I’ll preface this by warning you that the below text is far too long, contains far too many parentheses and plenty of very personal opinions on the subject. It’s also more of a slightly edited flow of consciousness thing, so the structure isn’t the best.

Index is a costly high-end device for enthusiasts: Complex to set up, requiring external laser emitters being placed high up in the room and ensuring coverage of the play area; depending on your room’s layout and what you’re playing with the headset, you need to purchase additional emitters. Sitting for example is fine with two, as is if you’re mainly facing only two directions - but if you’re moving around a lot, you’ll want at least one more lighthouse. I wouldn’t really want to use this kind of system with less than three base stations. As you can see from this issue alone, it’s very much not a plug in and play kind of device, since even once you’ve figured out the hardware side, you’ll still spend a not insignificant amount of time configuring the software, often for individual games. The high refresh rate also means that hardware requirements are not exactly low (since you really do not want frame rate drops in VR - it’s 144 Hz or bust with this device, unless you like to lose the contents of your stomach in an unpleasant fashion) and the screens are starting to show their age in terms of color accuracy. While this is still one of the best options out there due to the groudbreaking controllers alone (which were tailor-made for HL Alyx), I wouldn’t recommend it as a first VR headeset, unless you take apart every device you’re using. Also keep in mind that it’s frequently sold without the necessary accessories second-hand, which might make it appear deceptively cheap. Always buy a VR headset with controllers and (if it requires them) base stations, since both are much harder to find on their own.

Look for a headset with inside-out tracking (which means no external cameras, sensors or emitters). [Edit: This advice turns out to be problematic in hindsight.] These are easier to set up and provide 90% of the experience at a fraction of the cost and complexity, with the added bonus of being quickly able to set up the headset in almost any location. Even then, the tracking will impress you.

In the past, I frequently recommended WMR headsets, since these are cheap on the used market, have excellent high-res displays (some even OLED), yet low hardware requirements and are extremely easy to set up. Five minutes from unboxing to working roomscale that will blow your socks off, at the most. Tracking is excellent for the headset and good enough for the controllers, but not outstanding - and the controllers don’t support fancy finger tracking due to their age. The problem is that Microsoft has sunsetted them after years of neglect, with the latest version of Windows already dropping support, so while I’ll continue to use my Samsung Odyssey Plus and it’s fantastic OLED screens for as long as it’s working (I configured Windows to only download security updates and ignore the feature update that would render it inoperable, staying with version 23H2, which should give me time until November of 2025), I can’t really recommend this platform to others anymore.

I have to admit, I haven’t paid that much attention to VR hardware since I bought the Samsung, because I’m really only an occasional VR user and it’s perfect for this. VR supplements normal gaming, but it’s not a replacement, in my eyes at least. VR gaming is a fundamentally different experience, since you are moving around, yet are essentially in a closed-off environment, which can be difficult if you have other people around you. It’s also much more of a commitment. You need to make space, put on a headset, make sure controllers are charged (and the headset itself if it’s not wired), inform people living with you not to burst into the room, since it can result in either accidents or heart attacks or both (I’m only slightly exaggerating, but you do NOT want to suddenly get touched when you are fully immersed).

Facebook is effectively dominating the market thanks to having invested astonishing sums of money into it (at least compared to prior to the LLM boom), to the point that some people think that “Quest” is a term for all VR headsets (Kleenex problem) or aren’t even aware of any alternatives. The Quest 3 in its two main variants (and storage subvariants) is a competent piece of hardware, no doubt, capable of both decent standalone VR (best for media consumption and exclusives) and PCVR, with good screens and solid controllers at a highly competitive (= highly subsidized dumping) price. Even the older Quest 2 still holds up and remains well supported for now. The problem is that you’re inviting a Facebook device littered with cameras and microphones into your home, a device that needs to create a 3D scan of your ro