Meta Quest 3 Lite to borrow design of Quest 2 in new leak

Rebecca Hills-Duty
Meta Quest 2 vs Meta Quest 3

A new leak suggests that Meta is planning to create a cheaper version of the Quest 3 by cramming Quest 3 components into a Quest 2 shell.

The Meta Quest 3 Lite has still not been officially announced, nevertheless, reliable leakers have been providing information on this elusive headset, which is said to be a budget version of the existing Quest 3.

The latest information comes from Lunayian on X/Twitter, who claims they have seen various versions of the Quest 3 Lite devkits and has spoken with several people familiar with the device. They then went on to share an infographic that contains a range of new information about the upcoming headset.

According to this data, the Meta Quest 3 Lite will be powered by the same Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chipset used in the existing Quest 3 headset. The device will also use a similar 4MP full-color passthrough for mixed reality. This would be an upgrade on the Quest 2, which only features monochrome passthrough capability.

To save on costs, some features of the Quest 3 Lite will be taken from the Quest 2. One example is the 1832 x 1920 pixels per eye resolution. This is a downgrade compared to the Quest 3, which provides a resolution of 2064 × 2208. The Quest 3 Lite is also said to use the Fresnel lenses of the Quest 2, instead of the slimmer pancake lenses sported by the Quest 3.

Some users might also be disappointed by the return of the IPD (InterPupillary Distance) adjustments from the Quest 2, which has only three set positions instead of the greater degree of adjustment supplied by the Quest 3.

Although previous leaks have suggested that the Quest 3 Lite will be cheaper than the Meta Quest 3, there has still been no indication of what the retail price might be.