What do we think of Pico? Good? Bad? Who Cares?

[derrt]

This is a genuine question and open for discussion. I primarily have experience with Meta Quest 3 and not a lot with Pico. So what is your impression of it and its place in the VR industry? Does it have a place in the competition, or is it just old news waiting to be phased out? I'm really interested in hearing your opinions, because who knows better than the actual gamers and people who have a fresh perspective and aren't influenced by corporate politics.

[RuneSR2]

Who cares 🙂 I'd go for PSVR2 (oled, 2x 2000x2040 panel res, 120 Hz, big fov, DisplayPort connected), over any Pico hmd for now - unless something very interesting happens next week, but I'm not holding my breath. 

[BigPappa_]

If they have  hall effect sensors that eliminate stick drift issues in there controllers, and everything else beats the quest 3 then I would buy  one

[oculusness]

With the recent release in China of the Pico 4 ultra, this is looking to be a very good contender, without meta and its unwanted social features.  Seems a no brainer.

Pico 4 Ultra Announced (communityforums.atmeta.com)

[OMOTO]

I picked up a Pico 4 about a year ago now and have some mixed opinions.

By a long way, it's the most comfortable headset I've ever worn. An elite strap out of the box makes a world of difference and it really blew me away how big the difference was. It was also the first headset I'd used with color passthrough and while there's definitely HMDs with better quality systems that that, these days, it was impressive.

I just always found the systems odd. Some parts of the store app were in Chinese, you need a different app to play videos from your PC than the app than the one to play games, the feed you see every time you boot the headset was filled with dance videos and basically nothing else. I liked the controllers, I loved the Mixed Reality Capture app, just the OS needed some work.

I was excited for this announcement but the Ultra doesn't have me scrambling to pre-order. It feels pointless, with no real benefit over the Quest 3 besides a megapixel bump on the passthrough cameras but as we've seen with recent updates, the software plays as big a part in passthrough as in the hardware.

That all being said, I agree with @RuneSR2. If a headset doesn't have OLED, I probably won't consider upgrading to it in the future and worst case, I don't mind being tethered in for a PSVR2. We'll see what Meta brings in response.

[kojack]

That goes with what my main Pico concerns have been: how well it's suited to a non-chinese market and the state of the software.

Also the level of support given to a non-chinese market.

[DaftnDirect]

Personally, having experienced OLED vs LCD vs LCD with local dimming… and Fresnel vs Pancake lenses, Pancakes make by far the biggest improvement to image quality including contrast. Never liked OLEDs in a headset because of other issues like mura and slightly artificial colours., but that may be just me… LCD with local dimming is my preference.

But I really would emphasise anyone thinking of buying a Quest 3S, I know cost is important to many especially when buying their first headset but don’t underestimate the difference good pancake lenses make.

I assume all Picos now have pancakes? don’t know how they compare to Meta lenses though, and I don’t have any experience of Pico’s OS.