Pico, owned by ByteDance on the 22nd of September announced its new VR headset the ‘Pico 4’. With it’s initial release limited to parts of Europe, Japan, and South Korea, it will not be available here in Australia and there appears to be no imminent plans for an Australian release date.
However, it is not unnoticeable as the release date is the 18th of October. It is no coincidence that this release date is right next to Meta’s annual ‘Connect’ conference on October 11th. The ‘Pico 4’ aims to compete with the ‘Meta Quest 2’. Looking to capture parts of the European and Asian markets where Meta was previously banned and doesn’t sell well respectively.
Features
Operating as a standalone headset there are 2 models to be released. One with 128GB of storage costing approximately $730 AUD and another with 256GB of storage costing approximately $846 AUD. Since it is competing with the ‘Quest 2’ lets quickly compare their respective features.
| QUEST 2 | PICO 4 | |
| Display Resolution Per Eye | 1832 x 1920 | 2160 x 2160 |
| Maximum Refresh Rate | 120Hz | 90Hz |
| Weight Without Straps | 470g | 295g |
| Lens Type | Fresnel | Pancake |
| CPU | Qualcomm XR2 | Qualcomm XR2 |
| RAM | 6GB | 8GB |
| Passthrough | Low Resolution Grayscale | High Resolution Colour |
| Storage Base Model | 128GB | 128GB |
| Price | $761 AUD | $730 AUD |
As seen in the table above the base model Pico 4 offers a higher resolution, lower weight, better lenses, more RAM and a superior passthrough than the Meta Quest 2. It is important to note that these are just spec sheet numbers. The success of the headset will rely upon the user experience like all other competing headsets.
Competing With Meta
The major downside is if you want to use the ‘Pico 4’ with your PC, an additional dongle is needed to connect wirelessly. Costing an additional $85 AUD it is not a deal breaker but rather frustrating that it is not included in the main product. The Quest 2 has a similar feature where an additional link cable is needed to connect wired, however it has an inbuilt feature for connecting wirelessly.
ByteDance is the owner of Pico as well as TikTok so naturally the experiences encountered in its VR can be easily shared to TikTok. Unlike the ‘Quest 2’ you will not need a TikTok account to use the ‘Pico 4’, which was a cause of annoyance for many users. Additionally, Pico is working on an alternative to Meta’s Horizon Worlds metaverse experience, named ‘Pico Worlds’. It is rumored to be launched early 2023 but given the lack of success on Meta’s end it will be curious to see what new features Pico will provide.
Meta’s continued dominance of the VR market will make it interesting to see what games and experiences Pico can provide. It is nice to see the VR headset competition start to heat up and hopefully assist in the development of the technology.
For more information on upcoming releases consider reading about the Next Generation Of Headsets.
We’d love to know what you think about the Pico 4 so let us know what you think in the comments below or on our Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
