This little monster will let you wander through the virtual world

When it comes to VR, there's always that movie, Top Gun. The scene depicted in the movie is probably our ultimate imagination of VR devices: constructing another world, traveling thousands of miles without going out, the virtual world is the real world, and the real world is the virtual world. But when VR glasses first became popular, my experience with them wasn't nearly as comfortable as I'd imagined.

Back then, VR devices were far from great, and the first thing that made it hard to accept was the super poor dynamic positioning. For example, when I'm watching a movie in bed, my head doesn't move, but the video image just drifts away from my line of sight, and then I calibrate, and then the video image drifts away from my line of sight once again. ......

Secondly, when it comes to the refresh rate, the year was a disaster.

And recently, I got my hands on the latest VR device: the Pico Neo 2 VR all-in-one, also known as the Little Monster 2, which was announced earlier this year by Birdie at CES 2020, where it won the CES 2020 Innovation Award. How far have VR glasses come in the past few years?

High-performance body

The Pico Neo 2 is equipped with a 4500mAh battery, which is enough to support 2.5-3 hours of gaming, and the battery is smartly designed at the back, so the overall weight distribution is relatively even, even if your head suddenly gains 667g when you put on the Pico. Even if you suddenly gain 667g of weight on your head while wearing this gadget, it's easy to regain the new balance and not feel light-headed when you're performing larger movements in sports.

The Pico Neo 2 features a 4K LCD screen with a Fresnel lens, which, paired with a field of view of up to 101 degrees, is more than enough to deliver a good viewing experience. The high resolution delivers a clearer and more detailed picture quality, with little visible pixel grain. The downside is that it doesn't support pupil adjustment, so I have to wear glasses to watch it with high myopia.

It's a good thing that Little Monster 2 is glasses-friendly. The part of the eye contact with the skin-friendly foam cotton, close to the forehead and face, will not leak light at the same time, but also does not bring too strong sense of pressure, and the front and sides have a certain amount of margin, even with glasses will not feel oppressed. The overall structure of the I-beam, when wearing first adjust the upper strap for coarse adjustment, there are three holes to choose from, after wearing the rear knob to rotate, to the sides of the strap for fine-tuning, adjusted to ensure that the little monster 2 firmly fixed in the head, the movement does not need to worry about.

High performance is the guarantee of a good experience

The Snapdragon 845 chip brings good image processing ability, 4G + 128G storage space, also supports Micro-SD card expansion, you can install enough games, save enough movies.

The third generation of inside-out 6DoF head tracking + protection system. 6DoF tracking system, that is, six degrees of freedom tracking, six degrees of freedom tracking. Early VR glasses drove the tracking system through multiple fisheye cameras, depth cameras, and other sensors to provide an accurate and reliable tracking experience in any given scene, but they required too many components, were heavy and expensive, and kept the AR glasses from becoming more useful and popular.

In the early days of VR technology, mainstream content was more panoramic video, i.e., it was limited to 3DoF, with a "shell" that could only rotate the head back and forth, but could not walk around to wrap the viewer in it, and was essentially based on the way traditional video was shot, and then spliced together later to form a sphere that encircled the viewer. 6DoF adds up and down, left and right, and forward and backward body movements to the 3DoF.

360° blind spot-free joystick

Little Monsters 2 comes with the same 6DoF-positioned joystick, with the home button in the center, and the exit button much lower than the OK button, with a protruding "-", so that you don't need to pick it up and look at the buttons in the middle of a game even if you're new to the game, and you can judge them directly by how they feel in your hand. Of course, if you forget the buttons on the joystick, just hold the joystick out in front of you and it will intelligently recognize the joystick and float around marking the function of each button.

A more fun way to play

My favorite fighting game is Drunkn Bar Fight, where I open the game and I'm in a tavern, holding the joystick to simulate boxing, and I don't have to ask any NPCs what they're looking at, but I just swing my fist around, and it immediately gives me a strong vibration feedback, and the sound of the wind and NPCs being hit is a great way to get the most out of the game. The NPCs were hit by the sound, which is a great way to release the pressure, and by the way, you can also move your muscles.

Angry Birds is an old game. The VR version of Angry Birds doesn't change the game much, it just transforms it from flat to 3D, so you can walk around and observe the game, and take on the role of a slingshot to shoot.

In addition to these currently built-in games, Birdie Look also said that it will keep up with the rate of 4-6 quality games per month in the future. Meanwhile, Little Monster 2 also has good PC compatibility, allowing you to experience Steam VR games like the recent hit Half-Life 2 by wirelessly streaming it through a Gigabit router with a VR Resdy PC.

Immersive audio/video experience

Theaters have been closed for a long time, and it doesn't look like they'll be back in business for a while. How can you enjoy an immersive experience like watching a movie in a theater? The Little Monster 2 has a lot of video apps built in, including Qiyi VR, Tencent video, Douyu live streaming, Jiyin short videos, and BeiliBeili, and supports Airdrop and other direct mobile casting, which makes it very convenient to watch movies.

While watching these videos, Little Monster 2 will simulate the video in a theater scene, looking at it from all angles, up and down, left and right, front and back, as if it were wrapped in a theater.

Summary

As an alternative to VR, VR all-in-ones are cheaper to get started with, and the logic is almost impossible to learn (because of the built-in Android system). Thanks to Android, it's possible to watch content from video sites like B-site with no difficulty and with no additional setup. The Pico Neo 2 VR all-in-one is a great experience for VR enthusiasts.