“It’s Overpriced”

[somerandomusername]

“$3500 is overpriced.”


We all know what product this is referring to. I wanted to elaborate a little more on this topic after learning more about HMDs, VR video gaming, etc

People wrongly try to compare the Quest 3 to what Apple made, especially to talk about price.

The Facebook Quest 3 costs $500 for the base product. I have read And heard countless times that the sole included headband in the box is extremely uncomfortable, and at minimum the “Elite Strap” is required to use the product comfortably. How much is the Elite Strap? $129. Alright.

$500 + $130 (I’m rounding), so $630.

But the Facebook Quest 3 has the performance of the shitty Qualcomm chip they put in it. It’s essentially the equivalent of a phone chip but worse. The games that you can play (the purpose of the product) on “standalone mode“ are NOT the games that people talk about when referring to VR gaming. So what do you have to do? You need a gaming PC. And I wrongly assumed you could get away with using a basic gaming PC. After learning more about the situation, that is the furthest thing from the truth. Before we get there, you actually need a cable to connect the your PC for intense games, so how much does such a cable cost? The official one costs $79. Alright.

$500 + $130 + $80, so $710. That’s already a 42% increase in cost and you don’t even have the gaming PC yet. Cheap my ass.

Upon learning more about the requirements that VR gaming (again, not what Apple is doing) requires, I discovered this comment which summarizes the stuff I have read and watched:

“Since other people haven't explicitly said it, for VR you simply want the absolute highest specs you can reasonably afford to spend. Gaming in general and VR specifically is incredibly power hungry and even with the highest end hardware available now running something like MSFS in VR at decent resolution and framerates is very difficult. There will never really be a point where you will be like "I couldn't use a little better gear"

So you just need to decide how much you can spend and then try to get the best hardware you can for that money.

And then they proceed to reference the 4070 while reminding them that the mobile version isn’t the same graphics level as the desktop one. Uh… we went from my $650 estimate for the PC you need, in their own words, to:

In the US I could just barely build a full PC for ~$1200 with a 4070, decent CPU and most all the parts … Below this point you get crappy compromises, above it you get diminishing returns. The same specs pre-built will run about $1800ish

And to be clear, Apple appeals to the mass market with their product. Apple users aren’t generally building their own PCs, some do of course, but My point is they are going to buy a prebuilt config, so $1800. Alright.

$500+ $130 + $80 + $1800, so $2,510, which costs over 5 TIMES as much as what people are advertising the Quest 3 as.

Yes, you’re technically getting a powerful computer that can do other stuff with that, but again for barrier to entry to even try the damn product, which doesn’t even do 1/1000th of what Apple has done, you need to spend $2510. And controllers, cords running everywhere, and tethered to a small room and outlet, it’s not anywhere near as elegant and simple as Apple, which uses your eyes, hands, and you can take it anywhere with you. Can’t do that with a desktop gaming PC.

And the quality? As I was researching all of this, I read about the passthrough of Quest 3 and exteme issues they’re having and I found a video that showed the actual view through the lenses, not off the cameras. I was so blown away when I watched it today, see for yourself:



WTF? Look how fucking shitty it looks! I don’t even get headaches and I get a headache just trying to imagine viewing the world through something like that for a minute, let alone hours. Again, WTF. Again, $2510 FOR THAT PIECE OF SHIT. But it got worse.

I read the comments, some of which are:

“I think there must be some defect or software issue going on. When I say mine is grainy, I mean GRAINY. Your footage at night is about twice as clear as what I get in a well-lit room. In order to read text on something like a book, I have to be about 2 inches away.”

“Your headset at night still looks 10x better than mine in full light.”

“I explained this to everyone who was asking about the passthrough on my quest3. the quality of the passthrough is like what you see out of a rearview camera in a car.”

“Guys…every video that I watched app showed a nice clear 1080p recording of pass through. I was so excited that I bought it, tell me why NOBODY talked about the graininess!? It’s soooo grainy it reminds me of ultrasound images, there’s just so much graininess and a tiny bit of delay and warping”

“Because yeah, my passthrough is definitely not up to expectations, it's very grainy. Even with all my lights on and all windows open during daytime, it is grainy. Like, yes it's usable, but way way below what I feel it should be. For instance I haven't seen ANYWHERE near the quality of whats shown in your videos.”

”Yeah, I noticed on my Quest 3 the passthrough was pretty noisy, no matter what kind of conditions I tried to put it in. Colors also got overexposed and blown out a little too easily. I don't really care because I didn't get the thing for MR but it was a little underwhelming”

”My Quest 3 passthrough is so grainy I can't read my cell phone. The cell screen is a washed out blurry mess. This is midday in a room that's 70% giant windows and the lights on. Lots of light. I had no idea it was supposed to be clear like your video. I can walk around with it on but can't read anything.”

”I cannot read through mine like you do, even with more light! Is it sample variation or any setting I missed?”

There are over EIGHT HUNDRED comments like this. Watch the video. Notice the quality of it. And then reread these comments. $2510 for that shit.

The Quest is good for what’s it built for: gaming. But people keep using it as a reference point for price, so I wanted to do an actual comparison and what price it actually is to just merely try it out.

Facebook doesn’t have an OS built for spatial interaction, it doesn’t have a real App Store, it doesn’t have the UI and simplicity and elegance of Apple’s product, it has so little actual features compared to Apple. So the fact that you’re getting what has been described over and over as “just looking through safety goggles” with Apple’s, compared to Facebook’s complete dog, horse, and cat shit for two thousand five hundred and ten dollars, Apple is not just a fair price, Apple has pulled off a god damn miracle with only $3500.

Apple isn’t penny pinching anything here. It’s a complete bargain and revolution for the tech, and the beginning of a brand new paradigm in computing..

Is it going to be perfect? Of course not, but it’s an incredible leap forward, which is what Apple is all about.

Extra:

In case you’re curious to learn more about the technology and design from third party viewpoints, I have watched a few videos that might be of interest to anyone reading. There is very little intelligent commentary surrounding this product, especially on YouTube, but these people do a mostly decent job at conveying how groundbreaking what Apple has done is.

 

[Cmaier]

Well it’s overpriced to me, because my car repair bill just came in at $8000 :-( (They need to replace the entire motor).

Given that I will definitely be buying a new iPad Pro in the next few months (if rumors are true), it may be awhile before I jump on the AVP bandwagon.

 

[somerandomusername]

Well it’s overpriced to me, because my car repair bill just came in at $8000 :-( (They need to replace the entire motor).

Given that I will definitely be buying a new iPad Pro in the next few months (if rumors are true), it may be awhile before I jump on the AVP bandwagon.

Wow that sucks :-( I hope they’re able to fix it quickly and no other problems happen @Cmaier

I hope though that what I wrote was informative and helpful and provided more context, and that the videos provided additional info and were decent! They’re all pretty long but theyre not crappy clickbait garbage.

 

[Citysnaps]

Though it's a lot of money, I think the price makes sense for what it can potentially offer, including the quality of user experiences. And thus I keep mulling it over. If I was a developer a purchase for sure would be in order.

But... as a user, and thinking about it a lot, my needs at this time wouldn't rise to making a purchase. And would require developers to create the travel experiences (visiting different parts of the world, etc) that interest me. That's going to be a ways off. So, for me, it makes sense to wait - at which point there'll probably be a Gen 2 AVP out by then.

Purchasing an AVP now for sure would be fun, being able to assess the potential, learning about the tech, coming up with ideas, etc. But that would just be a big distraction getting in the way of other stuff I'm doing right now.

I'm still interested in AVP and will be following it closely as it gets used by the public, and seeing what developers (and Apple) come up with.

 

[dada_dave]

Well it’s overpriced to me, because my car repair bill just came in at $8000 :-( (They need to replace the entire motor).

Ouch. Sorry. That sucks.

========

As for the AVP, it’s expensive, too expensive for me to buy (even if I hadn’t just bought a new computer for the first time in 11 years), but I agree that’s very different from overpriced. Whenever I get to go to an Apple Store it’ll be cool to demo it out (if there isn’t a line of people doing the same thing! )

 

[Roller]

As for the AVP, it’s expensive, too expensive for me to buy (even if I hadn’t just bought a new computer for the first time in 11 years), but I agree that’s very different from overpriced. Whenever I get to go to an Apple Store it’ll be cool to demo it out (if there isn’t a line of people doing the same thing! )

Agree. There are items I can afford that go for less than the AVP, so they're technically not "too expensive," but I don't think they're worth it. For me, the AVP pushes the cost envelope. $4k is a lot of money, and until I try one I won't be able to tell if the experience will justify the expense. Honestly, I'm a bit apprehensive about demoing it because I'm afraid I won't be able to resist.

 

[ArgoDuck]

It occurred to me yesterday when i was flipping between monitors and screens how much more productive I might be if every screen was arrayed around me and all i‘d have to do is stare at or turn my head slightly to activate the one i need. This is all contingent on Xcode, various stats packages, AI tools etc being functional on AVP.

 

[Joelist]

This reminds me of the arguments that the Studio Display was overpriced. They always forgot things like build quality, coming correctly calibrated out of the box, built in sound system and webcam and such. The same thing is happening here.

Vision Pro costs more BUT it also has far more powerful hardware (cameras, displays and processing) than any other headset. And unlike its competition Vision Pro is actually a complete computer in its own right. Given the power of an M2 based computer you then have to add the cost of your computer to that of your competing headset. Yes $3499 is a bit rich but one also has to remember what you are getting for that price.

 

[Citysnaps]

Here's a gem I found over at the other place:

 

[dada_dave]

Why our AVP returning poll results is so different from Reddit?

Our returning poll is like 50% returning rate.. It is a disaster for Apple, and very negative for XR industry… Reddit poll shows about 20% returning rate… All with about 200 votes. Why is it so different?

forums.macrumors.com

In fairness most of the replies are extremely reasonable, even dare I say informative?, or maybe I just think so because most of them are ragging on the rest of the Macrumors … community for lack of a better word. And I should point out the OP themselves is likewise quite reasonable. At least on the first page, I haven’t gone past that. I was just … impressed for a change.

 

[Yoused]

It occurred to me yesterday when i was flipping between monitors and screens how much more productive I might be if every screen was arrayed around me and all i‘d have to do is stare at or turn my head slightly to activate the one i need. This is all contingent on Xcode, various stats packages, AI tools etc being functional on AVP.

So, what if you had a Studio and Apple (or even a third party) offered you a UI device that provided the basic functionality of the AVP but in a much lighter package, without the eyeballs surface display, so that you could do your work more efficiently (and anywhere within BT range)? If they had that, at a somewhat lower vigorish (say $1800~2200US), I think those would sell quite well (and Studio Display would probably languish a bit). One upside would be that your monitor is yours alone, though that could also be a drawback.

 

[somerandomusername]

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