7.2
Score

Virtual Reality has been stagnant for a while and more importantly, has always been that “elitist” gaming device. But that changes with ByteDance’s venture into the world of Virtual Reality. PICO has made a few VR headsets but it’s the Pico 4 that entered the Malaysian Market officially. It’s technically the second VR headset brand to enter the market, still beating Meta’s offering (or Oculus, which is still the better name). Getting used to the VR world wasn’t too hard but experiencing what Pico made – for a lack of a better word, has been interesting. Four months of using it and here’s our PICO 4 VR review.

PICO 4 VR In-Depth Review

A “Room Dividing” Comfort

Coming from my previous VR headset, the Oculus Rift S – the Pico 4 VR’s design is a little iffy. There are three areas of adjustments – 2 physical and one that can only be adjusted via software. On the back of the headset lies the side tension adjustment based on your head circumference. There’s a faux leather pad which seems to be “non-removable” – this pad has a concave area for the back of your head to secure well.

The problem with this pad is that it’s rigid and very specific to a “perfect” human anatomy of a head. If you have a not-so-rounded parietal or at the joints of the parietal-occipital bone (also known as Plagiocephaly and Brachycephaly), you are not going to have a pleasant experience. And the fact that the pad is not replaceable, makes it concerning from the “hygiene” perspective.

However, there are two parts which are removable – the top strap that lies on the top of your frontal and parietal bone. Funny enough, this strap has its limitations. The Velcro coverage only goes so much – so, if kids do plan to use it – just make sure to get it right. The second part that’s removable is the eye pad which is made out of fabric. It’s good but not great – after our first two times of usage, we could see the sweat stain seep into the fabric. Make sure to wash it all the time.

I’d recommend getting a rubber cover, a replacement faux leather padding or silicon padding which is a whole lot easier to clean and maintain – especially if you share it with your friends and family. Which of course you will. For those who wear glasses, it comes with a glass spacer and nose pad, which is good.

The IPD Control

The Inter-Pupillary Distance measurement (IPD), to get the right viewing adjustment is important to if you can get a good viewing experience or not. I like the granular adjustment but what I didn’t like is the constant dependency on the software to adjust it. Many VR headsets have physical adjustments which can be controlled with a press of a tab and you can move it however you like. Pico should have retained the physical adjustment like their Neo 3.

There is one more adjustable part – and that’s the unit itself which flips up and down. Most of the time, during setting up – I do wish it can be flipped up with no difficulties. But it doesn’t work that way. So, you will have to remove it to do your other things.

 

The problem is – this is not the first time Pico is making a VR headset – when PICO Neo 3 nails right on the comfort, the PICO 4 VR has some compromises. There are friends of mine who tried it and said they love it comfort-wise and there are others, who said it isn’t as comfortable as their current VR headset. Hence the room-dividing comfort.

Solid Specification, On Paper

PICO 4 VR has some solid specifications for users to drive the VR world at ease. Running the same Qualcomm XR2 that we have seen before with their own VR headset and other brands, coupled with 8GB RAM by default and a storage option of 128GB or 256GB. Whichever you get, is still more than enough as compared to the measly “64GB” configuration Oculus offer with the Quest. The display resolution is a lot better – at 2160×2160 for each lens with a refresh rate that can go up to 90Hz.

Other than that, you do get the usual WiFi 6 with Bluetooth 5.1, 6DoF Positioning system, built-in speaker with dual mic, 20W Fast charging capability via USB-C and a 5300mAh powering it.

Native Tracking is Decent (After Updates)

One of the biggest reasons why we took our sweet time with this VR is the software. We weren’t happy with it, at the time of receiving it and reviewing it in the first 2 months. So, we played the long game and PICO has improved and fixed a lot of issues the headset faced – mainly on the tracking front. The last thing you want to feel is disorientation. But that said, now you have a variety of options to choose from – with the tracking and from a seated or a standing position.

There’s a way to use it while you are laid back but for some weird reason, the option to use that is buried deep in the settings. Otherwise, the native tracking is very well improved. Gone are those odd levelling glitches to map the ground properly and now you can pick up from where you left off – with a calibration which you need to do every time you wear it – which is okay. This is just the headset by the way.

The controllers still have this odd “repelling” effect in games where you need to use it together. For instance, in After the Fall, the controllers on an Oculus Rift S can be held as if you are really holding a gun. The same goes for Half-life: Alyx. But that doesn’t seem to be the case here – there’s a 50/50 chance of working and not working. The controllers really need a bit more tweaking. When you do shoot, the tracking of the controller is a little janky, where the bullet misses the target and you need to move it a little higher or lower to kill the creature.

Viewing Experience has a hit-and-miss Element

A higher-resolution display’s Pixel density plays a huge role to have a nice crisp image. In this case, you will notice something called the “Screen-door” effect.

The screen-door effect is a very specific “occurrence” with a VR headset where it feels like you are looking through a screen door – giving a “grainy” image but more so, noticing the black spaces between the pixels than a grainy image. This phenomenon only goes unnoticed if the displays are in a higher resolution.

I have noticed this with the Oculus Rift S display – which is 1280×1440 per eye and I noticed it with the PICO 4 VR. VR headsets that have a proper native 3.2K and above display per eye giving the best experience possible. So, in this case, it’s inevitable but hey, it is okay. The colours produced by this display, however, look sharp in the beginning but later have this washed-off effect where the blacks, are more “increased-in-backlight” bright than proper blacks.

Credit, where it’s due, the Pancake optical lens Pico uses with this VR headset, is of a good kind. The sharpness regardless of wherever you lay your sight on is sharp. Usually, a conventional lens is sharp in the centre but gets blurry on the edges. Not here. This is pretty good. The increased FoV doesn’t do anything because talking to many VR players, even they mentioned the FoV is usually in a decent range and even if it’s a lot more wider, it doesn’t play many roles in the improvement in the viewing department.

Do take note that these lenses get smudged all the time, and due to the lack of ventilation – it traps sweat and heat – so, you feel stuffy. Remove them, wipe them down and wear them back. The lack of a good distance between the lens and your eyes makes it hard to not get the lens smudged.

Pico OS gets the Fundamental Right with some hiccups…

Pico OS 5.0 with the updates and new fixes (5.3.2), should be the OS made available right outside the box. Now, you might wonder if it’s a native OS. Fortunately, it isn’t as it runs on Android 10, with a custom platform meant for VR on top. This is good as it allows you to sideload any kind of application to use with your headset – as it doesn’t come with Google Services.

It does take a page out of some other VR headset book to make a very nice and intuitive menu for users to get around. A taskbar at the bottom with 5 pinned applications, profiles, notifications, fitness progress and a control toggle. From a fundamental perspective, things are okay – and don’t beat around the bush a lot. You have all the controls pretty much in your hands and launch them whenever you want while you are in an application.

One thing weird about the settings is the “dominant hand” toggle. I am a Left handed person, and when I set the VR up, I chose left. But with every bootup, going into the settings, I would notice it switching to Right instead. The IPD control can be controlled from the Quick Settings toggle. Otherwise, it works alright.

Pico has some apps pre-installed like the Streaming Assistant for wired/wireless connectivity, and PICO Video which you can use as a media player and consume their own library of content. This is also the app, to watch TikTok videos from but it has a very barebones setup. You don’t get to watch accounts you follow, and it goes based on the “FYP” algorithm. There’s something more important…

Expect to see a lot of Oculus Content and questionable ones too

PICO 4 VR store has some great applications available with we have seen or played on, via Oculus Store or SteamVR. Seeing the Oculus logo in pretty much most content feels weird and there is some “unoptimized” experience you can notice – Like in Madrid Noir, you can notice the laggy performance at times. Pico has their own application baked which you can download too, but there are far too few. One of my favourites has got to be the Calvin Harris Experience – which is a must-check-out app in Pico Store.

On the other hand, Pico sure does fund some money into questionable content for VR – like No Crush Challenge, My Virtual Love, and Three-D Girls – to mention a few. These kinds of “objectifying women content” shouldn’t exist as an official “VR” experience – there are other ways to showcase VR experience. Makes you wonder why it’s not under a category behind an age verification process of sorts. It does have Parental Control, but I don’t think a parent would want to see it smack right in the “Explore” screen.

PICO, we are sure that you are reading this – and I hope you do something about it.

… But even after 4 months, very little growth in the library

VR development in general has been slow for a very long time – and we spoke about it in our content if you should get a VR headset. It is still an elitist playing field. While PICO venturing into making more affordable headsets but if the focus on making better content is lacking behind, VR will get stagnant more so than ever. As much as it’s great to see a bunch of amazing apps I have played on other platforms appear on the PICO store, it is still as expensive as the other VR Headset stores and makes every game out of reach from the average consumer.

PICO does bundle a few games, or at least they did – but that lasted for a short while. Now, most of the games are in the hundred-ringgit range. You can connect to your PC via Steam wirelessly to take complete advantage of your VR library on a different platform like SteamVR – but it defeats the purpose of an “all-in-one-VR” headset. I don’t condone piracy, but a lot of VR headsets are heading in that direction.

SteamVR does work*

… if you are on a good Wireless router with a stable connection*. The majority of the users purchasing PICO 4 VR aren’t going to be folks who have state-of-the-art WiFi systems. In fact, a lot of them are going to rely on the stock router their network provider provides.

You need to have a good AX or WiFi 6 router that reduces the latency by a lot. I noticed the lag-less experience on a WiFi 6 and then I tried it on my home network which uses a Mesh system from Tenda. The latency while playing Beat Saber, was just – for a lack of a better word – horrible.

When not playing, it hovers in that 15-28 ms latency but once you begin, oh boy, it goes as high as 200-350 ms. You can technically connect via USB-C to play, but that would also mean, you need to fork out a few hundred for a good USB-C cable that’s long and has fast speed.

Audio-wise

The speakers are positioned on the side of the band and while Pico calls it the “high-fidelity” speaker, which I refuse to – it does sound good. It has a good spatial presence and is angled very well towards the user’s ear. We tried Sphere, with Millie Bobby Brown narrating a story and wow it was good. The lack of a headphone jack is very sad but the USB-C is capable of handling USB-C headphones or you can get a 3.5mm dongle to use with it.

Conclusion

The Pico 4 VR is an absolute threat to the Oculus/Meta Quest VR headsets for two reasons:

  • Pico took the initiative to establish an official presence among consumers and they are pretty serious about it, especially with their recent store opened in Sunway. This puts Oculus/Meta Quest VR a little behind with “official support.”
  • Pico 4 VR has got both good and not-so-good factors which they need to improve upon. But by the time Oculus enters, which is almost never – Pico does have the edge to improve to really go head-to-head with the Quest.

But even after the things I have mentioned above, I have to be very honest – I enjoy using the tethered Oculus offering whereas Pico 4 VR has been a “you-love-some-you-hate-some” experience. My suggestion would be to get a very long USB-C Cable and connect the PICO 4 VR to your preferred machine, and then take complete advantage of it. But this brings another big issue.

  • Sure, Pico has some games and apps which you have come across on another platform. But Oculus offers more on top of what Pico offers. Not to forget, if you do tether via a wired connection, you are relying on the connected system more than the native system itself.
  • But in terms of official support, Pico is going to win – if at all you run into any sort of issues.

It’s not easy for us to go, “Oh, the Pico 4 VR is the best VR you could purchase” nor it is the worst VR headset either – believe us, we have seen worse. But the Pico 4 VR covers what Oculus doesn’t and that’s official support, which is a deal breaker. So, weigh your options and see if the Pico 4 VR has pros outweighing the cons. If it does, by all means – go ahead.

I’d continue using it – but wired with SteamVR as my only go-to platform. For that, you are better off getting the PICO 3 Link from Pico Malaysia – which is now RM 1000.