Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsDepends on what exactly you're looking to get out of it
Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2023
I work in e-commerce and AI. Of course, AI, Augmented Reality AR, Virtual Reality VR are all the future. I experienced virtual reality goggles first in 2006, when my professor was researching on it, he showed us a demo. We wore a huge backpack with a powerful laptop connected to VR goggles, in a basketball court, and we were roaming around the entire court, amazed, exploring a virtual forest. That was 2006.
Coming to Meta Quest 2, the question is, what exactly are we buying this specific gadget for? I like going to exotic places, even in video games, I like roaming and looking around exploring the scenes, rather than shooting guns. I bought this thinking I will transport myself to exotic places and relax for some time every day.
For starters, to get anything useful, we need to go to Meta store and buy apps. A decent app costs a minimum of $10, some of the best ones are $25, and some are monthly subscriptions, unless we are content with watching a dinosaur for several hours for no cost.
I expected a virtual planetarium, virtual tour of exotic places with great music, virtual spiritual retreats on top of the mountains, etc. Tripp was one of the apps I was interested in exploring with their great ads on Facebook, YouTube etc. It turned out to be a simulated psychedelic app. First off, actual psychedelic drugs have energetic impacts on a human and hence will have to be experienced in a well-monitored environment, either by a trained, safe Shaman or a trained doctor. Wearing a VR goggle, that starts hurting after 30-40 minutes, displaying psychedelic designs, is not going to heal anyone. And it says, "As seen on Time magazine", "Most innovative VR app", and a dozen other top media, for a monthly subscription fee. Sorry, I don't believe a VR goggle psytrance is going to heal anyone. Everyone seems to make exorbitant claims these days, without any way to vet.
I could not find any planetarium VRs either. Apps need to be bought for $15-$20 to even see if we like their offering. I didn't see any return option there. Maybe, contacting some customer care email may get us a return, but I don't have time to go around downloading content, explore, send emails if I don't like it, wait around, etc.
Oh yes, battery life. Watching for a few minutes of anything is going to drain the battery. Better off plugged in constantly. With the short charger it ships with, we may have to get a longer-wired one.
This may be a great gadget for games for teens. Maybe just shooting around. These are pretty immersive, I think small kids should be carefully monitored using VR, some of the contents might scare/traumatize them. But, for an adult, looking to get something exotic out of it without spending thousands to physically travel to those places, this probably isn't it. All the travel apps, YouTube 360 videos, are subpar. It just didn't work for what I was looking to get out of it. Maybe, in a couple of years, when they come up with a huge collection of quality travel and planetarium apps, I may try is once again.
