If it is your intention to buy a standalone VR viewer in the near future, your choice could easily fall on the Pico 4, an excellent product that stands as a direct competitor to the other viewers on the market, with many advantages and only a few small defects. And it has an excellent price/quality ratio.
But let’s go in order: first of all Pico 4 has, compared to its direct competitor, the Quest 2 of Metà, a series of small but important upgrades, such as 8Gb of Ram, a higher resolution, 2160×2160, a decidedly lower weight and pancake lenses instead of fresnels. It is therefore smaller than the Quest 2, and it is nice to look at, with a very good fastening system and production materials that seem more consistent and solid, up to a mask for the distance of the glasses which is magnetized.
In depth
Where are we with the metaverse: 5 answers to understand
by Emanuele Capone
The weight, as he says, is very low, about six hundred grams, only three hundred of which are from the viewer without a battery, which makes it comfortable to wear and also very well balanced. The battery has a very good autonomy and will hardly abandon you in the highlight of a game. The operating system is definitely good, not great, but updates will likely fix the bugs quickly. The price is excellent, slightly lower than the competition (subject to offers of course), €429 for the 128GB version and €499.99 for the 256GB version.
Screen and lenses do their job very well, playing is a pleasure because the image is well defined and engaging, without major flaws. It is equipped with two two and a half inch Fast LCD displays, 4K resolution, maximum refresh rate at 90 Hz. The wide-angle viewing angle is 105 degrees The distance between the lenses can be adjusted directly via software, by moving a slider which acts on the motor connected to the lenses and thus seeing the adjustment in real time, the minimum distance is 62mm, the maximum is 72.
Gadget
Pico 4, the new generation viewer to make virtual reality accessible to everyone
There is the color passthrough, a real novelty, it recognizes the playing field well and memorizes the room without having to start over at each restart. In general it works very well, you play very fluidly, loading times are short, satisfaction is high. There are many titles available and the catalog is constantly updated, but having to choose between one viewer and another, it is good that you look at the catalog of each one’s exclusives so as not to be disappointed later.
Zuckerberg’s announcement: “In the metaverse we will also have legs”
by Bruno Ruffilli
It is very simple to use, the controllers are small and solid, beautiful, comfortable and able to respond well to commands and the tracking is very good. They need two batteries, but that’s an acceptable flaw. And there’s a USB-C socket for connecting a PC. And there’s Streaming Assistant, a software for playing PC video games on SteamVr, with a Gigabit router with 5G Wi-Fi band. And there’s a Remote Play Assistant to stream video wirelessly from your PC. The audio is more than sufficient, but not at the levels necessary to fully enjoy it in a truly immersive way, and there is no headphone jack input, for best results you need a USB-C / jack adapter .
In general it is a well-made product, which offers certain satisfaction to gamers who are already familiar with viewers, but which can even be surprising for those who want to ‘immerse themselves’ in a three-dimensional playful world for the first time. Basically, the general effect is very good, the vision defects are very limited, the fluidity of the games is remarkable. But the beauty is that it can be used in many other ways, for training and sport, for cinema and concerts, with a versatility that therefore makes it interesting even outside the videogame world.