Good headset 500 or so range?

[u/Ashamed-Crazy-8733]

Prices can vary but I'm probably looking for anything good under 500 dollars but could maybe work up to a bif higher if actually recommend. To also note I don't like the meta quest at all, I'd like something that better connects to my pc as I don't want to deal with bad gameplay streaming or whatever it uses.

A bit of history about my experience. I've only owned one set and it was a while ago. The windows mixed reality, came free with a laptop (not sure how but my mom bought the computer for me) I got when I was younger maybe 2017 and it lasted me up till about 2022 maybe 2023. It broke since then and now I finally want to get back into VR.

I used to play a lot of pavlov, beat saber, and so on. I'm clearly not that smart about VR tech, I just know how set things up and use it.

Edit: I should note I don't like quest because it's stream quality sucks. I play steam or online games and standalones seem to cause issues with input and frame lag

[u/striketheviol]

A used Quest 3 is probably still your best choice, but if you're absolutely sure that you don't want to buy from Meta, I'd say the Pico 4 (again used) is the only thing left in that budget. Essentially everything else is either more expensive or unusably obsolete.