This leaked Meta Quest 3 rival is more powerful, but needs one thing to truly beat Meta’s VR headset
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 on the market – and based on leaks, it appears that a Quest 2 competitor, the Pico 4, is on the verge of getting a next-gen reboot.
The so-called Pico 4S – or Pico 4 Ultra as it will apparently be called in some regions – may resemble the streamlined original (according to images obtained by Android Headlines), although a South Korean certification and Geekbench score leaked in June announced some notable improvements (according to UploadVR). The device will reportedly feature a Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chipset, 12GB of RAM and two new front-facing cameras, which should improve the quality of mixed-reality passthrough.
Today I also have a set of 12 high-res press images of the upcoming mixed reality headset from #ByteDance, which I assume will be marketed as either #PICO4S or #PICO4Ultra depending on region… 😏From @Androidheadline 👉🏻 pic.twitter.com/hOO0C87cALAugust 9, 2024
Leaked images also reveal that the controllers may ditch the iconic curved tracking rings and instead copy the Quest 3’s tracking ring-less design. Interestingly, the Pico 4S also apparently gets two wristbands with removable sensors that look like they’ll aid in hand tracking – or perhaps they could be used for foot tracking, though we’ll have to wait and see.
Two major details we’re missing are a price and a release date. While the Pico 4S shares a suffix with Meta’s leaked Quest 3S, I’d expect it to be more expensive than the 3S and Pico 4, somewhere closer to the $499.99 / £479.99 / AU$799.99 mark given the rumored improved specs. As for when we’ll get our hands on it, given the number of leaks we’ve seen, I’d expect the Pico 4S to release late this year or early 2025, but your guess is as good as mine until we hear more.
Forget the specs, tell me about the software
If these leaks are accurate – remember that we’d better take these unofficial details with a grain of salt until Pico says something – the Pico 4S could be an impressive competitor to the Quest 3.
That Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chipset is the same one that powers the Quest 3, though the Pico 4S, with 12GB of RAM, is said to be more powerful than the Meta headset, which has just 8GB of RAM. And while we won’t know what the 4S’s passthrough will be like until we test it, the Pico 4’s passthrough was very strong — clearly visible, if a bit too fisheye-like, making it disorienting at times — so extra sensors would only bolster an already solid aspect of the Pico 4.
Unfortunately, none of this will matter if Pico doesn’t pay enough attention to one aspect: 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 simple and has a fantastic library of games and apps for VR and MR. The Pico 4’s OS isn’t bad, but its software library just can’t match Meta’s. Sure, it has TikTok in VR as an exclusive feature, but other than that, nothing of note: it was supposed to get Just Dance VR in 2023, but that’s now coming exclusively to Quest headsets (as of Ubisoft website) later this year.
Hardware and price aside, Pico needs to give us a software reason to care – and ideally a lot of them. Otherwise, the Pico 4S could end up like the PlayStation VR 2: a great device that you can’t really do anything with.
