There are just a handful of standalone VR headsets available for purchase at the moment. The popular ones are the Oculus Go by Facebook’s Oculus, the Lenovo Mirage Solo, and the HTC Vive Focus. A new one just hit the market and it is the Goblin 2 by Pico.
Pico has been making VR headsets for about 3 years now and the Goblin 2 is their third standalone VR headset. Its predecessors are the Pico Goblin and the Pico Neo.
The Pico Goblin 2 has a similar design to the Oculus Go – a rounded rectangle front, polycarbonate body, and straps for holding it in place. Pico has made some significant changes to the new model.
The Goblin 2 weighs significantly less at 268g as against the Goblin’s 400g. This should make it more comfortable to wear for long. The new headset also has smaller dimensions and comes with a redesigned remote. The headset still supports 3DoF.
What we don’t like about the design is the position of the speakers which is underneath the device. So it seems to be pumping sounds downwards. We can’t say how well the speakers sound unless we get a hands-on review. However, there is a 3.5mm audio jack which is also at the bottom of the device.
The major changes are on the inside. The Pico Goblin 2 comes with two 3.5-inch TFT displays for a combined resolution of 2880 x 1600 (3K), unlike the original Goblin that has a single 5.5-inch 2560 x 1440 display. The refresh rate of the displays have also been bumped to 90Hz and the field of view is 101°.
The Goblin 2 also swaps out the Snapdragon 820 of its predecessor for the Snapdragon 835 Mobile Platform and runs Android 8.1 Oreo. RAM is 4GB and built-in storage is 32GB (UFS 2.1) but you can add more storage via a MicroSD card slot (256GB max.).
Even though the Goblin 2 is smaller, Pico has kept the 3500mAh battery capacity of its predecessor. The manufacturer says you should get about 3 hours of use from it. The device charges via a USB-C 3.0 port and has support for USB OTG.
When it comes to content, users can purchase or load apps and content from Pico’s own store or HTC’s Vive Port.
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The Pico Goblin 2 is priced at ¥1999 (~$293) and will be sold on Tmall and JD.com. Although it is a bit more expensive than the Oculus Go/Mi VR Standalone which sells for $199 in the US and ¥1499 in China for the 32GB version, the Pico Goblin 2 comes with much better specs and a larger battery.
