It's been just over two years now since soon-to-depart CTO John Carmack told a Meta Connect audience about his vision for a super low-end VR headset that came in at $250 and 250 grams. "We're not building that headset today, but I keep trying," Carmack said at the time with some exasperation.

The Meta Quest 3S VR headset is a compelling choice for those seeking an affordable yet feature-rich virtual reality experience. With its competitive

Last week saw the official release and availability of the Meta Quest 3S, the company's take on a budget-friendly mixed reality headset that is under the Quest 3 series to deliver the massive experience to users for almost half its price.

As part of our initial Quest 3S testing, we checked how long the Quest 3S will last. Thankfully, it appears Meta was honest when it gave its battery life estimate.

The first hint of that is the headset’s Fresnel lenses, which iFixit’s Shahram Mokhtari writes in a blog post are “100% compatible” with those used by the Quest 2. The headset has the older headset’s IPD adjustment mechanism, as well; and it shares the same single LCD panel, rather than using one panel per eye, like the Meta Quest 3.

I reviewed Meta's Quest 3S, a budget VR headset with mixed reality and AI, to test its quality and value as an upgrade or a first headset.

It's by far the best value in VR. But the question is, should you upgrade to it or go with Meta's even better model?