While the Apple Vision Pro has become the most prominent Meta Quest rival, offering an ultra-premium alternative to the budget-friendly Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest 3 VR headsets, there are a few other Quest alternatives out there – and based on leaks it sounds like one Quest 2 competitor, the Pico 4, is about to get a next-gen reboot.
The so-called Pico 4S – or Pico 4 Ultra as it will apparently be called in some regions – may look like the sleek original (per images shared by Android Headlines), but a South Korean certification and Geekbench score leaked in June tease some notable improvements (per UploadVR). It’ll reportedly pack a Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chipset, 12GB of RAM, and two new cameras on the front face that should boost its mixed-reality passthrough quality.
Today, I also have a set of 12 high-resolution press renders of #ByteDance’s upcoming mixed reality headset which I assume will be marketed as #PICO4S or #PICO4Ultra depending on the region…😏On behalf of @Androidheadline 👉🏻 https://t.co/uZXFkYXBVS pic.twitter.com/hOO0C87cALAugust 9, 2024
Leaked images also show that its controllers might have lost the iconic curved tracking rings, instead copying the Quest 3’s tracking ring-less design. Interestingly, the Pico 4S is apparently also getting two wrist straps with removable sensors that look like they’ll aid hand tracking – or they could perhaps be used for foot tracking, though we’ll have to wait and see.
Two important details we’re missing are pricing and a release date. While the Pico 4S may share a suffix with Meta’s leaked Quest 3S I expect it’ll be pricier than the 3S and Pico 4, coming in at somewhere closer to $499.99 / £479.99 / AU$799.99, given the rumored improved specs. As for when we’ll get it in our hands, given the number of leaks we’ve seen I’d expect the Pico 4S to show up either late this year or early in 2025, but your guess is as good as mine until we hear more.
Forget specs, tell me about the software
If these leaks are correct – remember, until Pico says anything we should take these unofficial details with a pinch of salt – the Pico 4S could be an impressive Quest 3 rival.
That Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chipset is the same one that powers the Quest 3, though with 12GB of RAM the Pico 4S would be more powerful than Meta’s headset, which packs only 8GB. And while we won’t know what the 4S’s passthrough will be like until we test it out, the Pico 4’s passthrough was very strong – clear, albeit a bit too fish-eye-like, making it disorienting at times – so additional sensors would only strengthen an already solid aspect of the Pico 4.
Unfortunately, none of that will matter if Pico doesn’t give one area plenty of attention: software.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the best feature of Meta’s Quest headsets is Horizon OS. It’s straightforward, and boasts a fantastic library of games and apps across VR and MR. The Pico 4’s OS isn’t bad, but its software library just doesn’t hold up against Meta’s. Sure it has TikTok in VR as an exclusive, but nothing else of note – it was supposed to get Just Dance VR in 2023, but that’s now instead coming exclusively to Quest headsets (per Ubisoft’s website) later this year.
Beyond hardware, and beyond price, Pico needs to give us a software-based reason to care – and ideally plenty of them. Otherwise, the Pico 4S might end up like the PlayStation VR 2: a great device that you can’t really do anything with.
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