I've used the Oculus or Meta Quest 2 over the past year to
play VR games and to have some wild experiences.
However, earlier this year, Meta released the new Quest Pro,
a new VR headset three times the price of the Quest 2,
making it around $1500 targeted towards the creative professional.
So the question is, what does the Quest Pro bring to the
table for graphic designers and creative professionals?
And is it worth the hefty be price tagged for such a product?
In this video sponsored by Squarespace, I'm going to give
you my review as a graphic designer and hopefully answer
any questions you may have about VR in the graphic design industry.
Let's do it.
The first thing about the Meta Quest Pro is, one, it looks better.
As a design standpoint, I love it.
It feels lighter, but although it's heavier, it works really
nicely when it fits on my head.
One of the main things that I love about it is the fact that
when I'm creating or when I'm doing things inside of VR,
it's not all encompassing my face.
It's actually like a lip at the bottom.
It rests on your head like a visor, you can see below you.
And I thought at the start that this would be something bad,
it would be a negative part about it, but in reality,
it's actually really interestingly useful.
When I'm working in VR, which is essentially doing design
work in it, or even if I'm playing games, it's nice to be
able to go back into reality by looking below me.
Whether I'm sat at a desk and I want to see my keyboard, I can
do that without having to take off the headset.
If you've used the Quest 2 before to play games and
you scroll around the menus, you'll notice that it's a bit blurry.
Well, the Quest Pro is kind of like watching the same thing,
but in a 4K resolution.
Obviously it's not in 4K, but it's got that same feeling of
it's really high definition compared to the Quest 2.
It's not fully there, but it's so much easier on the eyes.
This was a really promising start for me because I thought
if this is how everything looks in the Quest Pro, then looking
at monitors inside it is going to be incredible.
The definition is there.
Now, the problem that I have with this is when I go into this
Quest store all I see are games.
And yes, VR is a very game center thing right now.
That's how technology like this sort of gets there.
And with the Quest Pro being targeted towards myself as a
creative professional, I've struggled to find applications
inside of the Meta Quest store to use at work.
In fact, the only apps that I could use are kind of Google
Tilt Brush, which is fun, this graffiti app that is
ridiculously fun and weird when you go into it because it looks
real and Horizon Workrooms, which I'm going to talk a
little bit about later.
These apps don't really do anything creatively.
I'm not an engineer, so I don't need to use 3D modeling
software like Gravity Sketch.
What I want to have is an application that allows me to
design logos, vector artwork in a 3D space, or even in a way
that's more efficient than it is just on a computer monitor.
Okay, let's talk a bit more about what you see inside of
the VR programs.
I've talked about how good the image quality is compared to
the Quest 2 but is it three times better?
Yes, it is three times better,
to me anyway.
It allows me to sit more comfortably in a VR experience for longer.
Not only do we have a clearer display, but we've got full
colour passthrough, which works quite well.
Passthrough is basically for augmented reality.
Virtual reality is where you are virtually immersed into
this place and you can't see anything around you other than
the virtual world.
Augmented reality is where you can add things to the real world.
You can add like a menu, you can add a display.
You can do whatever you want in the real world.
Now, the Quest Pro is really aiming towards more of an
augmented reality experience when it comes to work.
For this reason, I used Horizon Workrooms.
Horizon Workrooms is really interesting.
I was a bit skeptical.
Essentially, this app allows you to work and collaborate
with others in VR
and out of VR. You have your office space,
it's kind of like a desk
and you can see you've got this monitor in front of you.
You just download an application to your Mac or to
your PC, and you can see your display in VR in this desk.
Now, the one thing that really got me thinking was when I take
my hands away from the controllers and I'm just sat
there, you can see my hands move.
I could control nearly everything with pinch mechanics.
The pinching and everything that I'm doing is actually
controlling everything inside of the headset, which means
that I don't need to use the controllers all the time.
That was a really nice feature because it works so much better
in the Quest Pro that it does in the Quest 2.
Now, it was great being able to see my monitor, and I had a ton of
use cases for this.
I knew what I could use it for, I could use it for emails,
I could design in it.
I could do loads of other things inside of this virtual
experience in Horizon Workrooms without being distracted with
the things around me.
However, you can actually use passthrough as well for this.
So you can see your monitors in passthrough, which is really interesting.
There's other apps like Immersion that do this that
allow you to download an application to your computer
and it will beam the monitor to your VR headset.
So essentially all you're left with is a mouse and keyboard
and the VR headset.
And you can see up to three monitors, huge monitors in just your area.
It's a weird experience.
Passthrough allowed me to see everything around me in
basically 480 webcam quality.
The cameras aren't that great.
Although it is full colour.
I found it more comfortable being in the complete virtual
reality and not using passthrough with these monitor
situations because my eyes were trying to focus on different
areas and it got them confused.
And obviously, being able to have my glasses on in VR is
great, but it just didn't work well in passthrough.
The camera quality needs to be upgraded further and a lot
further for this to work comfortably.
Now, three monitors in virtual reality.
Now, this is what struck me as crazy.
I literally
say, you're just sat here and you're at your computer desk.
Instead of having one monitor that's physically in front of you.
I was able to go home or sit on the sofa with my laptop, which
is what I use on a day to day basis.
Plug my VR headset onto my head and it will wirelessly beam
with minimal latency the monitors to my headset, and
I could add more monitors to it.
It was incredible.
I could watch a video on one side, I could do emails another,
I could design in the middle screen, and on the other two
I could have like a mood board, I could have a Google Docs up.
It is a work powerhouse.
So for that area, I could see a lot of people using this.
Instead of buying new displays,
I reckon in the future, as designers, we're going to be
starting to see more of these headsets, probably a bit
smaller, that allow us to see monitors in our vision without
anyone else seeing them, which is great for privacy as well.
Now, this blew my mind.
I don't think I'm that old.
I mean, I'm 28.
I'm getting there now.
But seeing these monitors really gave me a spark of inspiration.
So I started designing logos and doing all my work inside of VR.
Now, this is where it gets interesting.
Yes, the VR headset is comfortable.
It didn't feel like I was locked away.
It felt very natural to wear it after a while.
However, the eye strain is a real thing.
I wear glasses and I can wear them inside of the headset,
which is a very nice touch.
The problem is the eye strain
after a while looking at bright screens inside of VR,
and having to strain your eyes just that little bit more to see
what you're working on can really take the toll on them.
So I kept getting headaches at the top of my head here.
In fact, I've got one now.
So, although the experience is amazing, I felt like this
headset became more of a monitor that gave me headaches
or more of a few monitors that gave me headaches, so that's
something to keep in mind.
However, being able to design in there is possible.
The colour accuracy isn't there yet.
This is a very early product, technically, in VR, because as
technology increases, we're going to see better display
technology for the lenses, better colour accuracy.
And I think one day we'll just be using headsets instead of
full display monitors for personal use.
Another thing I really enjoy about the Quest Pro is the
ability to have my face tracked.
It might sound a bit weird, but what it does is it tracks your
facial gestures really, really accurately.
I would play a game.
It's called Horizon World.
It's like the metaverse.
It's more of a meme now, but it's a place where you go and
hang out with people.
And I would go in there just for fun, just to see what games
and worlds that they have.
And it would track your facial gestures really well.
Now Horizon Workrooms works the same way.
I would have this office, and you can see it on the video.
I've got an office inside of Horizon Workrooms where I can
change the layout of it.
I can write on the screen, I can write it on my table.
And what you can see is actually I can move my face and
it acts like I'm actually talking.
It tracks it really well.
I can add other people to this office.
And if we're all remote workers, obviously our team can
remote work, but we don't.
But if we were, we could actually have some meetings
inside of there.
Obviously, this is a very basic program right now.
You can just whiteboard, share screens, invite people in, do
some talking, things like that.
You can't really do much else other than that.
However, it really does show you where technology is going
in the future for VR and how people are going to be working in VR.
Now, I'm not a tech channel, but I do love technology.
It allows my work to get to that next level.
Every time I buy something, I always make sure it's a sound investment.
However, I bought this because it was marketed, I believe,
towards more of the creative professional.
I think it's marketed towards those who want to go that next
step, try the next generation of computing essentially.
However, I can't help but feel it's more of a gimmick right now.
Now, this isn't because VR isn't going to work and
it's just a gimmick overall, that's not the case.
I think it's because we're so early on into the development
phase for apps and things to use within VR.
In a few years time, it's going to absolutely explode.
I think we're going to start seeing more people working from
home, remote work from around the world in apps like Horizon Workrooms.
But right now it does feel very gimmicky because it's mainly a games console.
And I'm looking for apps that help me with my business.
And right now, all I can do is essentially beam some
information to me from my computers.
Although it's very nice information, all these monitors,
you can just beam those monitors to me and show me what
I can already see in just a virtual world. Before I go into
more of the problems and more of the good things about the
Meta Quest Pro.
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So thank you Squarespace for sponsoring this video.
The main question that I'm asking about the Quest Pro is,
does this add $1500 of value to what I do?
It is expensive, but to the business, it's not very expensive.
We can buy very expensive things all the time, like a
five grand laptop, two grand monitors, cameras, teleprompters, lights.
To a business, this could be a worthwhile investment.
However, like with most new technologies and new industries,
and new parts of industries like the Pro VR industry, which
is where we are now with this, it's all down to the developers.
Are they creating apps for the creative professionals?
Well, right now, there isn't many apps for a graphic
designer like myself, other than the ability to meet with
clients in a virtual space and possibly to paint and ideate.
However, this comes with the big asterisk on it, because in
the next few years, if you're watching this from a few years
from now, VR will be more popular than ever before.
It is growing massively, and that's because it is the next
step of technology, consumer technology and work technology.
As you see in this video, you can work inside of VR very
comfortably, and it's only going to get more comfortable
as we go.
So this review or first impressions of the Quest Pro
could be completely different in two years time because there
will be more apps.
Now, I might do an update, but for now, unfortunately, I'm not
going to be keeping this.
Although it's fun.
I've already got the Quest 2, which only cost me $300 or
something ridiculous.
And this for $1500.
I could buy three of those and give them to my team and do
most of the things that it already does.
If you enjoyed this video, let me know by liking and subscribing.
If you have any questions or things that you think I've
missed out, then leave it a comment down below.
Thank you Squarespace for sponsoring, and I'll see you
guys in the next video.
See you soon.
Goodbye.