Gph Clearing The Facts

[efegea]

GPH have emailed Anarchy (Spain distributor and GP32Spain webmaster) clearing the facts about the GP2X problems and rumours

It has been translated by Google, so gramatical errors are expected (okay, it's half google half mine, English is not my native language...)

Because of the enormous amount of rumors on the launching of the GP2X in Korea, I requested to GPH a summary of the problems that had arisen really, since people were generating an alarm being based on BETA translators and rumors in other forums. Today they have written to me to explain the real problems of the console and the most frequents complaints received. I am going to list all, even those that seem more absurd to me or those than already have been solved:

- REAL complaints about the hardware:

* Battery case is too hard
The battery case has to be open like in the following picture

* Screen is scratched
There are two layers in the screen protector, an acrylic one and one of cellophane with black borders. Both layers have two vinyl films. Retire vinyl films and put again the layers on the screen.


* Headphones doesn't work properly
In about 95% of times is caused the by the headphones jack, that has not been entered correctly. This is because the connector is a bit hard and also some headphones' jack have a form that prevents them to enter correctly (I corroborate it, one of the headphones did not enter when I was recording the console with the camera). They are isolated cases of connectors badly soldered, in this case the unit can be replaced.


* Isolated cases of problems to the left with stick

Somestimes the stick doesn't work at all to the left
Simple solution (it does not need opening the console): Throw of stick and turn it several times counter-clockwise, do the same but pressing stick. The problem will be solved almost in the totality of the cases. I stick the final note from GPH's email:

* Expert in mechanical engineering recommended this method. He also experienced such a trouble when he over-fastened the bolt. ^.^;

* Extreme cases: Broken units...

Like on all fabrication process, some units came defective and can be replaced immediately



At this time there are not more hardware problems detected


- REAL complaints about the firmware:


* SD not detected if inserted when the console is on

Just insert the SD before turning on the console. It's a problem of actual firmware (previous firmwares, like the ones on TEST versions of the console didn't have the problem)
Will be fixed soon


* SD 1GB limit

Old driver. Will be fixed soon


* Read-only NAND

Actual firmware's problem. Will be fixed soon.


* USB not working on Win98

Only Win2K SP4 and Win XP have USB support


* Screen problems (vertical lines, wrong brightness..)

Fixed on the last firmware released. There is stil a problem but will be fixed in next firmware


* Short battery live

Actually about 4~5 hours on 2500mah batteries and 3~4 playing video
Will be fixed by reducing the processors speed on menus, music player...
In the video player the TV chip is consuming battery energy although not being used. When fixed, there will be about 25% more of battery duration


* Boot time

Actually 28 seconds. Will be reduced to 20 seconds


* Red battery led always on

Will be fixed soon



- New features on next firmwares:


* Music player GUI will be different

Improvements in music player


* Text viewer

History and bookmarks


* Image viewer

Zoom and pictures bigger than 2048x1024



SDK and SDL will be released soon


All problems fixable on next firmware releases, as hardware problems are absurd (battery case/screen protector) or easily fixable (headphones jack, stick...)

 

[sweetfish]

Sounds nice, good to hear!

 

[Silberstein]

Sounds good, never was all that worried though.

 

[Silberstein]

Dubble post, crap..

 

[nubie]

Thanks,

good to finally have some concrete evidence in a language that we can understand.

Seems like everything either works or is really not that important of a problem.

Yay! send mine soon

 

[no_skill]

20 secs boot time?

this gotta be a joke.

aren't we loading from NAND? isn't NAND supposed to load fast?
i most probably am totaly wrong as i have no idea how fast NAND is, but i guess reading is fast.

 

[Scratch]

Good, that clears things up a bit

nothing is perfect, certainly if it is just being released

 

[carlgeorge]

good news -- except the 20 second boot time

 

[sam fisher]

Nand is just a format of flash memory. If i remember SD cards are also NAND. SMC may also be. its just a format. Anyway could you elaborate more on the screens thing (didnt understand), the head phones socket thing (again did not understand) and isnt the way you take the battery case of a stupid design?

 

[PiratSS]

20 secs boot time?

this gotta be a joke.

aren't we loading from NAND? isn't NAND supposed to load fast?
i most probably am totaly wrong as i have no idea how fast NAND is, but i guess reading is fast.

​

I think it's much better than 28 seconds. 20 Seconds isn't that bad since you don't restart the unit much. :rolleyes:

 

[Paradox]

Awesome, thats put my mind to rest, im definetly getting one of these.

 

[Ninjia^]

Everything seems as I thought it would be, a few isolated cases of hardware faults blown out of proportion by people trying to stir up trouble or just mis-translation.

 

[OrR]

Nand is just a format of flash memory. If i remember SD cards are also NAND. SMC may also be. its just a format. Anyway could you elaborate more on the screens thing (didnt understand), the head phones socket thing (again did not understand) and isnt the way you take the battery case of a stupid design?

​

It's not really a format, more like a technique. There is NAND and NOR, I don't know which is better for what. Read up on it on Wikipedia...

 

[sam fisher]

Thats what i meant and i read wikipedia too ages ago. Most use NAND nowadays. Theres really no point calling it NAND. GPH might as well of just called it Flash Memory.

 

[The_Consumer]

Things are looking up!

 

[Robster]

no_skill:

Loading time from NAND is a very small part of the boot process, just a few seconds. The rest of the time is the operating system initialising itself, setting up the hardware and software environment. Just as it takes your PC time to boot up, Linux on the GP2X has a large set of tasks to complete before it can start running applications.

On my dev board, the total time is 21 seconds to boot. This is broken down into:
3 seconds for the bootstrap loader (U-Boot) to initialise
3 seconds doing nothing, waiting for a character from the serial port
4 seconds to load the Linux kernel and check its integrity
11 seconds for Linux to initialise

It's really not bad in "technical" terms. In "user experience" terms it's a bit of a pain, but as handheld devices get more complex built-in operating systems, this is going to become the norm. You could always get a Gizmodo and enjoy its 60-second bootup time

By the way, the word "NAND" describes the electronic configuration of the memory chip. NOR is another type, with a different electronic configuration. NAND chips have the same electrical interface as SMC cards, with good reason: SMC cards are just NAND chips in a plastic wrapper! SD/MMC cards are different in that they have a built-in controller chip, and so their interface is quite different.

 

[efegea]

Nand is just a format of flash memory. If i remember SD cards are also NAND. SMC may also be. its just a format. Anyway could you elaborate more on the screens thing (didnt understand), the head phones socket thing (again did not understand) and isnt the way you take the battery case of a stupid design?

​

Screen protector: There are two screens protectors (the transparent plastic film that comes with all electronic devices). Each one have a vinyl film. You have to remove the vinyls. I haven't understand this at all, I think it's related with air bubbles between the films or something..

Headphones: You have to press hard to insert the headphone connector

I have an alarm clock with a battery case that opens like the one on the GP2X, it's better than the one in the GP32 at least for me. As I can remember, the megadrive/genesis expansion slot did open like that. The dreamcast modem/broadband adaptor also is of this kind of case. I don't remember any other examples :unsure: Perhaps the mobile phones :unsure:

 

[Eolair]

Great to finally get some offical news! Very good news too!

There are two layers in the screen protector, an acrylic one and one of cellophane with black borders. Both layers have two vinyl films. Retire vinyl films and put again the layers on the screen.-

So this means the GP2X already has a screen protector in place? I wish I'd known that before I ordered the offical screen protector <_<

Edit: Or more likely: The screen protectors are only included in the first 500 korean units.

 

[BlackDayz]

Also, NAND and NOR are logic gates. NAND gates operate so that 1+1=Not 1 and NOR operates on 1+1=Not 1. They differ when it comes to 1+0. NAND= 1+0=1 and NOR = 1+0 =0. I know this is only gee whiz information, but I figured some body might be interested or enlightened.

**Edit**
This site seems to explain the difference between NAND and NOR flash memories rather well.

http://www.edn.com/article-partner/CA6257144.html

 

[nickspoon]

NOR = 1+0=0

OMGSTRANGE.