I started off saying that 2 iterations of a device came and gone since I preordered the pyra and still don't know when it's comming. GPD if anything, can get a certain level of quality out the door, so maybe you should work with them because of that. You came back saying something that came off as 'GPD can release devices, but they have shite batteries' almost snuffing your nose at the idea.That sounds like shots fired to me.
That would never work, because they're doing something completely different.
They want something fast, which makes money and stop caring about that a year later when the next iteration is finished.
There have not been any driver updates for quite a while for the GPD Win or GPD Pocket, the recovery windows they offer is years old, they don't work on the Linux version anymore, etc.
That's exactly what I DON'T want.
The reason I said that the batteries have issues is because you made it sound like it's an advantage having a lot of interations instead of thoroughly tested hardware... and that's exactly what I hate these days.
Rushed out stuff with serious issues (and yes, the battery issue is serious for me, if you can't use the device anymore after 1,5 years and can't even get a replacement battery...)
Additionally, I don't think their hardware design of the GPD Win is that great. The case design is nice and clean, but the hardware...?
The main system is a standard Intel layout which they just used on their PCB (similar to what we did with the Pyra - we used the EVM Devboard layout as a base).
What they added are the analog sticks, that weird Joystick/Mouse-Switch (which has some issues), the charger circuit and the fan.
The fan isn't software controlled, it's just a simple switch (they fixed that with the GPD Win 2).
And either the charger circuit or the battery has some issues, otherwise I have no explanation for the short lifetime of the battery.
I can imagine that the issue is that it's ALWAYS the battery that powers the GPD Win, and when it's connected to the power supply, charge will go into the battery an from there into the system - which would explain why it would wear out the battery that quickly.
I haven't tested this - but if the system doesn't boot if you have no battery connected but only a power supply, then this would be a clear sign for that.
So yes, their own hardware design on the GPD Win isn't that great, there are a lot of issues as well. The big advantage is that they used a standard SoC supported by Intel, whereas we had the bad luck that the OMAP5 is discontinued and a lot of the drivers are only in a half-state, so with each issue (like TILER, the 4GB RAM or the 1,5GHz issues we had), we need to find out whether it's software or hardware, which caused a lot of delays... in the end, it was software. Intel surely did a better job, so everything ran better from the start.
This is how the charger circuit of the Pyra has been designed:
If there's a power supply connected, the power will go DIRECTLY to the system, not using the battery.
The battery is ONLY used if the power supply doesn't provide enough power.
If it provides more than enough power, then the system will be powered and the rest will be used to charge the battery.
That way, the Pyra also works WITHOUT a battery inserted.
There are things they do well, such as you noted, their case design. The case was and still is a major holdup with both the pyra and pandora. Issue as in the hold up, or build quality in general in reference to the pandora.
I'm not sure the build quality is better. I've seen quite a few GPD Wins with cracks or broken hinges already. The design is nicer, but I'm not sure about the quality.
Cooling looks to be a stuggle, and even from the early days when all we had was numbers on paper, it looked to some of us it was going to be a problem, but we were left with claims it wouldn't be a big deal, you mentioned above, that is one of their strengths.
Cooling is not really a struggle. Sure, I could've improved it further if the case design company would've been more flexible, but so far (from what we've seen with tests with ptitSebs unit), it works as it should.
Sure, running for extended periods of time with full CPU power will probably not work, but that's not needed that often. And it would eat your battery like hell.
Looking at the speed / efficiency chart of the OMAP5, it clearly shows that anything higher than 1,1 - 1,2GHz will eat battery. It eats WAY more power (logarithmic!) and is less efficient. That's the Cortex A15.
But that's what we have to live with, we can't change that unless we are big enough to get a different SoC.
They also don't seem to have any problems designing a pcb relatively quickly and mostly without any major errors.Take those strengths, show them what you want as far as controller (minus analog) and keyboard design, as that is definitely one of their weaknesses and very much one of your strengths.
That's because of two important things: Man power and simplicity.
The GPD Win PCB is about 10x simpler than the Pyra PCB.
The more custom stuff you add (3 SD-Card slots, sensors, etc.), the more complex the design gets.
Also, the less space you have on the PCB, the more complex the layout is.
After the full schematics had been done, Nikolaus spent over 6 months of daily work to route all the traces on our tight space.
The PCB of the GPD Win is a lot wider and doesn't have as many huge components as we have (for example, the SD Card slots and the LTE modem).
This makes layouting a LOT easier and faster.
Additionally, they have more than one designers (they probably have more than 20x the money and 50x more manpower than we have).
That speeds up things immensively.
It's not a 'you vs them', it could be a best of both worlds, the perfect device as you mentioned. Add your strengths with their strengths.
That will only work if they had the same visions as we have. They don't have them.
I already spoke with them a while ago - they would never want to design such a complex device with so many features on small space.
It would be too expensive to design.
We could've created a simple version of the Pyra (with only one SD-Card slot, the SoC directly on the mainboard, 2GB RAM and a bigger size within a very short timeframe as well.
In that case, we would've copied the devboard schematics onto a PCB, add a keyboard and charger circuit as well as a screen and be done with it.
Sure, the case would've been an issue with the current company, but hardwarewise, the finished design could've been done within a few months.
A lot of testing wouldn't have been neccessary if you simply reused the full devboard schematics
That's basically what happened with the GPD Win.
Thankfully, as they had a lot more money available for the GPD Win 2, they improved it A LOT.
The GPD Win 2 is a nice and custom made system, but the GPD Win is not really impressive, if you know how hardware design works and you take a closer look.
There is a point where quality over quantity has it's limits. I personally think that point is when that metric starts getting measured in multiple years.
That doesn't have to do with quality, that has to do with manpower.
With 10x as many people as we have, you could've sped up things about 5x, so 5 years would be 1 year design.
And manpower has to do with money. If someone would've thrown 2 Million EUR onto my bank account, I'm sure I could've developed a way better Pyra (more modern SoC, proper case) within a year.
Sadly, we don't have that money.
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GPD is sitting in Shenzehn which means they have everything they need within walking distance
also they are on a totally different scale, they can just pay specialists (chinese rates) because they sell a lot more units
Yes. I often wished I had something like that here
I do not know how much inhouse development they actually do, it is very easy to outsource development and production to specialists there provided you can afford it
As far as I know, the GPD Win 2 was mostly outsourced. At least the design and case production. Which is also why the GPD Win 2 feels a lot more professional than the GPD Win.
Shenzhen is an insane place for electronics development or production ... ran out of components ? go to the market in your lunch break and buy new ones
Yes. Additionally, Chinese companies support other chinese companies. Which mean they can get bare PCBs within a few days where I have to wait a few weeks (yes, I know it's like that from a befriended company).
