VR is a ton of fun, let me be clear. Time flies by whether I’m playing “Half Life: Alyx” or using my Quest 3 to put my work up on a needlessly large virtual screen. Meta keeps expanding and refining the platform at an admirable clip, and I have to give the company credit for keeping its contributions to VR open and relatively affordable. Apple is also making welcome strides in this market, price aside. I don’t regret purchasing my headset. But would I recommend it as a mixed reality desktop? Not at all.
I could point to how the battery life is poor, or that it’s uncomfortable to wear a headset for any extended period. Instead, just look at any workspace — whether a home office or a corporate cubicle sprawl. Everyone is happily at work with physical screens and peripherals despite VR now being more accessible and affordable than ever. I rest my case.
VR, for now, is a toy. A fun toy, but a toy nonetheless, perhaps evidenced by a 2024 YouGov poll that found only about 15% of Americans own a headset. Meanwhile, the U.S. Census Office Bureau says over 90% of households have a computer, and Pew Research says over 97% of individuals own a phone. Clearly, there’s no broad incentive to make your desktop a fully VR setup. If there was, you’d see those numbers climb, and people would be using headsets more often in the wild. This is the way I see it: If I had to choose between my MacBook or the Quest 3 for just about any task (in or out of the home), the MacBook would win every day.
