SNESFAN
Retro game fanatic
Alright, well as promised here is my first impressions review of the Odroid
Purchase & Shipping: Total price was $223 USD for the Odroid lite model plus shipping. They accept PayPal as a form of payment which I like very much. Package arrived in 3-4 days from halfway across the world is a pretty spectacular feat, $20 USD shipping going from korea post-> USPS -> my door I'm fairly satisified with that.
Unboxing: Small android robot green/yellow (i'm colorblind) box with lots of formed padding, Odroid, usb->hdmi connector, and battery is all thats in the box, all documentation is provided online. Odroid came with a protective plastic film on the screen.
Hardware: Odroid is fairly sturdy, but has a somewhat cheap plastic feel to it, alot lighter than you would expect by looking at it. Twisting it creates popping sounds as it moves back and forth, but nothing too bad. Visually is a dark transparent black matte finish. Parts fit together with no obvious flaws in the case construction. Battery cover slides on and off easy but doesn't appear to come off while using the device. There is a SD slot for mass storage and microSD slot with supplied 2Gb microSD for the system image, both accessible in the battery well, only replaceable with battery removed.
-Wifi:This is my biggest complaint here, it technically works, but it seems like it only connects when it wants to. With the version that comes out of the box, only WPA encryption is useable, after upgrading to android 2.1 pre-release, the same spotty connection is there but at least it allows you to connect to more types of secured wifi networks. I belive this to be software based, once it connects (and stays connected) it is snappy just as you would expect.
-Processor: The Samsung Cortex-A8 833Mhz ARM proc does a fairly decent job of being snappy in and out of apps very quickly. Comparing it to similar tasks that my HTC hero can do at 528mhz I'd say you definitely feel the boost to the proc.
-Bluetooth: Advertised but does not appear to be functional. I was unable to pair it with any headsets at the time of this posting. This is probably software related.
-Ram:512mb ram is sufficient IMO for android and all the software available at the time of this posting.
-Display: anti scratch glass capacitive touch screen survived my car keys test. The touch input needs more of a delay as it is extremely easy to tap items when you intended on scrolling. This is a software problem and should be resolved with further firmware development. No noticeable tearing or blur with fast action, crisp image, noticeable colors were brilliant (agian I note I'm colorblind) I should also mention they haven't finished writing the drivers for openGL yet but even in it's primitive state it's not too bad for graphic intensive apps, but live wallpapers fail horribly in 2.1... at least until they get this implemented I'm guessing.
-Buttons:This is where the design gets most people. The placement of the buttons d-pad on the left, abxy on the right and standard android home, back, menu, search on the lower left. They all technically work, but the design is horrible here. Putting the Odroid in to portrait mode the layout makes sence and is very natural, but it into landscape the layout is just quirky. If I could have designed it, I would have put the dpad directly left center, and abxy directly right center. I'd make all of them bigger and more nintendo/sony esque. I'd change the "android buttons" to be along the bottom of the screen in landscape and more of a oblong pill shaped. That's just my opinion. Anyway, the button press on the action and dpad buttons is a little stiff, but responsive, no issues with buttons getting stuck. Also there's a sliding off/on & fn switch, when going to the right it turns off the accelerometer (from what I gather) and puts the home screen and any running apps into landscape, this is very useful.
-Shoulder buttons: The way they did this was interesting but are somewhat of a mess also. They are capacitive touch sensors (really sensitive), not physical buttons. The sensitivity has been turned way down in the newest software release however. In the supplied version it is extremely easy to accidently hit them to the point of being annoying, obviously will be improved over time. You can feel this the most while in portrait. The inputs themselves are on the top of the device directly near the HDMI and I/O connector ports, they react the way you want them to when purposely hitting them. The shoulder buttons control the volume and work as such in most of the android apps you will download. In emulators they act just as they should as actual inputs. This is no different than most android phones. The placement is frustrating in portrait mode, but is the only logical placement while playing in landscape mode. I really wish they would have went with physical buttons here.
-Speaker: Mono internal speaker works, pretty clear, nothing spectacular, not as high quality as the hero I own. Headphone jack output is nice, this part depends on your headphones mainly, the audio quality is about what you would expect for something of this nature, nothing to write home about, volume is about as loud as you'd want it to be. It has a microphone but I didn't test it, nor do I know why you would need one, but if you find a reason, it's there.
-HDMI Out: I wasn't able to test this due to my lack of owning anything with HDMI input. Videos on youtube make it look nice though.
Software: This part is going to change vastly in the upcomming months. If more devs get ahold of an Odroid, it will move much faster. I'm extremely happy with the jump to 2.1 in the upcomming weeks. Alpha version is already very nice in it's infantcy. The manufacturers are very open to community development. They have guides on how to get to know and use your device, booting, to modifying, flashing, compiling android. Everything you would want from an open source handheld. The rate at which they are developing, it is hard for them to release the source code of every improvement, but they make it a point to post the source of everything they've done as official roll outs come out. This isn't just for the kernel development like they have to do legeally. They are honest to goodness an open source manufacturer. Much like OpenPandora ltd.
-Android:Use and feel of the android version that comes on it does feel rather clunky ATM compared to the android phones I've used in the past. If you feel android is already clunky, add twice as many clunks in the version they are providing. 10 times as many in the pre-release of enclair. The releases are based on the open source android git reposity, AOSP is what it is called I belive. All of your "with google" stuff is not there, such as the market (they have an alternative for this) gmail, google maps, google talk, google sync... all that fun stuff. The reason is it is not open source. One of the first things I'm going to do is figure out how to get all that on here though.
-Adding Software:The market alternative is called slideME, it works exactly like the market but is a non-google controlled source, you can purchase almost all the same apps as you can via the google android market. With the added ability to install via sd card downloads. It's like the android market+ if you ask me. Once you purchase a piece of software it's tied to your slideME account to be downloaded as much as you want. I haven't dug into the DRM aspect of it, but it seems fair.
-Hacking: If it is anything that I'm the most impressed with is this. They make it easy to get into hacking this thing. I'm somewhat of a noob when it comes to compiling an OS, but they break it down like barney, I need to do a lot of reading, but the information is there just waiting for anyone to go through it. They break it down to command line inputs. Simple copy and paste if that's what you're looking for. Great starting ground for anyone getting into this type of development. Android interests me very much and I can't wait to get started. One thing I have previous experience with is adb shell, talking to the internal guts of android, I am still having a hard time making my computer recognize Odroid as an android device with adb (android development bridge) I think it's because I'm running windows 7 and there's a long history of that casing problems with accessing android devices because of driver issues... I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually... that or break out my windows xp agian.
-Updateing: Firmware flashing software is all windows XP based, upgrades are very straight forward if you own a xp based machine, download a zip file, it contains uboot image, the kernel and the system image. No linux version of the sd card flasher currently, but has a guide on how to do it manually. The Odroid is unbrickable due to everything being read of the microSD and not flash.
-Gaming: As an emulator it is sufficient, no noticeable lag on the snes, gb, and sms emulators that I had, controls work, nothing amazing, but nothing bad... it works.
Battery: Battery life is fair, but admittedly Odroid manufacturers have stated they have made improvements to the sleep state and overall efficentcy to significantly improve battery life. As it is right now 4 hours away from charger under normal use and it was dead. The supplied IIRC 1400mAh battery (unmarked) should be enough as is while improvements would be welcomed.
Overall: The overall feeling I get on this is exciting. Even if it's just for the learning aspect of it. Watching it grow, seeing how basic android is supposed to work and getting the benefits of every major development google makes to it without the manufacturers getting in the way of releases and proprietary software. The handheld it's self is alright, but I'm more interested on what's on it rather than how it actually feels to use. Not something I'm going to be showing off to my friends thats for sure. Fun little device... definitely
EDIT: Oh yea... if you have any questions, feel free to ask
Purchase & Shipping: Total price was $223 USD for the Odroid lite model plus shipping. They accept PayPal as a form of payment which I like very much. Package arrived in 3-4 days from halfway across the world is a pretty spectacular feat, $20 USD shipping going from korea post-> USPS -> my door I'm fairly satisified with that.
Unboxing: Small android robot green/yellow (i'm colorblind) box with lots of formed padding, Odroid, usb->hdmi connector, and battery is all thats in the box, all documentation is provided online. Odroid came with a protective plastic film on the screen.
Hardware: Odroid is fairly sturdy, but has a somewhat cheap plastic feel to it, alot lighter than you would expect by looking at it. Twisting it creates popping sounds as it moves back and forth, but nothing too bad. Visually is a dark transparent black matte finish. Parts fit together with no obvious flaws in the case construction. Battery cover slides on and off easy but doesn't appear to come off while using the device. There is a SD slot for mass storage and microSD slot with supplied 2Gb microSD for the system image, both accessible in the battery well, only replaceable with battery removed.
-Wifi:This is my biggest complaint here, it technically works, but it seems like it only connects when it wants to. With the version that comes out of the box, only WPA encryption is useable, after upgrading to android 2.1 pre-release, the same spotty connection is there but at least it allows you to connect to more types of secured wifi networks. I belive this to be software based, once it connects (and stays connected) it is snappy just as you would expect.
-Processor: The Samsung Cortex-A8 833Mhz ARM proc does a fairly decent job of being snappy in and out of apps very quickly. Comparing it to similar tasks that my HTC hero can do at 528mhz I'd say you definitely feel the boost to the proc.
-Bluetooth: Advertised but does not appear to be functional. I was unable to pair it with any headsets at the time of this posting. This is probably software related.
-Ram:512mb ram is sufficient IMO for android and all the software available at the time of this posting.
-Display: anti scratch glass capacitive touch screen survived my car keys test. The touch input needs more of a delay as it is extremely easy to tap items when you intended on scrolling. This is a software problem and should be resolved with further firmware development. No noticeable tearing or blur with fast action, crisp image, noticeable colors were brilliant (agian I note I'm colorblind) I should also mention they haven't finished writing the drivers for openGL yet but even in it's primitive state it's not too bad for graphic intensive apps, but live wallpapers fail horribly in 2.1... at least until they get this implemented I'm guessing.
-Buttons:This is where the design gets most people. The placement of the buttons d-pad on the left, abxy on the right and standard android home, back, menu, search on the lower left. They all technically work, but the design is horrible here. Putting the Odroid in to portrait mode the layout makes sence and is very natural, but it into landscape the layout is just quirky. If I could have designed it, I would have put the dpad directly left center, and abxy directly right center. I'd make all of them bigger and more nintendo/sony esque. I'd change the "android buttons" to be along the bottom of the screen in landscape and more of a oblong pill shaped. That's just my opinion. Anyway, the button press on the action and dpad buttons is a little stiff, but responsive, no issues with buttons getting stuck. Also there's a sliding off/on & fn switch, when going to the right it turns off the accelerometer (from what I gather) and puts the home screen and any running apps into landscape, this is very useful.
-Shoulder buttons: The way they did this was interesting but are somewhat of a mess also. They are capacitive touch sensors (really sensitive), not physical buttons. The sensitivity has been turned way down in the newest software release however. In the supplied version it is extremely easy to accidently hit them to the point of being annoying, obviously will be improved over time. You can feel this the most while in portrait. The inputs themselves are on the top of the device directly near the HDMI and I/O connector ports, they react the way you want them to when purposely hitting them. The shoulder buttons control the volume and work as such in most of the android apps you will download. In emulators they act just as they should as actual inputs. This is no different than most android phones. The placement is frustrating in portrait mode, but is the only logical placement while playing in landscape mode. I really wish they would have went with physical buttons here.
-Speaker: Mono internal speaker works, pretty clear, nothing spectacular, not as high quality as the hero I own. Headphone jack output is nice, this part depends on your headphones mainly, the audio quality is about what you would expect for something of this nature, nothing to write home about, volume is about as loud as you'd want it to be. It has a microphone but I didn't test it, nor do I know why you would need one, but if you find a reason, it's there.
-HDMI Out: I wasn't able to test this due to my lack of owning anything with HDMI input. Videos on youtube make it look nice though.
Software: This part is going to change vastly in the upcomming months. If more devs get ahold of an Odroid, it will move much faster. I'm extremely happy with the jump to 2.1 in the upcomming weeks. Alpha version is already very nice in it's infantcy. The manufacturers are very open to community development. They have guides on how to get to know and use your device, booting, to modifying, flashing, compiling android. Everything you would want from an open source handheld. The rate at which they are developing, it is hard for them to release the source code of every improvement, but they make it a point to post the source of everything they've done as official roll outs come out. This isn't just for the kernel development like they have to do legeally. They are honest to goodness an open source manufacturer. Much like OpenPandora ltd.
-Android:Use and feel of the android version that comes on it does feel rather clunky ATM compared to the android phones I've used in the past. If you feel android is already clunky, add twice as many clunks in the version they are providing. 10 times as many in the pre-release of enclair. The releases are based on the open source android git reposity, AOSP is what it is called I belive. All of your "with google" stuff is not there, such as the market (they have an alternative for this) gmail, google maps, google talk, google sync... all that fun stuff. The reason is it is not open source. One of the first things I'm going to do is figure out how to get all that on here though.
-Adding Software:The market alternative is called slideME, it works exactly like the market but is a non-google controlled source, you can purchase almost all the same apps as you can via the google android market. With the added ability to install via sd card downloads. It's like the android market+ if you ask me. Once you purchase a piece of software it's tied to your slideME account to be downloaded as much as you want. I haven't dug into the DRM aspect of it, but it seems fair.
-Hacking: If it is anything that I'm the most impressed with is this. They make it easy to get into hacking this thing. I'm somewhat of a noob when it comes to compiling an OS, but they break it down like barney, I need to do a lot of reading, but the information is there just waiting for anyone to go through it. They break it down to command line inputs. Simple copy and paste if that's what you're looking for. Great starting ground for anyone getting into this type of development. Android interests me very much and I can't wait to get started. One thing I have previous experience with is adb shell, talking to the internal guts of android, I am still having a hard time making my computer recognize Odroid as an android device with adb (android development bridge) I think it's because I'm running windows 7 and there's a long history of that casing problems with accessing android devices because of driver issues... I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually... that or break out my windows xp agian.
-Updateing: Firmware flashing software is all windows XP based, upgrades are very straight forward if you own a xp based machine, download a zip file, it contains uboot image, the kernel and the system image. No linux version of the sd card flasher currently, but has a guide on how to do it manually. The Odroid is unbrickable due to everything being read of the microSD and not flash.
-Gaming: As an emulator it is sufficient, no noticeable lag on the snes, gb, and sms emulators that I had, controls work, nothing amazing, but nothing bad... it works.
Battery: Battery life is fair, but admittedly Odroid manufacturers have stated they have made improvements to the sleep state and overall efficentcy to significantly improve battery life. As it is right now 4 hours away from charger under normal use and it was dead. The supplied IIRC 1400mAh battery (unmarked) should be enough as is while improvements would be welcomed.
Overall: The overall feeling I get on this is exciting. Even if it's just for the learning aspect of it. Watching it grow, seeing how basic android is supposed to work and getting the benefits of every major development google makes to it without the manufacturers getting in the way of releases and proprietary software. The handheld it's self is alright, but I'm more interested on what's on it rather than how it actually feels to use. Not something I'm going to be showing off to my friends thats for sure. Fun little device... definitely
EDIT: Oh yea... if you have any questions, feel free to ask
