Pico 1 mobile headset: Will you buy the 399 yuan VR ticket?

More than half a month ago, VR newcomer Pico released its first virtual reality helmet, Pico 1. Currently, the product is still in the crowdfunding stage and is expected to start mass production this month.

What kind of experience can this entry-level VR headset, priced at 399 yuan, bring? Let's experience it together.

Appearance: Simple and delicate design   

Even in a field as conceptual as VR, Pico's brand design can be considered unique: using the image of a bird as its logo, it symbolizes precise and meticulous product concepts.

Is this true?

The outer packaging design is simple and elegant, and the grass green color that appears repeatedly in various occasions strengthens Pico's brand image in the details.

The body is made of plastic, mainly in black and white. On the top is the focus adjustment wheel and power button; on the right is a return button and a small touch screen area, with a volume button; at the bottom is a 3.5mm headphone jack and a Micro USB power supply port.

The headset weighs about 300 grams and uses a wraparound headband with adjustable tightness. The part that comes in direct contact with the eyes is covered with a soft sponge pad and connected to the body with rubber, which can alleviate the squeezing effect caused by wearing.

Experience: A benchmark for entry-level products

The mobile phone box is completely independent from the body, and the material of this part is a bit thin. It takes at least 5 steps to install the phone, and the insertion and extraction are a bit awkward.

Non-integrated mobile VR helmets such as Pico 1 are highly dependent on mobile phones. The NUBIA Z9 was used in this evaluation. The machine is equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 octa-core 64-bit CPU, Adreno (TM) 430 GPU, 3GB RAM, 32GB ROM, and the screen is a 5.2-inch 1080P Sharp screen.

The phone and device are connected via Bluetooth, and the sound is output through the headset. It should be noted that Pico VR currently has no iOS version and is only available to Android users.

NUBIA Z9 weighs 192g, which is a relatively heavy phone. Together with Pico 1, it weighs nearly 1 kilogram, which is quite a burden on the head.

Maybe because it is an engineering machine, the touch screen area of ​​the headset I got has no practical function. I need to open the content in advance to experience it, which adds trouble to the operation.

If a call comes in while you are watching VR content, you can press the power button to answer it. This design is very user-friendly.

Dizziness is a very special metric for VR headsets: important but without clear quantifiable standards. Personally, Pico 1 did not cause me obvious dizziness; some users also said that they would feel a slight dizziness after watching for about 2 minutes.

In terms of picture quality, although the 1080p, 424ppi NUBIA Z9 has reached the retina screen level, it is still a little insufficient for VR, and the pixel feeling is very obvious. In addition, the field of view of Pico 1 is 96 degrees, which is not very good compared with similar products. You can see the frame of the glasses on the left and right, and you can see the tip of your nose when you look down.

Lack of content is a problem faced by all VR devices. Pico VR has more than ten game applications available for download, but most of the videos are 3D sources, which is still far from the expected immersive experience.

Thinking: What is the significance of Mobile VR today?

Pico 1 positions itself as an entry-level mobile VR device, which is in line with its actual performance. Want to experience the hotly hyped VR videos and VR games? Pico 1 may be a good choice.

But then again, in the absence of sticky applications, how many users are willing to pay for an entry-level experience?

In fact, this involves the issue of product positioning. Pico CEO Zhou Hongwei believes that Mobile VR represents the future of virtual reality products.

Indeed, in the past few decades, computing devices have gone through a development process from giant to small, from wired to wireless. Strong computing power and high flexibility are undoubtedly the goals pursued by products. VR, which is regarded as the next generation computing platform, will not violate the law of technological development.

But this does not mean that Mobile VR will become a mainstream product in the field of virtual reality in the short term. The immersive effect of virtual reality requires extremely powerful hardware support. Facebook once recommended that Oculus Rift users use Nvidia GeForce 970 or Radeon 290 graphics cards. Even PCs rarely have the graphics processing power required for virtual reality.

There is still a big gap between the computing power of mobile phones and high-end PCs. Box-type VR helmets are even more restricted by hardware conditions such as mobile phone screens, processors, and memory. The degree of improvement in the short term can be expected.

The all-in-one machine can be seen as the superposition of a mobile phone and a box. There is a lot of room for improvement in both experience and price, and it may be the last product form to mature.

Therefore, under current conditions, as the most common Mobile VR product, the mobile phone box may have the greatest significance in the education market. On the one hand, it guarantees the experience that virtual reality technology should have while lowering the threshold of user experience as much as possible; on the other hand, it provides content producers with an output channel to reach more consumers.

It is foreseeable that the "mobile phone box" product form will continue to exist for a long time. Good experience and low price are the opportunities for this type of product. The upcoming flagship product of Pico may bring us greater surprises.

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.