Pico 4 VR headset review: The best VR you’ve never heard of

The Pico 4 VR headset made by ByteDance (yes, of TikTok fame) surprisingly does a better job than the Meta Quest 2 in many areas. First and foremost, one thing is clear: the Pico 4 excels at being tied to your PC’s library of VR games. Sure, you’ll miss out on some games that are on the Meta store, but some games are on the Pico Store, and playing from your Steam library is possible. I’ve been playing a lot of Half-Life: Alyx, for example. There are also some pretty well-known games on the Pico store, such as Superhot and Fruit Ninja, but the likes of Beat Saber, you’ll need to buy on Steam.

If you’re looking to get into PC VR cheaply, you have one of the best GPUs to power it, and don’t mind a limited on-device selection (though it is growing), then the Pico 4 headset is an excellent option. For general comfort and long-term playing, it’s undoubtedly better than my Meta Quest 2.

 

Pico 4

Solid budget VR headset

Competing with the Quest 2 and mostly succeeding

The Pico 4 VR headset is a headset that poises itself as a Meta Quest 2 competitor. It has fantastic tracking, full-color passthrough, and an even weight distribution that makes it possible to wear for hours at a time.

Brand

Pico

Resolution (per eye)

2160×2160

Display Type

Pancake

Storage

128GB/256GB

Audio

Speakers

Weight

586

Refresh rate

72Hz/90Hz

Processor

Snapdragon XR2

RAM

8GB

Pros

• Great hardware package with fantastic lenses
• Very comfortable
• Good battery life

Cons

• Somewhat limited software library
• Outdated at this point
• Harder to buy

Pricing and availability

The Pico 4 VR headset has one major slight against it, and that’s how difficult it is to get in North America. You can buy it in Europe and most of Asia through most major retailers, like Amazon, since its launch late last year, but it’s a hard one to pick up if you’re anywhere in the U.S. It retails for €429 as a starting price for the 128GB model and €499 for the 256GB model.

Design and build quality

A special focus on comfort

The Pico 4 headset has a special focus on comfort, and it’s immediately evident from the moment you put it on. While the Quest 2 focuses all of its hardware in the front part of the headset that covers your eyes, the Pico 4 splits it up between the front and the back. The front part contains the SoC, the glasses, and some other sensors, whereas the back behind your head houses the battery. This means that there’s a much more even weight distribution, and the included strap over the top of the head and shroud over your face are more than comfortable enough for long periods of play. The device’s build is also very sturdy, and I love how well it cuts me off from the rest of the world.

The Pico 4 uses pancake lenses, which are different from the Quest 2’s fresnel lenses. Pancake lenses tend to be more expensive but also provide a better experience, as they decrease the distance between the eyes of the wearer and the display and also clear up some overhead processing power. With fresnel lenses, software corrections are being made in real-time, meaning that pancake lenses are more efficient, too. The combined resolution of both eyes on the Pico 4 is 4320×2160, which can run up to 90Hz and provide a 105-degree field of view. Enabling 90Hz will use more power, though, than the default 72Hz.

With this headset, I could play Half-Life: Alyx for close to two hours without any discomfort. There is no face-clenching pain like you may have experienced with other headsets, and it doesn’t feel bulky either. Some assembly is required out of the box, as you’ll need to install the magnetized shroud and nose cover, but it’s well worth it. The headset clamps to your head with a rotary dial on the back that tightens or loosens its grip on your head. The biggest criticism I have here is that sometimes, the fans built into the headset blew air into the headset and dried my eyes out a bit. It didn’t happen all the time, but it occurred enough to be annoying.

The controllers are fantastic, too. I don’t really have any complaints about their build quality or design, and they work pretty well in games like Half-Life and Superhot. They have straps you can attach so that they can hang from your wrists, and they take two AA batteries each. The speakers built into the headset sounded great and drowned out noise around me without being intrusive.

Finally, for sensors, the Pico 4 VR headset has multiple optical sensors for full-color pass-through, something that even the Meta Quest 2 misses out on. I didn’t have any issues with depth perception when using this mode, and while it’s still blurry and not great for everything, you can still read text on a screen most of the time and reply to a message or text if you really need to.

Gaming

Just as good as you expect

I’ve been playing around a lot with the Pico 4 and really enjoying it. I’ve clocked just shy of three hours in Half-Life: Alyx already, and games like Pistol Whip and Superhot (which I played on the Meta Quest 2) are just as fun as I remember, though with additional visual clarity. I didn’t find myself needing to readjust the headset on my head constantly (something I did have to do with the Quest 2 a lot), even when games like Pistol Whip started getting crazy.

If you’re not familiar with Pistol Whip, take a look at the clip below. It’s a hectic rhythm-based shooter that gets crazy at points and will have you practically jumping around the place to complete levels. It’s a good test of whether the headset will stay secure on your head, and it absolutely succeeded.

In slower-paced games such as Half-Life: Alyx, the Pico 4 has been a dream. It’s a very chill experience thanks to the balanced weight distribution of the headset, so much so that you don’t really feel like you’re wearing it after a while. You’re not conscious of a massive weight hanging off the front of your face, and that goes a long way to add to the believability factor of VR.

When it comes to Half-Life: Alyx, keep in mind that it’s not running natively on this hardware. It’s streaming from my PC over a 5GHz connection and Wi-Fi 5, so it’s not exactly high-tech. My PC is wired to the router, and the router that I’m streaming off of is in the same room, but it still works perfectly. There is no noticeable latency when playing, and the native Pico Streaming Assistant app is seamless.

You start the Pico Streaming Assistant app on your desktop, open the Streaming Assistant app on the headset, and you can connect to your desktop from inside the headset. This will then launch Steam VR on your PC and you’ll have access to your full library of games. This took minutes to set up, and I was greatly impressed by how easy it was.

I’ve read reports online that the Virtual Desktop application on the Pico store (which will set you back about $20) is a better experience, but those are older reports that, I imagine, have been changed since. In my hours of playtime with Steam VR, I didn’t encounter any issues whatsoever that made me feel like I needed to shell out money for a better streaming experience. There were very few customization options, but that’s really it, and you don’t need customization options if your goal is to play some of your VR games that are in your Steam library. It’s been a fantastic experience playing games on the Pico 4 and it’s a better experience overall than the Meta Quest 2.

Software

Polished but little else

The Pico 4 VR headset runs on Android, and there’s nothing hugely special about it. If you’ve used the Meta Quest 2, then you’ll be familiar with the kind of UI we’re talking about here. It’s fairly standard, easy to use, and is very Android-like in its design. It’s easy to use with some new quality-of-life features, but that’s about it.

One feature you won’t find on any other headset right now is the motorized lenses that can be controlled by the software. VR headsets need to be configured to match your eyes, and you’ll typically need to move the lenses a bit to be completely comfortable. With the Pico 4 VR headset, though, you can move them through the software and instantly see results, rather than moving them, putting the headset on, taking it off, moving them again, etc.

One of the features I was most interested in checking out was hand tracking, which was just OK. It’s only supported by certain system apps from what I could tell, and the novelty wore off very quickly. I wouldn’t use it for my normal VR usage, but it’s there if you want to use it. Otherwise, there isn’t a lot of use for it, really. It’s just a good software package that does nothing special out of the box but gets everything that it does do right.

Should you buy the Pico 4 VR headset?

You should buy the Pico 4 VR headset if:

• You want to save money and buy the best last-generation VR headset
• You want to play PC VR titles primarily
• You value comfort

You shouldn’t buy the Pico 4 VR headset if:

• You want the best of the best in VR
• You live in North America
• You want a full-fledged on-device library of the best overall VR titles

The Pico 4 VR headset is very close to being a perfect headset, but the problem is that as a device launched last year. It’s already been surpassed in many ways by the Meta Quest 3 and the Quest Pro, and probably can’t compete with the Apple Vision Pro either. As a last-generation headset, it’s an excellent investment if you want something a little bit cheaper with fantastic hardware, but if you want the best of the best, then this isn’t it. That isn’t Pico’s fault either. It’s a product that launched last year and was a significantly easier product to justify in the absence of other affordable options.

Even now, the Pico 4 is a significantly cheaper headset when compared to others on the market, and it’s worth a look if you just want to casually invest in VR and play some VR-only titles like Beat Saber and Half-Life: Alyx. It’s not going to be the best VR headset of 2023 or anything, but it’s one of the best of last year, and that’s good enough for many people.

 

Pico 4

Great affordable VR headset

The Pico 4 VR headset is a headset that poises itself as a Meta Quest 2 competitor. It has fantastic tracking, full-color passthrough, and an even weight distribution that makes it possible to wear for hours at a time.