Pico 4S soon?

I’ve just seen this article, which kind of gives off a vibe that tha Pico 4S isn’t that far away. I might of course be wrong, but this kind of a leak usually no more than months away from actual news, at least for other hardware.

So my question is, would the upgraded XR2 chipset mean anything useful if one used the 4S as PCVR for MSFS over the regular Pico 4? For example would it be more efficient to decompress the video data? Or the upgraded chipset is only important for standalone use?

Secondly, is there any chance for the 4S to have a DP connection? That could really pull the rug from under the Pimax Crystal Light even if it keeps the Pico 4-s resolution. Or is that more likely to be just wishful thinking?

Plastic pancake lenses vs. aspheric glass?
2160 x 2160 vs. 2880 x 2880?
LCD vs. QLOD/Mini LED?

I think the Pico 4S might challenge the Quest 3, but it seems the Crystal Light is in the next higher tier (and more expensive.)

I’m guessing the Pico 4S will still rely on batteries, not DP. But that’s just a guess. The way I see it, their target is the Quest 3, not the Crystal Light.

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If and when a Pico4S is released, and we get some independent reviews, it’s impossible to say anything useful about this imho.

I did not mean a direct competition, quite a percentage of people who will buy the Crystal Light will do so, because it’s the cheapest display port HMD. If the P4S would have one, then suddenly there was a lot cheaper option. Currently you can get a P4 at about 350-450EUR, a guess 500 or even 550EUR would be an okay price for the P4S if it had DP.

To get the Crystal Light you either order it directly from Pimax and pay the advertised price + taxes/customs or order it from unboundxr for 999EUR, you’ll end up paying about the same.

So if there was a 550EUR alternative instead of the 1000EUR one, many wouldn’t even consider spending that 1000…

But that wasn’t really what I wanted to ask about, as @SunlitAlpaca141 pointed out until it’s out one can only speculate. However I do hope that there is someone on the forums that know about the role of the chipset in PCVR mode, if it would provide additional fps or clearer image for less strain on the PC. That kind of advantage.

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I understand. It was just the “pull the rug out” thing that had me wondering. I don’t have enough technical knowledge to know how faster onboard computing would affect performance or visual quality. Maybe the limitations of that component is the reason a lot of PCVR’s are using a compressed video signal, and the 4S could get the same performance with an uncompressed DP pipe that the Quest 3 gets from its compressed pipe.

It’s a good question.

Going by what the Quest 3 offers in Virtual Desktop, the new chipset should allow the Pico 4S to run with higher bitrates and also use the AV1 codec as an option. Otherwise, it would be the ability to run with higher graphical output in standalone titles that get the support.

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