Always on the doorstep of adoption, never quite there.
That's pretty much described the consumer virtual reality and augmented reality landscape over the last half-decade. But consumer mixed reality is now officially worth a look thanks to increasing competition and new headsets from a variety of legacy and first-time players, which may soon include Apple in 2022. Mark Zuckerberg's big bet on the metaverse[1] will likely keep attention in this direction for a long time to come. As the business case for AR/VR technologies outpaces consumer adoption, pressure from the enterprise, which widely employs consumer mixed reality hardware, has helped move the technology in the right direction across the board.
While there are purpose-built machines for the enterprise, the lines are increasingly blurred between consumer and commercial mixed reality. To compile this list, we took a broad survey of available devices and spoke to independent industry experts not affiliated with the brands listed. Nothing beats the hands-on trial, and we also had fun putting these headsets through their paces.
What follows are our picks for the best VR and AR headsets available.
From the company that pioneered wireless VR, Oculus Quest 2 is an evolution of the popular Quest headset. With Quest 2, Oculus makes a multi-generational leap in processing power with the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Platform offering higher AI capability and 6GB of RAM. The new display features 1832 x 1920 pixels per eye -- the company's highest resolution display yet. With 50% more pixels than the original Quest, everything from multiplayer games and productivity apps to 360-degree videos look better than ever.
There have long been rumors of a Quest 3 in the works, but Zuck put those to bed for the time being at Facebook Connect in late 2021. The