Pico is launching the Pico 4 Ultra this month, and it's planned to compete with the Quest 3 in Europe and Asia. That could also coincide with Meta's announcement of the allegedly cheaper Quest 3S.
Pico will take pre-orders for the Pico 4 Ultra into Europe from September 6 to September 19, with a price tag of £529/€599, aiming to compete with the Quest 3 at a similar spec and price point.
As with its predecessor, the Pico 4, which was released in 2022, supported regions across Europe include Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Austria, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland.
If you're in one of these regions, you can pre-order it through online retailers including Amazon, MediaMarkt, Elkjop, Argos, Very, Currys, Coolblue, XR Shop, Bestware, Digitech, Galaxus, and Otto.
General sales will begin on September 20th and will also be available in stores at MediaMarkt and Elkjop.
Let's take a quick look at the features of the Pico 4 Ultra:
- Processor: Snapdragon XR2 2nd Generation
- RAM and Storage: 12GB RAM + 256GB Storage – LPDDR5 + UFS 3.1
- Wireless Connection: Supports Wi-Fi 7 (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax/be), Bluetooth 5.3
- Mixed Reality Sensor: 32MP color transition camera ×2, iToF depth sensing camera ×1, Environment monitoring camera ×4
- View: 2,160 × 2,160 pixels (×2), 1200 PPI (pixels per inch) 2.56 inch screens
- Processing resolution: 1920 × 1920 (×2)
- Refresh rate: 90Hz
- Optical: Pancake lenses at 105° FOV, 20.6 PPD (pixels per degree)
- IPD Adjustment: 58mm–72mm
- Sound: dual stereo speakers, 4 microphones and supports spatial sound recording
- Battery: 5,700 mAh nominal capacity, 5,774 mAh typical capacity
- Charge: QC 4.0 / PD 3.0, support 45W fast charger
To further excite our undecided customers, pre-order customers will receive a free Pico Motion Tracker set and four more games: Blade & Sorcery Nomad, Infinite Inside, Let's Get Fit VR, And Foot Pool.
The Motion Trackers, which combine IMU tracking with 12 infrared sensors for 6DOF tracking, are normally priced at £79 / €89.
The title will also be released across Asia, including China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. But a U.S. launch doesn’t seem likely for now (or ever), likely due to parent company ByteDance’s legal troubles with video streaming platform TikTok in that country.
In the meantime, Meta is reportedly preparing to launch the rumored Quest 3S, which could further widen the price gap and make it harder to justify, as the Quest 3S is planned to replace the Quest 2 as the company's more affordable headset.
Judging by Meta's recent FCC certification, we'll likely learn more at Meta Connect 2024, which will take place exactly one week after Pico stops pre-orders and the Pico 4 Ultra goes on general sale.