Ahead of Apple Inc.’s expected launch of a mixed-reality headset next week, Meta Platforms Inc. has teased an enhanced version of its own offering.
The Facebook parent company announced the Meta Quest 3 headset Thursday, promising better resolution and performance as well as a more comfortable feel relative to Meta’s
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prior virtual- and mixed-reality headset.
See also: Apple’s leap into the metaverse could jolt a sputtering market, but it won’t happen overnight
The Meta Quest 3 will debut this fall and start at $499 for a 128GB storage configurations, with an option for extra storage available for those who need it.
Meta announced in a blog post that the device will “feature a next-generation Snapdragon chipset” that the company developed with Qualcomm Inc. That chipset promises “more than twice the graphical performance” than the Snapdragon GPU in the Meta Quest 2 does, which should translate into “smoother performance and incredibly crisp details in immersive games,” according to Meta.
Read: Apple CEO Tim Cook explains why consumers would want a mixed-reality headset
The company further noted that Meta Quest 3 is its “first mass-market offering to deliver both cutting-edge VR and MR experiences in a single device.” Virtual reality, or VR, is immersive, while mixed reality, or MR, combines real-life and virtual worlds.
The Meta Quest 3 will be 40% slimmer than its predecessor, the Meta Quest 2. And Meta plans to lower the price of the Quest 2 to $299.99 from $399.99 as of June 4.
The company’s announcement comes as Wall Street awaits the debut of Apple’s
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first entry into the headset space with a device expected to be called the Reality Pro. Apple is likely to preview that headset at its WWDC developer confab next week, and it could price the product around $3,000.
See more: Apple could be gearing up for a ‘game-changing’ event
