app works well at getting the perfect spot and telling you your IPD.

As it is, especially for passthrough, and the latest V47, it seems rushed out the door with some teething issues that need to be ironed out, but like anything this will get better with updates, and hopefully we get 120Hz unlocked soon.

I have an issue where the Desktop window in the Oculus home keeps flicking black, which makes it hard to use, resulting in me having to take the HMD off to use the monitor instead. The previous update didn't have this issue.
Reported this, so hopefully that gets fixed soon.
 
Partly the SDE is due to the insane clarity of the lenses, but it also seems partly due to the way the screens are constructed. However it wasn't really noticable in normal use. It's just when setting up the headset you spend a lot of.time staring at the light coloured background which makes the SDE seem more apparent. As soon as I got to the home screen it wasn't that noticable, same as on the Quest 2.

One thing I'm really looking forward to doing is watching 3D movies in Skybox on this. I think the clarity is going to be something special.

I am really looking forward to trying PCVR. If this works out then I will sell my Index and put that towards a 4090 and new PSU.
 
Partly the SDE is due to the insane clarity of the lenses, but it also seems partly due to the way the screens are constructed. However it wasn't really noticable in normal use. It's just when setting up the headset you spend a lot of.time staring at the light coloured background which makes the SDE seem more apparent. As soon as I got to the home screen it wasn't that noticable, same as on the Quest 2.

One thing I'm really looking forward to doing is watching 3D movies in Skybox on this. I think the clarity is going to be something special.

I am really looking forward to trying PCVR. If this works out then I will sell my Index and put that towards a 4090 and new PSU.

Yeah, that is due to the Quest 2 being a single panel, which is further away, the Pro is two QD LCD panels at an angle so your eyes get very close to them, making it a bit more pronounced.

Never watched a 3D movie in VR before... I will need to do this, as the depth perception is quite incredible on the Pro.

I think you will keep it. You will hate the washed out colours on other HMD's now you've been spoilt by the QD panels

4090 just destroys everything. Half Life Alyx maxed out 1.7x render resolution, Steam VR set to 150% and a solid 90fps. You will be blown away by the clarity!
 
Yeah, that is due to the Quest 2 being a single panel, which is further away, the Pro is two QD LCD panels at an angle so your eyes get very close to them, making it a bit more pronounced.

Never watched a 3D movie in VR before... I will need to do this, as the depth perception is quite incredible on the Pro.

I think you will keep it. You will hate the washed out colours on other HMD's now you've been spoilt by the QD panels

4090 just destroys everything. Half Life Alyx maxed out 1.7x render resolution, Steam VR set to 150% and a solid 90fps. You will be blown away by the clarity!

I'm not planning to return it, I think there's enough improvements to definitely keep it over my Quest 2 and potentially the Index as well I also doubt the Q3 will have half the improvements this does.

Just got to have a longer play and sort out some comfort issues. Even with the Index I added some comfort mods and that's the most comfortable out of the box VR system I've used, apart from CV1 perhaps which wins due to to lightness.

It is expensive for what it is, but then my Index cost nearly £1000 and that was two years ago.

Someone pointed out that if Valve had released this headset with these features at this price point then gamers would be all over it.
 
I'm not planning to return it, I think there's enough improvements to definitely keep it over my Quest 2 and potentially the Index as well I also doubt the Q3 will have half the improvements this does.

Just got to have a longer play and sort out some comfort issues. Even with the Index I added some comfort mods and that's the most comfortable out of the box VR system I've used, apart from CV1 perhaps which wins due to to lightness.

It is expensive for what it is, but then my Index cost nearly £1000 and that was two years ago.

Someone pointed out that if Valve had released this headset with these features at this price point then gamers would be all over it.

I agree. Quest 3 will be a cut down of the Pro but with a newer SOC. It may have similar pancake lenses, but you won't see the same quality QD panels in it.

Yes, it's pricey, but when you break it down, new controllers, built in headstrap, charging dock, 256GB storage (Quest 2 256GB is £499) Then compare it to the Varjo Aero, which needs base stations, controllers etc. It sits about the right price point.

I'm hopeful the Valve Deckard will be like the Quest Pro, but higher res panels, dedicated detachable Display Port. Index type detachable speakers etc.
If they pull that off, they would have an amazing product that every VR enthusiast would want to buy.
 
The controllers are easily the best part of the package. They feel incredibly premium, solid in your hands, with a great grip and amazing haptic feedback. The tracking is incredible, feels as good as my CV1 or Index. I can't wait to play some games with these. I would definitely recommend these as an add-on purchase for Quest 2. These are probably the best VR controllers on the market.

I am very tempted to buy the controllers. Do you think they are worth the money they are asking? They are almost the price of a Quest 2!!
 
I am very tempted to buy the controllers. Do you think they are worth the money they are asking? They are almost the price of a Quest 2!!
From my limited testing they are absolutely worth it. I can't wait to try them in In-Death Unchained and shooters like Contractors.

They do come with a portable charging dock and 45w charger so that makes them slightly better value.
 
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