Meta's Quest 3 headset was given a four-out-of-ten score due to its absence of manuals, OEM spare parts, and "any sign of repairability considerations whatsoever."

As the iFixit team tore into the headset, the first significant failure from a repairability perspective was the "extremely complicated procedure of replacing the lithium polymer battery pack."

"Replacing the battery in the Quest 3 is as difficult as it was in the Quest 2, and far more difficult than the Quest Pro."

However, the batteries in the controllers are AAs rather than the lithium-ion cells of the Quest Pro, so is not as bad.

Faced with a multitude of screws and the lack of a service manual, iFixit stripped the headset back to its bare components, revealing the new time of flight sensor -- essential for hand and controller tracking as well as mapping out the space around the user -- and, beyond the fan, the mainboard.

The Quest 3 is powered by a Snapdragon 8, the XR2 Gen2.

According to iFixit: "Leaked benchmarks suggest that this newer SoC improves on the XR2+ found in the Quest Pro both in terms of performance and power efficiency."

The biggest letdown was the battery.  While it was standard and theoretically replaceable, it took iFixit three Fixmats, a single tray of plastic, and a very careful organising of about 50 screws to get close to fixing it.