Atom Vs Pandora

[MrPoletski]

Now I'm willing to bet that anything those little ee pc things can do, pandora can also do.

I think it would be good for pandoras publicity if some direct comparisons were done. Quake 3 benchmarks, feature comparisons. Yanno, kind of a head to head review done anandtech style. perhaps some power to *weight* ratios too, and of course battery life under various conditions.

Have any of the team sent, or are planning on sending, Anand one of these?

After all, bung a WD passport in the usb port and you have a unit capable of being a desktop pc - nevermind the huge gaming potential.

 

[SuperRoach]

I do a podcast and occasionly do video reviews... (past stuff is for things like the nia, phones etc)

might be interesting.


The biggest catch point which would be bought up though would be the x86 compatability.

 

[gruso]

Believe it or not, it's been discussed before.

 

[icurafu]

http://www.umpcportal.com/2009/02/arm-prep...nd-more-for-mwc

Expect something interesting from this.

 

[MrPoletski]

Believe it or not, it's been discussed before.

sure, but has sending one Anands way crossed anyones mind?

I, for one, vouch for Mr Lal Shimpi's professional computing expertise and impartial reviewing.

how about the peeps at beyond3d? they'd love it, half their staff are (or at least were) ex-powervr (as in PC AIB) fans.

 

[chole]

sure, but has sending one Anands way crossed anyones mind?

I, for one, vouch for Mr Lal Shimpi's professional computing expertise and impartial reviewing.

how about the peeps at beyond3d? they'd love it, half their staff are (or at least were) ex-powervr (as in PC AIB) fans.

Darnit, I missed out on the preordering, and I want to order as soon as it gets to my spot in the maillist queue. I vote no sending out to big techhead sites until after I have my spot secured.

That said it probably really should go to him and similar folk after the original preorderers have received and extensively tested the system. This will give a chance for the software side to be reasonably matured so that the reviewers don't complain about things that are obviously missing at the start but would have been put in shortly thereafter anyway (like libqt4-core and libqt4-gui ... and nethack, pretty please?).

And so their criticisms will be more useful to the community.

 

[ldesnogu]

http://www.umpcportal.com/2009/02/arm-prep...nd-more-for-mwc

Expect something interesting from this.

They got something wrong: it's a full platform (no screen or peripheral, but CPU + RAM + video chip, etc.) that is about 2W, not the CPU alone

 

[Kekerot]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8YNkZ4pfYA

Check out this MID with an atom in it. I think the next generation of intel atoms will be alright since it will be a SoC but right now the battery life is only 2-4 hours on most of the devices. The one in the video was modded pretty well though and lasts 4-6 hours.

 

[mali]

JKK did a great job there
The (nearly) perfect internet tablet...

 

[benjiro]

They got something wrong: it's a full platform (no screen or peripheral, but CPU + RAM + video chip, etc.) that is about 2W, not the CPU alone

Basic calculation:

ARM ( whole platform ): 2Watt
Atom ( whole platform ): 3 a 4Watt

The best Atom has a known power usage off 2.5Watt. The entire Arm platform using 0.5 to 1.5watt minus the CPU? I don't think so. Its known that for instance, the "Intel System Controller Hub US15W" uses 5 watt by itself. Or 6 W for the 945GSE chipset and 3.3 W for the 82801GBM I/O controller. And thats part off the "full platform". Can't use the system without the those chips.

So, those 3 a 4Watt power figures don't make sense, or they are talking about the new Lincroft platform?

 

[ldesnogu]

Oops I was perhaps not clear enough: the 2W I quoted for full platform are of course for an OMAP3 based board.
For Atom, they are for sure well above 5W... for the moment.

 

[craigix]

Let's just see who gets the 10 hours shall we?

 

[benjiro]

Let's just see who gets the 10 hours shall we?

I will see as soon as i have a Pandora in my hand

 

[Mr.Gonzo]

10+ hours :rolleyes:

And how much is that with the case closed while playing music ?

*exited*

 

[ldesnogu]

The answer is partially known since Archos 5 is @7 hours for video playback and @22 hours for music.

 

[benjiro]

The answer is partially known since Archos 5 is @7 hours for video playback and @22 hours for music.

Sure about that? A lot off reports ( and a few reviews ) state 4 hours of video playback, and 12 hours for music. Those 7 hours are ones claimed by the manufacture, under ideal tests ( lowest brightness, low sound volumn etc )...

The Archos 5 also used a mechanical HD. And we all know those drain power like crazy when in operation. So, its not exactly easy to compare both.

 

[cobaltage]

Not to go too off-topic, but Freescale plans on releasing netbooks based on the ARM Cortex A8 1GHz with Linux for $199. 8.9" LCD. About 8 hours battery life per the company.

URL:
news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10130690-64.html

It has not been released, but it should be good for comparison as soon as it is.

It will be interesting to see how well ARM A8 competes with the Intel Atom in this product space.

 

[fireball87]

Freescale plans on releasing netbooks based on the ARM Cortex A8 1GHz with Linux for $199. 8.9" LCD. About 8 hours battery life per the company.

...

It will be interesting to see how well ARM A8 competes with the Intel Atom in this product space.

(just a note, I shrunk the quote a tad to note what i was replying to and take a tad less space, so take note... for some reason)

If both its claims of 200 usd and 8 hours battery life are correct then I'd imagine quite well seeing as battery life and cost are about the two dominant factors in the netbook market. People seem to either buy the cheapest or the ones with the 6 cell batteries. Or atleast that's what my looking at netbooks has told me. I may be forced to pick one up as a coding machine if the keyboards good and the claims are true.

 

[ldesnogu]

The answer is partially known since Archos 5 is @7 hours for video playback and @22 hours for music.

Sure about that? A lot off reports ( and a few reviews ) state 4 hours of video playback, and 12 hours for music. Those 7 hours are ones claimed by the manufacture, under ideal tests ( lowest brightness, low sound volumn etc )...

The Archos 5 also used a mechanical HD. And we all know those drain power like crazy when in operation. So, its not exactly easy to compare both.

Well that's what Archos says on its site. Which is quite similar to what info we get for Pandora; after all it comes from the makers of Pandora, it's not an independent source

Note that I'm not saying either Archos or Pandora are lying, but until some customer/reviewer really plays with a Pandora, there is no evidence

 

[lambertus]

Let's just see who gets the 10 hours shall we?

Judging power usage based upon running hours is like comparing apples with oranges. Depending on your viewpoint the battery is up to 100% responsible for this number.

Of course, ultimately the customer will only notice the difference in running hours but you can't use it to determine which hardware platform is better. For that, the average, maximum or the amount of power used to perform a specific task is a much better benchmark.