First and foremost, it is comfortable to wear. I still remember talking about the problem of neo 3 pressing face before, and the comfort is poor after wearing it for a long time. On the one hand, the head display part is heavy and unbalanced with the rear battery part; In addition, the mask material is hard and the lower side leaks light, which needs to be optimized. This time, the head weight of Pico 4 reached 295g, which was 26% less than the previous generation. If it's really difficult to exercise with neo 3, I believe that controlling weight with a brand-new sports app should have a good fitness experience. The mask is made of brand-new SuperSkin foam, which is close to the user's facial skin, can absorb sweat and breathe freely, bringing a better veneer wearing experience, and the comfort of wearing for a long time should be greatly improved. By the way, compared with neo 3' s snap-on mask, it needs to be disassembled, and the upgraded magnetic mask is much more convenient. At the same time, it is additionally equipped with a nose pad to block the light leakage from the lower side and can be installed by itself. In addition, the fixing belt at the top of Pico 4 is designed to be detachable. It seems that you only need to wear auxiliary fixation in sports and fitness scenes, and in most cases, you don't have to worry about the handsome hairstyle being destroyed. In a word, we can draw the conclusion that the improvement of wearing comfort is very obvious. If I define it myself, this is a promotion from 5 to 8.
Pico 4 side view
Second, show the effect. The resolution was upgraded from 4K in both eyes to 4K+, and PPI was upgraded from 773 to 1200, an increase of 55%. This improvement is still great, but I think neo 3 is good, and I believe that the fineness of Pico 4 image quality can be icing on the cake. The viewing angle can be increased from 98 degrees to 105 degrees, which is closer to the stereoscopic viewing angle of 120 degrees, which will bring a stronger sense of immersion. Although the viewing angle increased, the angular resolution of PPD increased from 19.6 to 20.6. The pupillary distance adjustment has also been upgraded from three-stage physical adjustment to electrodeless electric adjustment. In addition, Pancake scheme itself can avoid the dark angle and distortion of Fresnel lens edge, and it is believed that Pico 4 will also make some progress in display effect. If I define it, the display effect will be improved from 7 to 8.
Pico 4 brand new handle
Third, the handle system. The most intuitive thing is that the appearance of the handle has changed greatly, and the tracking band has been changed from the top ring design to the oblique semi-circle design. The overall volume has become larger, but it is also more beautiful, but the layout of the buttons is exactly the same as that of neo 3, and old users should be able to adapt easily. There are many infrared emitters in the ring, which are upgraded from the third generation of 16 to 20, so as to achieve better hand positioning and tracking, and this design can avoid mutual interference when the left and right hands approach. Compared with neo 3, you can achieve more detailed hand control actions in VR games. In addition, the ultra-wideband Hybersense motor is added to the new handle, which can realize vibration feedback of 50 to 500Hz frequency, and the recoil of shooting and the pulling force of fishing will be more realistic, bringing a stronger sense of immersion. At the same time, Pico 4 can also interact with hands without the handle, but the Beta version is still online, and the integration of the official version and third-party applications will take some time. I expect it is still difficult to play games by hand, but it should not be a problem to realize simple interface operation, such as watching videos with VR. I finally caught up with quest 2 next door. In addition to the handle, Pico also brings a somatosensory tracker, which can be tied to the leg to track the leg movements, which can bring a richer experience during exercise and fitness. Personally, this handle system, or more accurately called identification and tracking system, is an improvement from 6 to 8.
Pico brand-new virtual human
Four, the important thing to say three times, software ecology, software ecology, or software ecology. Pico has increased the layout of fitness, games, videos and social content. Pico announced that it will jointly launch the exclusive VR version of Just dance with Ubisoft, which is expected to go online in 23 years. The VR version of fighting course was jointly launched in Laimei, and the VR fitness content was jointly launched with Pamela * * *, a celebrity of fitness network. In conjunction with VR entertainment companies Wave and Discovery, more VR concerts and documentaries will be launched in the future. Pico brought the World Cup to the VR world for the first time through the cooperation with CCTV and Tik Tok. This is very remarkable and I am very much looking forward to it. In terms of games, Pico brought "The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners 2" and "Bloody Gangs: The King's Ransom". It's hard to say how many models can be used in China. In addition, Pico also announced that it will launch its own virtual social platform Pico World in 23 years, which is also good, but it would be better if the name is a little creative. On the system side, Pico 4 will be equipped with a brand-new Pico OS 5.0 operating system, which can perform new functions such as multitasking, gesture screen capture, video recording, voice-to-text conversion and so on. Virtual people will be integrated into more scenes and applications. Now it seems that I haven't seen the virtual human of Pico 3 system since I pinched it. I hope the new system can give more applications to virtual people. Software ecology, from 4 to 6, has made obvious progress, but there is still a long way to go.
Finally, I think Pico 4 has some regrets. First of all, the pancake scheme itself realizes multiple folding of the optical path through the design of multi-lens folding optical path. The diopter can be adjusted by moving the lens. The previously released Skyworth Pancake 1 and Pico's own Pico VR glasses have already supported diopter adjustment. However, Pico 4 may not support this function because of volume control or stability, which should be one of my most anticipated functions. You know, with the current myopia rate, almost everyone will buy another myopia lens after buying a Pico. Second, the screen refresh rate, I was a little shocked when I saw 90Hz, because the refresh rate of 120Hz was unlocked through OTA upgrade half a year after the release of neo 3, and a higher refresh rate would bring a smoother visual experience. 90Hz is really almost interesting, probably because it was released before Meta and not done before software adaptation. I hope to welcome the software upgrade as soon as possible. Thirdly, Pico 4' s chip has not been upgraded, and Qualcomm XR2 is still used. Although this is not the reason of Pico, most consumers will care whether the most important CPU of hardware equipment has not been upgraded. Just look at the sales of Apple's iPhone 14 next door. Moreover, the performance of XR2 can't support Pico to develop too many new games, such as color perspective AR function. It is rumored that Qualcomm will not release XR3 until the end of 2023, and it is estimated that VR terminals with upgraded processors will not be available until 2024. Fourth, the battery life has not improved, the battery is still 5300mAh, and the charging power should still look like 18W. However, considering that the optical efficiency of pancake scheme is much lower than that of Fresnel scheme, it is necessary to greatly improve the brightness of LCD light source to ensure that the viewing brightness of users is at the same level, so the power consumption will inevitably increase and the comprehensive endurance will inevitably decrease.
To sum up, the wearing comfort of Pico 4 is obviously improved, and the display effect and the upgrade of the handle system are limited. After all, neo 3 has reached a good level. As for the richness of software ecology, it is estimated that most users of neo 3 can also experience it. Therefore, if you don't have a VR all-in-one before and want to try it, then Pico 4 can definitely become your first VR, mature enough and excellent enough. If you are an old user of Pico neo 3, then I don't think this upgrade is meaningful.
Finally, I want to talk about the dispute between Pico and Meta. In fact, this is the first time that Pico has held a press conference abroad, and it is five days earlier than that in China, so the competition with Meta Quest is self-evident. It is worth noting that Meta's base camp in North America is not within the overseas sales area announced by Pico. In the past, although Pico was a success in China, it still had a big gap with Meta in the global market. At present, the hardware configuration level of Pico 4 is far above Quest 2, and its pricing is lower than Quest 2. The determination of a strong man to break his wrist is beyond words. This strategy of "software is not enough, hardware comes together" is acceptable at present, but in the long run, only software ecology can retain users. The enrichment of software ecology is not a one-off event. I hope Pico and Byte will continue to invest and make Pico a real light of domestic products.