Meta Quest 3 vs Pico 4 - A 2024 Comparison

there already are a few Quest 3 versus pico4 comparisons on YouTube but some of the questions I had when I was trying to decide between them were left unanswered so here are my thoughts on how these headsets compare before I get to my subjective opinions and experiences here are some slightly more objective facts the quest 3 is more expensive but if you're in North America it's much easier to get a hold of the Pico was never released in North America so you'll have to import it or find a used one I find one in mint condition for less than $200 the quest 3 has more native games and apps as well as a more powerful chip to run them the quest 3 boots up faster than the pico4 and the OS feels a bit more Snappy the quest 3 has stereo pass through whereas the P4 has mono the image quality of the pass through is a bit better on the quest 3 in real life both look quite greeny and low in detail but the quest 3 looks a bit nicer most of the time however it can get a bit more warpy than the Pico and sometimes it has really serious issues which I'll get to in a minute both have pancake lenses but the quest 3's lenses are sign ific anly better than the Pico 4S it was too difficult for me to capture on camera but the quest 3's lenses have literal edge to edge Clarity whereas the PCO 4S have a sweet spot with edges being quite blurred but it's still a massive Leap Forward from The Quest 2 the quest 3's lenses have less glare there is a bit more glare on the Pico I thought that green circle was a bit of dust on the lens but it's visible through the other lens too so it's not that I can't see at all with my own eyes though and again things look a lot better in real life than I can show by holding an action camera up to the lens the pico4 has better binocular overlap when I first got the quest 3 it felt weird being able to see the black rings over the inner part of the view but I got used to it very quickly and now I don't notice it unfortunately it means that 3D content doesn't look as three-dimensional as on the Pico 4 at least for me when I watch a 3D film on the Pico and then switch to the same film on the quest 3 it almost looks 2D the quest 3 has the best lenses of any headset I've ever used and so watching films on the quest 3 is a better experience at least visually I'll explain why it's still worse for me in a minute the P4 is much more comfortable out of the box the weight is balanced between the front and back of the head the quest 3 just comes with a fabric strap and it's not nearly as comfortable all the weight is in the front and that means head neck and face discomfort sets in pretty quickly to balance it and take the pressure off the face you'll need to buy a battery head strap the problem is that now the whole thing weighs over a kilogram and is twice the weight of the pico4 and that leads us into my subjective experiences I I find having 1,50 G on my head to be too uncomfortable compared to the p 4 the quest 3 felt like a really big step backwards and comfort I just can't enjoy watching a film for long because I feel all this weight pressing my head down into my spine the stock pad and top strap on the Pico were fine but I didn't love them so I made a couple of changes and now it's even more comfortable my favorite way to use the Pico is without the facial interface this gives the widest field of view and the most comfort for me it just floats in front of my eyes like a quest Pro but a lot more comfortable when it comes to reliability in my experience the quest 3 has a lot more bugs than the pico4 almost every time I use it something doesn't work properly sometimes the app icons don't appear sometimes the pass through goes really weird it drops to a really low frame rate and some kind of rip in the fabric of SpaceTime opens up when watching film stored on the internal storage sometimes the audio lags behind the video and I have to restart the headset to fix it other times when I'm trying to chat with people in big screen my microphone volume is so low that no one can make out what I'm saying even on a good day the mic quality isn't that great the mic on the P4 sounds a lot better another problem is that sometimes when I try to talk to people in VR with my airpods connected everyone's voice is in slow motion like everyone's voice is in slow motion so yeah I've had a lot of bugs with the quest 3 and all of them have been in firw where V65 the P4 has been so much more reliable for me I've never had any of those problems it just pretty much works I use the standard boundary most of the time and on the pico4 it's a lot bigger on the quest 3 the circle is quite small so I hit the sides more often when I move around it's a small gripe but these little things can add up I find the audio to be better on the quest 3 and the colors look nicer to me too for me the battery life has been better on the Pico 4 in my opinion neither headset is superior to the other each has its strengths and weaknesses for me it has been kind of frustrating because the two things things I value most in a headset are on two different devices I love the lenses on the quest 3 I find them to be so much better than the Pico and given that I mainly use VR for watching films I get a much nicer visual experience in the quest 3 the image is always sharp and clear without having to position my eyes to the ideal spot and that's why I tried so hard to make the quest 3 work for me but the comfort and reliability just ruin it without a battery head strap I find it unusable for longer than 5 or 10 minutes and with a battery headstrap there's just too much weight on my head and it's all I can think about it's so uncomfortable I just can't wait to get it off I'm sad that meta didn't really do much to improve the Comfort this time over the Quest 2 the Pico on the other hand falls behind in visual Clarity but it's still a huge improvement over the Quest 2 I had before but I do have to live with more glare and I have to fiddle with it a bit more to get my eyes in the ideal position to get the best image the Comfort though is outstanding I can wear it for 3 hours and feel completely comfortable it's also much more reliable at least for me and so as hard as I tried to live with the quest 3 and enjoy those stunning lenses in the end I went back to the Pico 4 because all things considered it's just been a much better experience for me now I just have to wait patiently and hope that meta makes Comfort a priority for the quest 4 thanks for tuning in see you next time

Channel: Roo's Reviews

Views: 12,894

Keywords: Meta Quest 3, Quest 3, Quest 3 Lite, Quest Lite, Quest 4, $200 Quest 3, VR headset, Pico 4, quest 3 versus pico 4, quest 3 vs pico 4, comparison

Id: RvtqvRYAqMk

Length: 5min 56sec (356 seconds)

Published: Tue May 14 2024