5" screen (on a P2)

[zonova]

Grench, i am unbelievable jealous of that monitor set up. Would you mind if i were to... come and steal all of your technology?

 

[Binky]

combined screen the size of a car windshield was cool

Compare this to the topic title. I think we may have derailed a bit.!

 

[ekianjo]

If we don't go HD, in 2014 people will dismiss the P2 because it has a 'crappy, old non HD LCD'.

No, it's about investing in the right thing.


Just like it makes NO sense whatsoever to have pocket cameras with 15 million pixels sensors. The lens is of so poor quality that all you get is garbage when you zoom in.


On a mobile device, it's the same thing: you get more pixels but you don't see them because your screen is damn too small. What's the point of wasting power, energy, and processing power in something that is NOT visible ?


I don't care what the industry or mobile market says - we should be above that kind of stupid marketing argument. The ones pushing these specs are the manufacturers who have no control on the software and expect to win a few customers simply because they have something slightly better than the rest, even if it does not make any sense.


Why not have 3D screens then ? What if people complain "why you dont have 3D mode like the 3DS ? Then you are not the best handheld ! The 3DS can do something the P2 cannot do!" - this is a stupid line to make decisions.


Best handheld, YES, but it has to go with the whole design. It does not matter if you have 3 pixels more than the PSP or 1 inch less than the Galaxy 3, what is really important is what it can run, how long it can run it for, and if whatever specs you invest in is a good investment.

 

[Grench]

On a mobile device, it's the same thing: you get more pixels but you don't see them because your screen is damn too small. What's the point of wasting power, energy, and processing power in something that is NOT visible ?

There is a lot tied up there in the definition of 'visible'.


In theory, 300dpi is right around the limit of what the human eye can distinguish.


Back in the 80's I owned an HP LaserJet+ printer. Hot tech at the time. It could do 300dpi black and white printing to regular office paper. Compared to the other 150dpi printers of the era, you could easily tell the 300dpi print when put next to a 150dpi from another printer.


Fast forward to the 90s. Then I was using an IBM 4029 laser printer running at 600 dpi. Comparing side by side the same document printed on the old LaserJet+ to the 4029 was night and day. The 600dpi clearly made a difference and the output looked more professional.


Forward to the 2000s. I got a Cannon i9100 ink jet. It was able to spin out 1200x4800 dpi full color photo quality prints in 13x19 full bleed copy. Truly the most amazing output I've ever seen from a consumer available printer. I ended up getting rid of it because it was too expensive to maintain and supply.


I'm now using an HP 2025DN 600dpi color laser. It is a great printer, but no where near the quality output that I got from the i9100.


What is the point of the above?


In no cases could I actually see any of the individual pixels. Yet there was a very real difference in the visible quality of the output.


Try this:


Connect a 1920x1080 monitor to the same computer as a same sized 1600x1050 monitor. Look at the same very high resolution image on both from 1', 1.5', 2' and 3' away. You probably won't see any actual pixels in either case - but the odds are that the 1920 display will simply look 'better'.


All that said - for a hand held device like the Pandora, I would gladly give up some resolution if we can get a Pixel-Qi daylight view screen on it.

 

[ekianjo]

Grench, I don't deny that you would "see" a difference in sharpness with more pixels. Even if you don't see the individual pixels.


But the point is that users will anyway ONLY see a single screen when it ships, it's not like they will have a choice between X and Y resolutions, to compare.


Then, the question is: what is good enough and what makes sense in terms of power/performance consumption for a handheld device ?


What's the advantage of having a TrueHD resolution if all your 3D applications will lag just to display the right amount of pixels on screen. And with better resolution, you'll need better texture, so more RAM or graphic RAM. And RAM consumes power.


So, how much gain are we actually talking about versus the loss of : performance / battery life ?


I just don't see the huge benefits of having a true HD screen.

 

[Exophase]

Printers need more DPI than monitors because they don't have variable intensity dots. Therefore it takes many dots to create the equivalence of one 8-bit color component. You can't compare DPI of a printer to PPI of a device, and besides that the ideal pixel density is dependent on how far your eyes are from the thing.

 

[Klumpen]

[i don't care what the industry or mobile market says - we should be above that kind of stupid marketing argument.

On the one hand, Craig said, that it's ok that the P2 will cost at least 700$, because it's a niche product for a small number of customers.


On the other hand, he starts with "marketstandards" and all this comparisons with mainstream tech.


WTF?


In the end it will be an expensive piece of garbage without sufficient power to get near the runningtime of the first versionn


and loads of stuff that no one can see because it's too small OR there are not enough programmers left to write something for it (like the vibration feedback on the Caanoo).


To use all this shit, you need a big well paid team of programmers or 5-10 more years and people that will do it for free, because so many people are using it,


what cannot be the case, because it's a niche product, as said before.

 

[craigix]

We have already made clear that Android will be running on it (this is a condition of access to the HW), so it will be useable from launch.

 

[Exophase]

I hope Android is better suited for gamepad control than I think, because I am not going to want to use the standard thumb touch controls on the top half of a clamshell.

 

[sandwhich]

I guess noone cares too much if you can easily replace Android with a normal Linux, so no need to argue on that topic I'd say.


And since it's already sure that "Android will be running on it", we don't have to wonder who is going to make the needed adjustments, because Craig has already found someone to do that (or knows who's probably going to do it?), don't we?

 

[Exophase]

I guess noone cares too much if you can easily replace Android with a normal Linux, so no need to argue on that topic I'd say.

I don't agree with this mentality. It's not enough that you'll be able to run alternative OSes. Developers have to be supporting those OSes with their software. I hope it'll come in a dual boot format with both loaded onto the unit out of the box, or even better, the ability to switch between them as they run, both running on the same kernel.. But I'm not holding my breath for either of these.

And since it's already sure that "Android will be running on it", we don't have to wonder who is going to make the needed adjustments, because Craig has already found someone to do that (or knows who's probably going to do it?), don't we?

Really? The SoC manufacturer has Android already prepared for the SoC, most likely, but why would that imply OPT has people who are customizing it to be better suited for the Pandora 2's controls?


I'm kind of surprised the vendor is only giving them the SoC if they put Android on it since I'm not aware of SoC manufacturers getting any kind of kickback from Android running on their devices, and it's not going to dictate the volume bought.. but whatever..

 

[craigix]

I hope Android is better suited for gamepad control than I think, because I am not going to want to use the standard thumb touch controls on the top half of a clamshell.

Android, due to googles bigger plan, supports gamepads and has several mapping apps with which you can map your controls over any app.


Obviously some games will not really work well with those (games where you're having to, for example, pop bubbles with the touch screen) and you would have to use the touch screen for those.


As you would with web browsers etc. anyway.


The iControlpad sells more for Android than for iOS, which I found interesting considering Android was not the main target.

 

[Exophase]

I'm not talking about games here, I'm talking about the general UI stuff.


Yeah, you have to touch for web browsing, but this is more single-point mousey stuff. I'm more concerned about two finger thumbing/gesturing. I mean anything where multitouch is nice (afaik it's established it'll have multitouch) is bewildering to me because how exactly do you put multiple fingers on a Pandora-like screen?

 

[craigix]

Like you can on various phones which already exist with gaming controls and keyboard? It isn't a challenge to reach up to the LCD and touch it.


Android supports keyboards too.

 

[Binky]

[i don't care what the industry or mobile market says - we should be above that kind of stupid marketing argument.

On the one hand, Craig said, that it's ok that the P2 will cost at least 700$, because it's a niche product for a small number of customers.


On the other hand, he starts with "marketstandards" and all this comparisons with mainstream tech.


WTF?


In the end it will be an expensive piece of garbage without sufficient power to get near the runningtime of the first versionn


and loads of stuff that no one can see because it's too small OR there are not enough programmers left to write something for it (like the vibration feedback on the Caanoo).


To use all this shit, you need a big well paid team of programmers or 5-10 more years and people that will do it for free, because so many people are using it,


what cannot be the case, because it's a niche product, as said before.

That is a possibility, but a very unlikely one.


Something that this community won't buy, won't sell


Craig is not an idiot, Ed has a good set of geeky values


Having said that, a solid dev team for true linux will be very important (and Notaz will be hard to replace), and the thing with microSD cards appears to have been misjudged.

 

[Exophase]

Like you can on various phones which already exist with gaming controls and keyboard? It isn't a challenge to reach up to the LCD and touch it.


Android supports keyboards too.

The only phone I know of that has gaming controls is the Xperia Play, which lets you slide the controls underneath the display and hold it like you do every other phone. Similar for phones with slide-out keyboards. I'm not aware of any phone on the market that uses a clamshell with a multitouch screen on the top. And personally I think that holding it by the base and reaching up to touch it with both hands IS a challenge.


Yes I know Android supports keyboards and gaming controls, that's irrelevant...

 

[Linux-SWAT]

As long as i can port Slackware to it, i don't really care ^^.

 

[craigix]

Exophase, I guess the whole range of inputs on Android just won't be enough and you will try to find an app which requires both hands on the screen which cannot be easily mapped to the Pandora controls. I'm sure that single app will mean no one will want the P2 in your eyes.


Have you stopped to consider that if we didn't have Android that app would not be available anyway?


So you can just install Linux on your P2, if you get one, and forget all about Android.


As usual you're arguing for the sake of it, and I'm not going any further.

 

[SNESFAN]

There are apps on the pandora you are forced to use the touchscreen to make selections on instead of nubmouse (mupen) and speaking from someone who uses android for a netbook running android as a main computer having to occasionally touch screen to navigate or use a mouse trackpad as an option it doesnt feel combersome.


Only problem i see is switching from nubmouse mode in android to joystick mode.


Dpad works for most if not all elements of the main ui and most apps for menu selections. Selecting/clicking can be done with action button or space bar

 

[Exophase]

Exophase, I guess the whole range of inputs on Android just won't be enough and you will try to find an app which requires both hands on the screen which cannot be easily mapped to the Pandora controls. I'm sure that single app will mean no one will want the P2 in your eyes.

You clearly have no idea what I'm getting at. I'm not making any statements about how "no one will want the P2." What I'm saying is that some of the common input styles on a typical phone or tablet are going to be cumbersome here. And I hope people who develop Android apps for markets bigger than just Pandora keep this in mind.

Have you stopped to consider that if we didn't have Android that app would not be available anyway?

Have you read any of my many posts advocating that Pandora 2 come with Android? Then why are you talking to me as if I don't want it? This has nothing to do with that.

So you can just install Linux on your P2, if you get one, and forget all about Android.

I hope it's clear to everyone that you don't intend to preload the thing with Linux. I've said at length what I think about the downsides to this and I'm not going to bother repeating it.

As usual you're arguing for the sake of it, and I'm not going any further.

Why not go even further and stop saying anything in the first place. I don't know why you always feel the need to announce that you're done talking and put down the other person.