Oculus (Meta) Quest 2 All Features and Release Date

image credit: holoworld.info

Introduced on September 16, Oculus Quest 2 is set to go on sale on October 13, as promised, and I didn’t want to skip this news with so little time left. I was away in September due to my work. Meanwhile, I sold my old Oculus Quest before the new one came out. I placed an order for the new one from Amazon. Because, as always, I do not live in one of the 23 countries listed on Oculus’s website. We Turkish users can only own it by paying more money from America, from Amazon, from here and there. Anyway, I am used to these kinds of things, so I have no intention of dragging it out. Let me get back to our main topic, the second headset of the VR legend, Oculus Quest 2.

OVERVIEW

For those who don’t know, let me just say right away that it is possible to use the Oculus Quest 2 virtual reality headset wirelessly. In my opinion, the most important difference from the first version is that it now requires a Facebook account. Previously, it was possible to use the virtual reality glasses with just an Oculus account. The promise made by Oculus’s founder when selling the company to Facebook, saying ‘a Facebook account will never be mandatory for our headsets’, has turned out to be a lie. It is possible to use it without a Facebook account, but with quite limited features. It seems that instead of standing behind the Oculus brand in the VR world, Facebook is trying to push Oculus behind its own brand. We might hear the name Facebook Reality Labs more often in this process. I plan to write another article solely on this topic. So, let’s not stray away from our main topic for now.

Oculus Quest 2 has an attractive hardware setup compared to the first generation, featuring its new white color, lighter build, new straps, and the Snapdragon XR2 chipset (along with 2 times more performance, artificial intelligence capabilities have been increased 11 times). One of its standout features is the new LCD panel that offers an ‘almost’ 4k resolution image. Offering all of this at a starting price $100 lower than the previous generation is important for the future of virtual reality headsets, because the lower the prices drop, the faster the adoption rate will increase. I am looking forward to this pricing policy affecting other brands like HP, Pico, and Vive as well. It is quite important for both VR/AR headset and app/game prices to drop for an industry that is still struggling to reach the end consumer. I will continue to follow the developments.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ XR2 chipset: Compared to the first headset, it has 2x GPU/CPU performance and 11x more artificial intelligence performance.
• 6 GB Ram
• 64 GB or 256 GB storage options
• 6 DoF (6 degrees of freedom tracking)
• Upgraded Oculus Touch Controllers
• New elastic straps for head mounting
• LCD display (near 4K resolution)
• 1832×1920 pixels per eye (About 50% more than the first generation)
• Display refresh rate 72 Hz (90 Hz coming soon)
• IPD adjustment: Three settings for interpupillary distance at 58, 63, and 68 mm
• Built-in speaker and 3.5mm audio jack
• 2-3 hours of battery life depending on usage
• PC connectivity capability with Oculus Link
• Battery charging time of 2.5 hours
• Weight: 503 gr. (10% lighter than the first generation)
• Price: $299 (64GB) , $399 (256GB)

Comparison of Oculus Quest 2 with other current VR headsets

SPECIFICATIONS OF ALL OCULUS PRODUCTS