Mark Zuckerberg put the Meta Quest 3 VR headset on stage during Meta's Connect event today in California, but I was able to try it last week in San Francisco. Much like its two predecessors, The Meta Quest 3 is not all that dissimilar from its predecessors and borrows quite a bit from the much more expensive Meta Quest Pro, but in some key ways, it improves upon all of the above and the result is something really new and much improved and which stands to create a much larger tent for virtual and mixed reality in general.

The things I did on the Meta Quest 3 weren't astonishingly different from things I have tried in VR before: For reference, I've owned both the original Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive and the first-generation Quest. I missed the second generation largely because those other three devices, collectively a rather pricey proposition, spent an entire vast expanse of time either collecting dust on a shelf, or squirrelled away in a closet to hide my great shame about how little I used them. The OG Quest also scratched my glasses but that's another story.

What surprised me about Meta Quest 3, though, was how much I immediately enjoyed using it. I thought my heart was hardened against VR honestly, and irreversibly so. Donning this headset immediately started to thaw my feelings, however-in part because the form factor is actually much improved, with a lighter, more balanced design that is super easy to adjust and that wears much more naturally than previous generations. The headset also has built-in fine adjustment not only for pupillary distance but also for lens depth, which lets you make sure your own glasses will never experience the conflict mine did with Quest 1.

Software and system setup is also greatly improved, and the passthrough, while not as hyper-real as Apple's Vision Pro by all accounts, is very, very good for most uses. It feels seamless to switch between a mixed and fully immersed view and to interact with people around you. Meta has cut some corners compared with Apple, like using a simple breathing white LED to show when passthrough is active to those around you, versus photorealistic renderings of your eyes, but it's remarkably good for something that costs nearly 7x less.

One of the first real mixed-reality experiences I was fortunate enough to have was a multiplayer game, where up to four players could join in and start fighting; it was essentially a Smash-type 3D platform combat game and was actually incredibly fun. I played with a Meta handler as well as another journalist, and I promptly crushed both of them. I won't mention the other journalist by name to spare his embarrassment.

Later, I managed to present a longer, more varied demo with many different test experiences, including some that displayed mixed reality and some more fully immersed ones that were closer to what I've tried before with other headsets. All of them were impressive, and even the full VR was so much better than it has been since the visuals have become so much sharper and because the processing power of this generation is completely advanced.

What may have been the best part of all of these demos, and of Zuck's presentation of Quest 3 overall, was that no one in the demo room ever mentioned the "metaverse," and Mark only said the word twice during the whole keynote today-the first time 34 minutes into the presentation and long after the Quest 3 segment, and then again in passing five minutes later.

The metaverse nearly became Meta's Titanic iceberg: a threatening, implacable inevitability that seemed to inspire more dread than excitement and optimism. No one wanted the idea of being plugged into a world controlled by Facebook and Zuckerberg and living out the rest of their lives digitally deprived of senses being exposed, not infrequently, to nausea-inducing stimuli.

This time, though, Meta appears to have actually wanted to be light and even playful, and additive to your existing, fulfilling life. Well, impressive they basically succeeded in that!

I am back in as a fan and user of VR thanks to the Quest 3. It's cool that things seem set to continue chugging in that direction. That is a very different place from where I was this time last year.

The metaverse, as a concept, almost turned out to be Meta's Titanic iceberg-the threatening, implacable inevitability that seemed more to incite fear than any excitement or optimism. Nobody, least of all users, could like the idea of living out the rest of their lives plugged into a virtual world controlled by Facebook and Zuckerberg, digitally deprived of senses, and often exposed to nausea-inducing stimuli.

This time, Meta very much wanted things lighter and more fun and additive to your existing life, which is fulfilling. What's impressive: they pretty much nailed it!

I am once again a fan and user of VR thanks to Quest 3, and it's going to be interesting to see where this leads. That's an extremely different place from where I was this time last year.