Spec comparison: Is Pico 4 Ultra better than Meta Quest 3?
Pico 4 Ultra was unveiled in China yesterday. How does the new mixed reality headset compare to Meta Quest 3?
The Pico 4 Ultra was officially unveiled in China on August 20th.
The device will cost ¥4300, which is the equivalent of $600, and will begin shipping on September 2, 2024.
Although the headset has only been announced for China, all information about the Pico 4 Ultra is already available in English on Pico's website, suggesting an international launch is imminent.
Pico 4 Ultra: What's new?
Its predecessor, the Pico 4, was released in October 2022 and is available in Europe and a number of East Asian countries (China, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore). The device has not been released in the largest VR market, the United States.
Compared to the Pico 4, what has changed in terms of specs and features?
- Pico 4 Ultra has a new, much more powerful chipset: the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2, which is also used in Quest 3.
- The new headset has 12 GB of RAM, which is 4 GB more than the Pico 4 and Quest 3. It remains to be seen how much of an impact this will have on performance.
- The biggest feature upgrade concerns mixed reality: Pico 4 had a single 16 MP camera for passthrough, while Ultra offers a 32 MP camera for each eye. However, only 8 MP per eye is actually processed according to Pico. Quest 3 relies on two 4 MP cameras, Vision Pro on two 6.5 MP cameras for passthrough. Like Quest 3, Pico 4 has a depth sensor for room mapping and spatial mixed reality.
- The new passthrough cameras offer spatial video capture at a resolution of 2,048 x 1,536 pixels, a frame rate of 60 Hz and a bit rate of 50 Mbps. Pico 4 Ultra can also natively play back spatial videos recorded with an iPhone or Vision Pro. Quest 3 must first convert them to a compatible format.
- Pico 4 Ultra supports Wi-Fi 7, the Pico 4 Wi-Fi 6 and the Quest 3 Wi-Fi 6E.
- The controllers of the Pico 4 Ultra are new and ringless, just like the Touch Plus controllers of the Quest 3.
- The displays have the same resolution as the Pico 4, but are said to be 25 percent brighter and offer improved color correction. According to Pico, the default rendering resolution has been increased by 62 percent to 1,920 x 1,920 pixels per eye, thanks to the more powerful chipset. As a result, most games and apps should appear sharper across the board.
- The battery supports faster charging at up to 45W.
- The lenses, field of view and design of the headset, including the rigid headstrap, remain the same. The visor and face pad now weigh 304 grams, while the headstrap, battery and back pad weigh 276 grams.
Pico has also announced improvements to the OS: it will be possible to open multiple 2D panels and place them around you. In the future, it will also be possible to mirror screens from Mac or Windows computers, as well as iOS and Android smartphones, into the virtual or mixed reality environment.
The Pico Motion Trackers for full-body tracking, also announced yesterday, are not exclusive to Pico 4 Ultra and also work with Pico 4 and Pico Neo 3.
Can Pico 4 Ultra compete with Quest 3?
While the Pico 4 was designed to compete with the Meta Quest 2 in terms of price and technology, the Pico 4 Ultra is positioned against the Quest 3. Technically, the devices are more or less equivalent, at least on paper.
Below is a table with the specifications of the Quest 3, Pico 4 Ultra and Pico 4.
The specifications of the Quest 3, Pico 4 Ultra and Pico 4 at a glance. | Picture: MIXED
Meta Quest 3 will still offer the best lenses and a higher frame rate of up to 120 Hz, while Pico 4 Ultra should at least theoretically offer a slightly better passthrough image.
What about the software? Meta is going strong with monthly updates that introduce new features and improve Quest 3, and is ahead in terms of API capabilities, especially with mixed reality. Pico needs to show that it can keep up with Meta in this area.
Many, but by no means all Quest titles are represented in the Pico Store, and exclusive content is missing entirely. Pico should improve here too.
For the Pico ecosystem to grow in the coming years, two things need to happen: Pico headsets need to enter the largest VR market, the US, and Pico owner Bytedance needs to make a long-term commitment to VR and regain the trust of developers. The events of the past year suggest the opposite.
Pico will definitely not have an easy time: Pico 4 Ultra is likely to be more expensive than Quest 3, and it may be difficult to catch up with its competitor Meta, especially when a cheaper Quest 3 is already waiting in the wings.
You can find more information about the Pico 4 Ultra on the official website. Pico has also uploaded a video of the launch event.
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