Best answer: The Oculus Quest 2 features 50% more pixels than the original Oculus Quest, with a resolution of “nearly 4K”.
- Pre-order it now!: Oculus Quest 2 (From $299 at Amazon)
More pixels for the Oculus Quest 2
The Oculus Quest 2 features a display with 50% more pixels than the one found on the Oculus Quest. A brand new single-panel fast-switching RGB-stripe LCD display sits inside the Oculus Quest 2 with a resolution of 1832×1920 pixels per eye. That totals a nearly 4K resolution when combined. Comparatively, the Oculus Quest’s PenTile OLED display featured a resolution of 1440×1600 pixels per eye.
Having a higher-resolution display and a more processing power means developers are sure to pack even better graphics into Oculus Quest 2 games. Better graphics usually means larger games, so it’s a good thing the Oculus Quest 2 has up to 256GB of storage.
A diamond PenTile or RGB Stripe display for the Oculus Quest 2?
The original Oculus Quest utilized a PenTile OLED display with 1440×1600 resolution per eye. With a PenTile display, each pixel is made up of sub-pixels that are arranged in a diamond shape. When placing these pixels next to each other, there’s a natural gap between pixels because diamonds don’t fit perfectly together in a grid. RGB Stripe displays use a simple vertical row of sub-pixels to create a single pixel, which can be placed side-by-side in a much tighter configuration, leaving smaller gaps between pixels.
Facebook is utilizing an RGB stripe display on the Oculus Quest 2, as they did on the Oculus Rift S, which means an automatic increase in clarity. That’s because our eyes can no longer see the space between the pixels and, therefore, interpret that as a much higher-resolution display. While this change doesn’t increase the pixel count itself, it makes the display crisper by placing pixels closer to each other. To our eyes, pixels that are closer to one another look almost identical to simply adding additional pixels.
What type of display for the Oculus Quest 2?
The Oculus Quest 2 utilizes a fast-switching LCD display.
The original Oculus Quest utilized an OLED display, which is known for its deep colors, perfect black levels, and super low latency response times. This past year, Oculus and several other manufacturers switched from PenTile OLED panels to fast-switching LCD panels, a new type of display technology developed for VR headsets.
While fast-switching LCD panels don’t feature deep colors or perfect blacks like an OLED display, they do feature ultra-fast response times and are generally more pixel-dense. That means that, even at the same number resolution, a fast-switching LCD display looks much sharper than a PenTile OLED display does.
What’s the refresh rate of the display on the Oculus Quest 2?
The Oculus Quest 2’s display supports 72Hz and 90Hz refresh rates. The original Oculus Quest only supported 60Hz and 72Hz refresh rates. A higher refresh rate means more than just smoother action in VR, it also means fewer people will suffer from motion sickness while playing.
Facebook has been angling the Oculus Quest line of products as the solution for gamers looking for an easy, quality VR experience. It makes sense for them, then, to choose specs that best fit this goal. An increased refresh rate fits within in that paradigm and makes the Oculus Quest 2 experience even smoother than the original.
Preorder now
Oculus Quest 2
From $299 at Amazon
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Grab one while you still can
If the Oculus Quest 2 is anything like the original Oculus Quest, it’s going to be hard to find. Facebook has improved seemingly everything with the second-generation Oculus Quest, making this the VR system to get.
