iFixIt's latest teardown video has good news and bad news about the new Meta Quest 3 mixed reality headset.

The good news is that despite being half the price of the Quest Pro (and a third of the original's short-lived MSRP), the components clearly do not offer half the performance. The bad news is that repairability is clearly not yet near the top of Meta's list of priorities.

The main problem is that it is difficult for users to get to the component that seems to need replacement the most: the 19.44Wh lithium polymer battery. It is hidden behind a maze of components, coaxial cables, and connectors, as well as the mainboard, heat sink, and "about 50 screws."

Oddly enough, once you get there, it is actually easily replaceable, but getting there is not for the faint of heart. As iFixit's Shahram Mokhtari laments in his commentary, "The only way to get to it is to get to it.

But it's not all bad; the controller itself is quite simple. All you have to do is remove the sides and replace one AA battery. If you need to dig deeper, there are only a few screws, a magnet, and a series of ribbon cables.

However, with no repair guidance from Meta, no spare parts available, and repairability still clearly not front and center in the company's design philosophy, iFixIt gives the Quest 3 a repairability score of 4/10. However, it is important to note that it is "a significant improvement over the Quest Pro when it comes to repairability."

For iFixIt, these baby steps are important. This is because, while VR headsets are far from mainstream, iFixIt wants to instill superior repairability in manufacturers in case VR headsets could become a big part of the market.

"It is our hope that by calling attention to these design flaws, engineers and product designers will reflect on them in the next iteration so that repairability and reusability are already at the forefront of discussions when the "iPhone moment" arrives," Mokhtari wrote in the accompanying article in the accompanying article.

Beyond repairability, the good news is that the Meta Quest 3 not only justifies its cost, but is actually superior to the $999 Quest Pro in some ways.

Sure, there's no fancy eye-tracking hardware, but fast performance led by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 XR2 Gen 2 chipset and a slightly higher resolution of 2,064 x 2,208 pixels per eye at a 120Hz refresh rate has (while Quest Pro peaks at 1,920 x 1,800).

Most importantly, it has a time-of-flight (ToF) sensor, a feature that Quest Pro cut to keep the price and weight down. In addition to being important for hand and controller tracking, this superior sensor means that, unlike its predecessor, the Quest 3 can know the distance between objects, eliminating the need to map out a "safe space" before beginning a VR session.

Interestingly, the ToF sensor is sized to fit perfectly into the gaps Mokhtari found in the Quest Pro. While we cannot expect this manual upgrade to work well, it is interesting to note that it was likely considered in Meta's original design.

"Overall, I personally don't think it's fair to call Quest 3 a compromise between Quest 2 and Quest Pro," Mokhtari explains.

"Quest 3 has a better LCD panel, a time-of-flight sensor for a better pass-through experience, and a better processor."

Sure, eye tracking is lacking, but if developers don't create killer software, the average user won't lose much by choosing Meta's less expensive option. In other words, Meta is whipping its own backside if it is thinking of making a second-generation Pro headset.