A milestone product, PICO 4 shoulders the historical responsibility of popularizing all-in-one VR headsets

As a VR player, I have been tracking the development of VR ecology at home and abroad for a long time. In my opinion, if you want to choose the strongest domestic all-in-one VR manufacturer, then PICO under ByteDance is undoubtedly the only choice.

Not long ago, they released the upgraded version of PICO NEO 3 - PICO 4, removing the word "NEO", making the product name simpler and the performance more powerful.

At the same time, PICO also invited young musician Dou Jingtong and table tennis world champion Sun Yingsha as product spokespersons, and the promotion efforts are very strong. Such strong promotion efforts are rare both at home and abroad. After all, VR is still a small circle today.

The reason why PICO is promoting its new product with such great force is naturally to take this opportunity to help popularize all-in-one VR devices at home and abroad.

After using PICO 4 for a while, today I would like to share my subjective feelings with you and explore with you whether PICO 4 can fulfill its historical mission of promoting the VR ecosystem.

Avant-garde appearance, full of futuristic sense

Although I had watched the entire domestic launch of PICO 4 and seen photos of the real machine on the Internet, after getting it in my hands, I was still shocked by its avant-garde design language.

If you have watched the movie "Ready Player One" before, you will probably be able to immediately associate the front design of PICO 4 with the VR glasses worn by the male protagonist in the play. The black patch on the front that looks like a glass mirror makes PICO 4 look full of science fiction and futuristic.

In the center of the front is a color camera that enables PICO 4 to provide color perspective function. In this way, players no longer have to endure the mainstream black and white perspective experience on the market, and can see the surrounding objects clearly.

On the left side of the console is the Type-C charging port, which can be used for both data transmission and charging. When you go out, you only need to bring a Type-C data cable, freeing you from the hassle of carrying a bunch of cables.

The power button is on the right side of the console, and you can turn it on and off by long pressing it; the volume button is placed on the strap, the forward button is the volume up, and the reverse button is the volume down, which is very intuitive and can be operated blindly when used for the second time.

The back half of the strap is the PICO 4's back head support and battery. The former is made of imitation leather material that is not easy to retain sweat, and provides good support for the back of the head. The battery has a capacity of 5400mAh and supports 20W fast charging. The two are combined to form its back half.

Because of the weight balance in the back half, PICO 4 continues the balanced design of PICO NEO 3. Even if users wear it for a long time, they will not feel neck pain. The wearing experience is very comfortable. This design is indeed very user-friendly.

It is worth mentioning that the length of the PICO 4 strap can be freely adjusted using the knob on the back of the head support, without the need to manually pull and adjust the length. This not only extends the life of the strap, but also makes the wearing experience more natural.

The handle of PICO 4 has also made great progress compared to the previous generation. The newly designed handle appearance makes it less likely to collide with each other when playing VR games. The texture of the handle is also excellent, and the touch of the buttons has been greatly improved. When holding it, you can clearly feel its excellent quality.

And because the vibration frequency range of this generation of HyperSense vibration controller reaches 50Hz-5000Hz, the vibration feedback when playing games is also very good, and the experience is more realistic.

The battery compartment adopts a rare pop-up design. You only need to press the switch lightly and the battery compartment will pop out automatically. This is a unique design among all-in-one VR machines in the same price range, and the experience is perfect.

Original accessories, never been so thoughtful and considerate

Before we continue to talk about PICO 4, let’s first talk about some accessories of this PICO 4.

First, there are accessories that can expand the internal space of the PICO 4 headset.

After installing it in the PICO 4 headset, even nearsighted users who wear glasses can easily put their glasses into the PICO 4 headset without having to worry about not being able to see the contents of the device due to their nearsightedness.

Secondly, many people have reported that light leakage through the nose while wearing VR glasses significantly reduces the sense of immersion in VR. Therefore, PICO 4 has specially launched anti-light leakage nose pads. You only need to install it and wear VR glasses to completely solve the problem of light leakage through the nose.

Finally, if you are worried that you will be too immersed in the game and accidentally drop the VR controller, you can try using the rope that comes with PICO 4. When playing the game, you only need to tie it between you and the controller, then the controller will definitely not fall out, and you can boldly and thoroughly immerse yourself in the VR game.

Okay, let’s go back to the experience sharing of PICO 4 itself.

Hardware configuration, extreme fever

PICO 4 uses the current mainstream Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 chip, which has very powerful chip performance. All all-in-one VR games on the market can run perfectly without any lag or frame drops.

And because the PICO 4 has a special small heat dissipation fan inside the body, combined with the air inlet and outlet vents on the upper and lower sides, there will be no heat accumulation inside the PICO 4 even if it is used to play games for a long time, so players do not need to worry about the machine burning the lens module due to overheating. The chip can also maintain high-frequency output for a long time and will not reduce the frequency due to overheating.

If the VR glasses are poorly positioned, the image in the headset will not be able to rotate finely as the user's head moves, which may cause the user to experience dizziness and vomiting.

Therefore, PICO 4 adopts a self-developed high-precision four-eye environment tracking and infrared optical positioning system, which further enhances the perception capability of the optical sensor, thereby achieving sub-millimeter positioning accuracy and millisecond tracking speed.

With the support of 6 DoF spatial positioning capability, PICO 4 has an unprecedented precise positioning experience. Even if the handle is suddenly placed behind you and then in front of you, PICO 4 can immediately and accurately locate the handle, far surpassing the positioning speed of its competitors.

Not only that, there are many microphone openings on the PICO 4 headset, so its performance in sound reception is also at the industry-leading level. When using social software in VR, your friends can also hear your voice more clearly. If you use voice input to convert to text, PICO 4's accurate voice recognition combined with equally accurate sound pickup has a very high success rate in converting to text.

Pancake Optical Lens

If you have experienced PICO NEO 3 before, I believe that when you see the PICO 4 host, you will be shocked by its lightness and compactness. The thickness of the headset has been reduced by 38.8% and the weight has been directly reduced by 26.2%.

The reason why PICO 4's host can achieve such an extremely light and thin experience is that they use the new self-developed Pancake optical lens. The addition of the Pancake optical lens allows PICO 4 to significantly reduce the weight and thickness of the headset host.

Not only that, the Pancke optical lens also brings a higher field of view and clarity to the PICO 4. Because the lens allows light to refract and reflect between the lenses, the viewing field of the PICO 4 is greatly improved, the FOV reaches 105 degrees, and the picture is clearer.

Ultra-clear vision and ultimate audio and video

In addition to the Pancke optical lens solution itself bringing a significant improvement in the field of view angle and picture clarity to PICO 4, the high-quality screen equipped with PICO 4 is also one of the secrets to its excellent viewing experience.

PICO 4 is equipped with two 2.56-inch Fact-LCD displays. The overall resolution of both eyes reaches 4K+, the pixel density is as high as 1200PPI, and the refresh rate is 90Hz.

Therefore, the screen quality of PICO 4 is also the best product in the same price range. After all, the biggest problem that VR glasses need to solve at this stage is the problem of insufficient screen clarity. Only by continuously improving the display effect can more ordinary users be attracted to use VR devices.

As a myopic user like me, I really like the fact that PICO 4 supports stepless electric pupil distance adjustment. I no longer need to manually bend the lenses to adjust the device's pupil distance. Now I only need to select the value in the settings of PICO 4. The support for stepless electric pupil distance adjustment from a minimum of 62mm to a maximum of 72mm can also save players a lot of trouble.

The dual stereo speakers located on the strap enable PICO 4 to support spatial audio function, which can provide a very shocking sound effect experience. Whether you are listening to music or playing games, you can feel instantly immersed in it, which is very amazing.

Such powerful audio and video configuration will naturally be put to good use.

PICO has built its own extremely rich VR audio-visual resource ecosystem. From VR interactive concerts by top celebrities such as Wang Feng to unprecedented interactive videos and Hollywood sci-fi blockbusters, all can be perfectly experienced with a single device, PICO 4.

When I used PICO 4 in recent days, I spent most of my time watching movies with it. PICO 4, which has a built-in theater viewing experience, allows me to enjoy Hollywood's top blockbusters without leaving home. It is really worth it!

Entertainment experience, nothing else to ask for

In addition to its excellent audio-visual ecosystem, PICO 4 also has rich entertainment content.

Currently, there are more than 230 entertainment applications in the PICO store, covering multiple types such as shooting, adventure, music games and leisure. If you like exciting head-on duels, you can play "Sword & Magic" and enjoy the fighting experience of picking up weapons and becoming a gladiator in the arena; if you like planning urban development, then "Skyline VR" will give you an unprecedented simulation experience.

Of course, I won’t go into details about popular VR masterpieces such as “Arizona Sunshine” and “The Financial Crisis”. You can buy PICO 4 and go to the store yourself. I believe that the richness and entertainment of the games in the store will make you praise it. PICO 4 will not let you down.

If you want to play VR masterpieces such as "Half-Life: Alyx" on Steam, then PICO 4 will naturally be a hassle-free choice. You only need to connect PICO 4 and your computer to the same router, and you can play PC VR masterpieces in SteamVR through wireless streaming.

But for me, I think the sports and fitness function of PICO 4 is the most attractive.

Currently, there are nearly 50 sports and fitness apps for you to choose from in the PICO store, covering all kinds of sports, from boxing, fishing, tennis to table tennis and bowling. You can also use the "Super Burning Moment" developed by PICO to experience the feeling of exercising with a private trainer at home.

For some fitness apps that require full-body exercise, PICO will launch a dedicated somatosensory tracker in the future. You only need to tie it around your legs to track your leg movements and accurately capture your every movement. The dedicated somatosensory tracker has a battery life of up to 40 hours and is very light, which can significantly enhance your VR sports experience.

The new PICO OS 5.0 system has greatly revolutionized the user experience and also brought the PICO OS Sports Center to PICO 4. Through the self-developed CalSense physical monitoring system, it can calculate the calories you consume when using PICO 4 in real time.

So you can use the PICO OS Sports Center to plan your personal exercise plan, collect your own exercise data, and compete with your friends online. It can almost be said that this is a complete VR gym!

Finally, if you want to share the content of the VR world with your friends, PICO 4 also provides you with the MRC in-machine recording and sharing function, which can record the screen and take photos. Want to start a live broadcast? No problem, PICO 4's screen projection assistant can project the in-machine screen to the Chrome kernel browser of any platform. It is not a dream to become a VR world celebrity with one click~

Summarize

In general, compared with its predecessor, PICO 4 is undoubtedly a huge improvement, and PICO's amazing R&D capabilities are also undoubtedly revealed. Therefore, I think it is no problem to call PICO the leader of domestic VR all-in-one manufacturers. As PICO 4 expands its overseas market, I believe that more and more consumers will see the charm of PICO 4 and become loyal fans of PICO.

Back to PICO 4 itself, its ubiquitous design ingenuity and humanized functions make PICO 4 no longer just a toy for a niche circle, but a milestone work that can truly shoulder the responsibility of promoting the popularization of the VR ecosystem and promoting VR equipment. No matter how long it takes, the VR market will remember PICO 4, a good product with extremely high completion, ultimate audio-visual experience and strong content ecology, and this is also the honor that PICO 4 deserves!

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.