Gamescom, sensor upgrade and other nice news


I like the grey and the red, the blue is off putting but the clear looks good but I don't think I'd get one. The key-mat looks really good, I'm surprised how good it looks back lit.

So if there is 1000 pre-orders those will be done in one run or still two batches of 500? I'm sorry, I don't follow the Pyra as closely as I did the Pandora. Pandora wore me out, it has been many years and I'm still recovering o_O
 
The GPD looks nice, but the Pyra looks practical. I think the Pyra will be useful for typing, not just available but unused. (The Pyra also looks nice, the GPD win at first glance looks clean, but that's not usefull at all. Keyboard is messy and small)
This is another part of what I feel, but in general, not just with the keyboard. The Pyra and the Win both look more useable and practical than my Pandora due to the silver paint and strange cracks that pop up for no reason. The Win still gives me that feeling of "must protect it from everything" to avoid scratches. The Pyra looks like it can withstand a bit more use before it starts to show, and once it gets roughed up it won't look like shit.

Overall there are too many things about the Win to be very interested in it anytime soon. If it proves to be able to withstand heavy use, and there is good Linux support (even if only from the community) I might consider it in a couple years. I think I would rather just get a new CPU board for the Pyra instead. Either way, I am a bit jealous of those that will get to check out these devices. I keep looking at, and zooming in on, the pictures ED posted. I would love a few more side by side pics, like from the front, our with them closed from the top, side and front.

I don't care about shrink marks as long as there are no random cracks. As for color, I think my order of preference is red and grey. Clear is still a special case for me, as I can paint it however I want, but right now I am considering it to be a second choice that I will "eventually" paint. I need to figure out what paint to use, then the colors and what I want it to look like. In the mean time it should have another case.

My Pandora really wants a little sister.
 
Clear is still a special case for me, as I can paint it however I want, but right now I am considering it to be a second choice that I will "eventually" paint. I need to figure out what paint to use, then the colors and what I want it to look like.
I didn't think of this, I think my preferred color would be green, so if clear does turn out to be an option I might get it.
 
I am fond of green as well, but I don't think I want a green Pyra (but if I paint the inside of a clear one I may use green for part of it).

After thinking about my post I realized that I an still saying that I like all three of those colors, and the only thing that is different is slightly more preference atm for that red, since the get is just a bit too light or dark for my preference. If those were our choices I would still have a hard time deciding which to get. It may depend on what it will look like with the logo plate.
 
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Well, I played around with the GPD Win quite a bit now, so I can give you some insights.

Be aware though: People might think I'm biased, I don't think I really am though, as I like new hardware as much as anyone here :)
Be also aware that the GPD Win I have is a prototype, so some things might still change for the final unit. The Pyra isn't much better in some regards here.. but yes, they're both prototypes. Prototypes are made to test and tweak the hardware to improve it, so there WILL always be some issues.

Okay, here's my opinion of the Win:

  • The case quality is nice. It's the same material as the GPD Win. Design is okay, but also too curvy for my opinion, but that's personal taste, as someone else mentioned before above :) The material loves fingerprints though, so it's not my favourite, but most devices these days are fingerprint magnets.
  • The processor power is incredible for such a small device. it's neat being able to play games like Civilization 4, etc. The downside is though: It also heats up quite a bit and eats the battery. Even doing nothing but running Windows, the CPU reaches over 60°C, just with webbrowsing, you reach over 75 - 80°C... gaming increases the heat even more. It's a nice hand heater. Haven't made extensive tests of the battery, but it seems to last for a few hours only. Charging while using it is nigh impossible (it charged 4% within 3 hours), but that might be same with the Pyra (we'll find out soon!). It doesn't really help that Windows isn't exactly optimized to use as little ressources as possible. Maybe with Linux this'll get better. I haven't done extensive heating tests with the Pyra, but the Intel CPU surely gets a lot hotter than the the OMAP5 when doing simple things like webbrowsing or idling. So yes: Incredible power in exchange of heat and battery life. I can fully understand why GPD chose to add a fan though.
  • Gaming controls: Mostly the same as with the GPD XD, so they're mostly okay (the DPad isn't my favourite one, but it's not bad).
  • The keyboard... oh yes. The keyboard. Actually, it's worse than I expected, sadly. The feel of it is okay, I'm not a fan of clicky keys, but they work fine. However, the left-aligned keyboard causes more issues than I expected. For a simple reason: You can't really type blind. When using a keyboard, your fingers usually have some reference. On a normal keyboard it's the space and SHIFT-Keys for example. On a mobile keyboard, I think it's the palm of your hands. My brain expects a centered keyboard (as every keyboard in a mobile system I've seen yet is centered). This means: When I'm typing in the dark, I often miss the key I want to press and end up pressing the one two or three to the right of that key instead. It might work if you train a lot, but for me, it was impossible to type in the dark - and I never had that issues with the Pandora, N900, Xperia Pro or Droid4. So yes... it's nice to have it to enter your name or similar for a game, but I wouldn't want to use it for typing longer texts.
  • The mouse / Joypad / XBox-Controller-switch: This seems to be an off-the-shelf-solution. When you flick the switch, Win10 registers different USB-devices. That's probably the reason they couldn't set it up to use the DPad in mouse mode... so as far as I figured out, there are three configurations: 1. Joypad-Mode: Both analog sticks, the keyboard and the buttons behave like a joypad. 2. Mouse Mode: Right analog stick: Move mouse: Left analog stick: Scroll Wheel (not working very well right now). DPad and ABXY: Disabled. Shoulderbuttons: Mouse buttons. 3. XBox-Mode: Similar to Joypad mode, but they all register as XBox-Controller. Right now, you certainly can't use the mouse together with the DPad at once.
So this is my current experience. As mentioned: Take this with a grain of salt. It's a prototype. Power usage might be different. The mouse/Joypad-Mode might be different. This is the current state. The Pyra also has a lot of issues in its current state. That's normal.

Is the GPD Win worth it? Yes. If you love playing Wndows games, you will love the GPD Win.
Is it better than the Pyra? No. It's different. It focusses on being a portable Windows gaming machine. The Pyra focusses on being more universal and being more open. It's more expensive and slower, but focusses on details like the replacable battery or the backlit keyboard which is a lot more usable for me. But it will never play Windows games as good as the Win. So which one you like and prefer depends on what you want to do with it.
 
Did all of the prototype preorderers opt for the close-to-final release candidate, or is it only the RC1 candidates that will receive theirs in September-ish, with the others later, or some other variant?

Is the tiler code up anywhere we can put more eyeballs to it?

Great to see new pictures and info though, thanks! I also thought the old keyboard backlight looked kind of uneven, so I'm glad you found the time to tweak that.

I hope you can keep at least two Pyra prototypes on the desk at gamescom most of the time, if you're likely to need to pull units to recharge them during the day.
 
I would like to examine the TILER code. I'm not a programmer, really, but I like looking at code to see if I can figure out how it works.
 
Is it better than the Pyra? No.

Its official - Ed is biased! :p

So the TILER is fixed now but does that mean hardware/3d acceleration is also sorted? Did I miss news about that?

Will the Pyra case be easier to replace/dissemble compared to the Pandora?
 
Envy you guys who will try Pyra out this Wednesday.

I find GPD keyboard extremely distasteful - the font on the keys, the lack of whitespace between the keys and the curvature of the bottom corners are disgusting. Also that gpd logo.. Idk the quality of the plastic looks nice for sure, but man some design choices on this thing are just baffling.
 
I like the rounded corners of the GPD WIN. for me, the PYRA is too bricky , plus I can imagine those corners digging into your hand. But each to their own. It doesn't matter in the end of the day , not like you have to marry the thing :p

On a different note, the picture of the Pyra next to the WIN shows of one issue I have seen before in pics of the Pyra. The clear plastic tops of the Pyra keys seem to reflect a lot of light when the lighting is overhead , making it near impossible to see the keys. As you can see in that photo.

Ed , is this something you can fix somehow?
 
Its official - Ed is biased! :p

So the TILER is fixed now but does that mean hardware/3d acceleration is also sorted? Did I miss news about that?

Will the Pyra case be easier to replace/dissemble compared to the Pandora?

AFAIR the 3D chip was working already.
 
The glossiness of the keys is also the case with the Pandora, although due to the dome of the keycaps, an attached flash will just appear as a point. In practice, I have had those reflections interfere with my identification (usually of a blue function key letter), but I can just tilt the unit slightly and eliminate the problem. I expect the same solution to work on the Pyra.
 
I've never had any issue with the shiny keys, but I hope it's not an issue for other people.
 
The clear plastic tops of the Pyra keys seem to reflect a lot of light when the lighting is overhead , making it near impossible to see the keys. As you can see in that photo.

Ed , is this something you can fix somehow?
You can probably tilt it slightly when looking for the key you need. I guess if that doesn't work you can turn the backlight on.
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Will the Pyra case be easier to replace/dissemble compared to the Pandora?
Yes.
 
Amazing news as always, I envy everyone who will be able to try the prototypes to both devices at the GamesCom. I'll probably never use the sensors for anything useful, but it's great to read that they got a hardware update even this late in development.

Like many other people here, I'm extremely grateful for the work zmatt put in to improve the rotation. Simplifying is always a hard job, and the fact you do it in your spare time and for everyone to enjoy is just awesome.

AFAIR the 3D chip was working already.
If the news from this post are still up-to-date, they are working, yes, but only as a proof of concept. If there's anything newer or if ED has any news about this, please feel free to correct me.
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So once I get back from GamesCom, expect a couple of videos!
The hype is real!
 
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