To really put the Rift S through its paces, I spent time revisiting some of my favorite VR experiences from the Rift. First up was Superhot, which looked noticeably sharper than before, with much bolder colors. It's a bit of an abstract game, but the Rift S still made me feel like I was actually standing in that world, fighting off bad guys and dodging bullets. Thumper was as fast and hellish as ever. And the Rift S had no trouble tracking my terrible Beat Saber sessions. After testing the Quest for so long though, I was even more annoyed about managing a cable and being stuck in front of my PC. But it's not a bad tradeoff for vastly superior graphics.

The forest world of Moss, for example, looks truly lush and alive on the Rift S. It's a significant upgrade from when I first played it on the PS VR and Rift. While I noticed black levels on the headset weren't as inky dark as the previous OLED screens, the additional subpixel rendering on the new displays adds a lot more detail overall. Still, I wasn't as wowed by the Rift S's screen as I was by Samsung's Odyssey Mixed Reality headset or the Vive Pro, both of which used huge high-resolution OLED displays. I was also surprised that I didn't notice the lower refresh rate too much -- the Rift S never left me dizzy or teary-eyed, which I often experience when dealing with wonky VR refresh rates.

With immersive video and other VR narrative experiences, like the creepy Gymnasia stop motion short, the Rift S looked significantly better than before. Text looked sharper, colors popped more, and the motion tracking was a lot more consistent. But for the most part, those were also things I'd rather view on the Quest or even the Oculus Go, since I'd like the flexibility to watch them anywhere.

In many ways, the Rift S feels like a stop-gap solution. According to a TechCrunch report, Oculus cancelled plans for a true Rift follow-up, a huge shift that prompted co-founder Brendan Iribe to leave. Instead, its put more weight behind the Quest, which has the potential to bring VR to more consumers, but doesn't offer anywhere near the level of quality of a PC VR headset. The company claims its still committed to high-end computer-based VR, but if this is what they mean, I'm starting to get a bit worried.

Competition at the high-end of VR is heating up. Valve just announced its Index headset for a whopping $1,000. It's going the Vive route, with a bunch of external sensors for room-scale tracking. But it also offers bold new features like 120/144Hz screens for incredibly smooth VR, as well as Valve's long-awaited Knuckles motion controllers. We're also seeing better Windows Mixed Reality headsets on the horizon, like HP's $599 Reverb, which features an incredibly sharp 2,160 by 2,160 resolution per eye.

If you're in the market for a new PC VR headset, it's probably worth waiting a bit to see how these new offerings work out. Another option, like I previously mentioned, is to snag a Rift when it's on sale. It went down to $300 over the holidays, complete with motion controllers. Now that the Rift S is around, I'd bet it'll get even cheaper.

If you absolutely need a new headset right away, and you don't want to deal with sensor hassles, you could do worse than the Rift S. But it would have been far more compelling last year. Now that we're three years on from the launch of the Rift, Oculus' fans are eager for their next big thing. Unfortunately, they won't find it here -- Oculus is clearly far more focused on the Quest.