Steam Frame review: Valve's new VR headset put to the test

Steam Frame is finally here — Valve's second in-house VR headset after 2019's Index, packing upgraded internals, PC-to-headset streaming, and standalone capability. Having spent two weeks with it, I can say it's a genuinely good — often excellent — piece of hardware: lightweight, remarkably comfortable, full of clever ideas, and a joy for PC VR streaming. As a standalone device, however, I have reservations, and it feels not quite ready for prime time.

How It Compares

A caveat first: I'm a casual VR enthusiast rather than a technical expert, so for a deep hardware breakdown, Will Judd's Steam Frame preview and RPS hardware editor James Archer's review are the places to go.

Against Valve's Index, though, the gains are easy to summarise. Weight has nearly halved, from 800g to 440g. Per-eye resolution jumps from 1440x1600 to 2160x2160, with refresh rates between 72Hz and 144Hz, and old fresnel lenses give way to pancake lenses for a slimmer, clearer design. Tracking is handled by on-device cameras instead of room base stations, and there's an onboard battery plus standalone operation.

Next to 2023's Meta Quest 3, the leap is smaller but real: slightly higher resolution than Quest 3's 2064x2208 (though neither matches PSVR2's OLED), a slightly lighter build (Quest 3 is 515g), in-device eye tracking, double the memory (16GB vs 8GB), and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 that Archer says is roughly 30 percent more powerful than Quest 3's Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 — a meaningful edge given Frame only pushes about two percent more pixels.

The Price of Entry

That engineering doesn't come cheap. The 256GB model starts at £889 — £340 more than the 512GB Meta Quest 3 — rising to £1,089 for 1TB. The box includes the headset, a rear-mounted swappable battery, two controllers, a USB streaming dongle, a charging cable, and a glasses spacer; Valve partner Zenni Optical sells snap-in prescription lenses for around $70 a pair. Add-ons include a £59 Ergonomic Accessories Kit and a £29 PSU.

Whether the £340 premium matters depends on the buyer — some will gladly pay it to avoid Meta's ecosystem, others won't. Either way, my fortnight with Frame revealed hardware with the potential to be great.

Standalone and Verified Games

Setup is painless, apart from an unexpected 40-minute first update halt (possibly a pre-release beta quirk). From there, you can install games directly to internal storage — both VR titles and flatscreen games via Valve's Proton compatibility layer — or stream from PC.

Valve is leaning hard on flatscreen play, sensible given the slowdown in VR game releases, and has introduced a "Great on Frame" verification system akin to its Steam Deck programme. Around 130 games will be verified at launch, split between VR titles (which must run at a minimum of 72 fps at 1728x1728) and flatscreen games (720p at 30fps).

My biggest surprise was how few of my VR games carried the badge — among the verified: Arizona Sunshine 2, Pistol Whip, Moss VR, The Room VR, and Walkabout Golf. My verified flatscreen list was far longer, spanning Factorio, Dread, Inside, Animal Well, Dave the Diver, Silksong, Portal 2, and Streets of Rage 4. Walkabout Golf ran flawlessly standalone, proving a handy testing baseline.

Hardware Quirks

The accessory kit brings snugger grip straps (enabling open-palm controller holding), a rubbery nose flap, and a supportive headstrap that shifts weight off your face — I could play notably longer with it. It does pull the headset's top inward, letting light leak in below, which the nose flap addresses; fitting it means pulling much of the headset apart via clasps and clips, revealing how elegantly modular the device is, though some light still crept in.

Picture quality is crisp and decently rich, but to my eyes not a dramatic step over Quest 3, and it still feels "goggly" despite its "up to 110 degrees" field of view. Audio — dual speaker drivers per ear integrated into the headstrap — is punchy with convincing surround but weak bass. There's no headphone jack, though Valve reportedly plans an "enthusiast" accessories pack a few months post-launch with a "premium" audio solution and a swappable battery. Standalone battery life is currently about an hour, which isn't great.

Other niggles: the fan vents blast cool air at your eyes and expel heat upward (angled harmlessly so far), and the magnetised foam cushioning can pop off when adjusting the headset. Still, it's an extremely comfortable headset I've enjoyed immensely. Passthrough cameras are monochrome — fine for orientation, less so for mixed reality fans, though partner Arcturus offers a £129/€157/$149 full-colour upgrade claiming fidelity "beyond" Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro.

Controllers and Flatscreen Gaming

The controllers are excellent: around 140g each, six degrees of rotational freedom, full finger and thumb tracking, and roughly 40 hours from AA batteries. They mirror Quest 3's Touch Plus ergonomically but add a left d-pad, four right face buttons, clicky shoulder buttons, resistant triggers, and a "dual-stage" inner grip trigger that feels slightly flimsy. Crucially, the gamepad-style layout means most Proton-compatible flatscreen games work natively — I thoroughly enjoyed Cuphead and Hades in Frame's cinema-like wraparound mode, with cloud saves easing device-hopping. The vast circular VR backdrop remains a bit bleak (in-game-reactive virtual uplights are a neat touch, though).

The big caveat: Frame isn't a powerhouse — Archer notes it's weaker than even Steam Deck. 2D games run reliably via Proton, but unverified modest 3D indies were hit-and-miss; Botany Garden couldn't hold a stable framerate even on lowest settings, and modern blockbusters look out of reach without dedicated optimisation. Even Dark Souls 2 at 30fps in VR was unpleasant enough that I'll stick to 2D standalone.

Source: Eurogamer