How Long Before The Pandora Becomes "nothing Special"?

[telegramguy]

If I had a tinfoil hat, I'd say that certain companies were getting nervous about Pandora and trying their best to delay it until it is nothing special. DDOS attacks, buying up LCD supplies, bribing FedEx, feeding disinformation to banks. They've got a "new" and grossly underspecced version of the PSP to sell, after all.




heh. Not to mention that the vast majority (if not every single customer) of the Pandora will be using it exclusively to play games they don't buy. Not to say owners won't be playing purchased games or using it for other functions.

 

[mali]

Am i the only one who wants ARM to win this sudden netbook/mobile handheld war and for intel to gtfo with x86?

Actually Intel was an ARM licensee a few years ago with its Xscale CPUs. I wouldn't be surprised, If they rethink their strategy when they realise that Atom has got no chance efficiency-wise. ARM's position is quite comfortable, they can only win in this situation, because they are no competitor right now in the MID/UMPC/Netbook segment, and so they must gain market share. ARM is in a special situation compared to Intel, because they are no manufacturer. They just license their technology to other manufacturers, while Intel is a manufacturer.

 

[finraziel]

Even if it would be possible to create a "pandorakiller" with an atom, I doubt anyone actually would... Just like it's been possible to play games and emulators on windows mobile pda's for a long time and for about the same time I've been hoping someone would make a pda with proper gamecontrols, but noone ever did. There was the one for palm, but it was kind of flawed...

Ok, back to lurking around waiting for pandora news

 

[Frogboy]

It depends on whether anyone decides to put good gaming controls on a UMPC. Until that happens, Pandora will stand alone as the only one.

A lot of people on here are talking like (or wishing that) ARM is going to take over x86 architecture for netbooks and UMPCs but frankly, I don't see it happening. I'll gladly buy a Pandora and possibly one of these ARM netbooks when they come out but the general public, at least here in America, isn't going to overwhelmingly flock to them. The main reason is obviously Windows. ARM may have better power efficiency but they will always make better batteries and refine the x86 architecture to be more efficient. You can get 6-7 hours out of a Atom netbook with a 9 cell battery in it. A couple/few years from now, you might be able to get 9-10. It's only going to get better.

Of course, I can't wait until the Pandora II comes out and has 24+ hours of battery life. Mmmmmm.

 

[truekaiser]

First off it has to prove it's not vapor ware before it can become nothing special.

 

[Alpha2]

You really ought to re check the definition of "vaporware" because it has long been proven not to be.

 

[Capn_Fish]

I would think that to me personally, it will take a week or so for the Pandora's novelty to wear off, and it will become just another part of my life (the whole tank in a parking lot becoming just another car after a while thing).

I doubt anybody will make anything close to it for a while, if ever, though. Companies aren't willing to open up their platforms (look at Sony and how hard they try to lock down the PSP), which is a big draw for the Pandora. Also, such a device likely wouldn't have the devs/creators lurking around these forums, as craigx/EvilDragon/etc. do.

Another thing is that no company has ever really gotten a design right, IMO. The PSP only has one analog stick, on the same side as the D-pad. The Pandora really has it right, which will be hard to match/beat by any competitors.

Just my $0.02, and sorry if that's unintelligible. It's been a long day.

 

[Sphinxter]

Great concept but unfortunately nvidia does about as well at power management and cooling as intel.

 

[Svartalf]

hey

Hah, I just came across the NVIDIA Ion myself.

Anyhows to go on I don't think we will see anything with gaming controls and such as the Pandora any time soon, but I think we will see very portable laptops, or handhends/palms (or whatever) quite soon with decent graphical power.

edit
As I mentioned in an offtopic thread I made not long ago about the NVIDIA Ion, it kinda makes me think of a Pandora II, hehe. Anyhows I dunno, the first one needs to kick off first, and some might wanna stick with ARM for better compatibility with the first Pandora, and it would probably be a few years before we see a Pandora II, if ever, anyhows, hehe.

cyas


1) That is not in the same class as the Pandora. The CPU may be "faster", but not by as much as you'd think and it consumes 4-6 times the watts to accomplish that. This doesn't even get into what juice the G90 part they've coupled with the Atom requires. That's little more than doing the same thing the Beagleboard does right now overall, and the Beagle does it with less juice.

2) X86 is only a good selling point if you're trying to make X86 stuff go on a handheld. Realistically, only a range of PC games would be viable in this space.

I honestly and fervently wish people would quit trying to compare the Atom based answers to the OMAP3 based ones. They're NOT even close to the same thing and they won't bring you what you think they will. The VIA ones won't either. X86 is only useful if you're wanting to run XP. Windows 7 won't be what most people think it's going to be. And with it, you're going to field 3-4 times the battery for half the operational lifespan (Think eeePC battery lifespans here.) The eeePC uses a 45 watt-hour battery to get 3+ hours of use out of the machine- take your pick on the model in question. We use a 13.5 watt-hour battery for 10-ish. And this is with less power fielded than what you're linking to. You guys do the math there.

 

[yosh64]

hey

Yeh I realise this now, as mentioned in my post in the other thread, and my other post in this thread.

edit: BTW, maybe the people who compare them (and I've never even seen anywhere where they have been compared, although I don't really look into such things) don't realise the difference in power consumption, or it is irrelevent to them. another edit: Actually I remember they were compared in that ARM presentation I found after mali refered to a graph from it.

Anyhows at least with the NVIDIA Ion the cheaper (I assume cheaper) intel laptops or whatever will have a decent gfx.

cyas

 

[Svartalf]

Anyhows at least with the NVIDIA Ion the cheaper (I assume cheaper) intel laptops or whatever will have a decent gfx.

Heh... All "Ion" would be is a coupling of an Atom with an NVidia G9400 GPU- which is no different than what you'd find if someone coupled it with a VIA Nano or with a Core Duo. You'll find the same config in a MacBook Air. Though with the G80 debacle where NVidia fielded raftloads upon raftloads of defective components- KNOWINGLY shipped it that way, you might have some difficulty finding takers in the mainstream laptop space unless they can sell that G90 part cheaply enough.

 

[closetwam]

But I don't have a tinfoil hat.

Not to worry.

Step by step instructions.
Excerpt: "It can't be stressed enough how important it is to have the shiny side pointing out. This is needed because the shiny side is most reflective to psychotronic radiation, while the dull side can actually, in certain environmental conditions, absorb it."


Instructional video (with surprise ending)

Edit: Spelling.

 

[Thunder]

As soon as Smartphones and MIDs with Nvidia Tegra (Link) and ARM Mali (Link) GPUs are launched the Pandora will have some real competition, Netbooks are in a whole different league, they're a lot bigger.

 

[Mithrildor]

Pandora is no netbook , it is an UMPC , which are way smaller. I think there will be more UMPCs in the beginning of 2010 , but those wont have gaming controls like the Pandora. I think we can expect "Windows XP ARM edition" at that time too.

 

[plopperz]

I'd say around the time the PSP2 comes out. People have been bitching for a 2 analog PSP for a while now, and the specs will jump to reflect current technology. Other handhelds and UMPCs will pop up too.

It's not that the Pandora is way advanced, it's just new, and many other similar devices are a few years old.

 

[hch]

Am i the only one who wants ARM to win this sudden netbook/mobile handheld war and for intel to gtfo with x86?

Actually Intel was an ARM licensee a few years ago with its Xscale CPUs. I wouldn't be surprised, If they rethink their strategy when they realise that Atom has got no chance efficiency-wise. ARM's position is quite comfortable, they can only win in this situation, because they are no competitor right now in the MID/UMPC/Netbook segment, and so they must gain market share. ARM is in a special situation compared to Intel, because they are no manufacturer. They just license their technology to other manufacturers, while Intel is a manufacturer.

don't be too sure. x86 killed basically every competing architecture - and there were some phenomenally great ones. m68k, mips, sparc, ppc, dec alpha - heck even itanium couldn't survive. the x86 compatibility circuitry takes up less die space than you might think - about 10% for the atom if i am not mistaken. with the current atom intel made its first attempt into the mobile market and ook how far it has cur already. 2 or 3 iterations later and all cell phones might be x86 based. that's what i think will happen at least.

 

[Svartalf]

don't be too sure. x86 killed basically every competing architecture - and there were some phenomenally great ones. m68k, mips, sparc, ppc, dec alpha - heck even itanium couldn't survive. the x86 compatibility circuitry takes up less die space than you might think - about 10% for the atom if i am not mistaken. with the current atom intel made its first attempt into the mobile market and ook how far it has cur already. 2 or 3 iterations later and all cell phones might be x86 based. that's what i think will happen at least.

There's a handful of things that made things that way that are not quite relevant in this space. X86 displaced most of the other plays in everything but embedded systems plays (Handhelds are technically an embedded system play...) because of DOS and then Windows and being able to support those old apps. Neither of which is relevant in the handheld space, and neither of which are going to be relevent much longer (XP isn't going to be supported for much longer, Vista doesn't run anywhere near as much of your old apps as XP did, and Windows 7 isn't going to be "better" in that regard either...). You'll note that Microsoft is NOT using an X86 in the 360- but rather one of those "dead" CPU designs you mention. I wonder why...

X86 is inefficient in the spaces where we're talking about.
X86 support isn't relevant when you don't need to drag along all that old baggage.
X86 support in silicon costs you power.
X86 is "cheap" because it's mass produced for the purposes of running Windows.

Now...

PowerPC got dropped by Apple, not because X86 is "better" (It's far from it...) or that it's cheaper (it's not...) but that IBM couldn't hand Jobs mobilized PPC G5's in quantity in a timely manner. Look under the hood of your car, the odds are you've got a PPC CPU running the engine control computer.

MIPS isn't dead. Look around. Your router is liable to have a MIPS CPU in it. The high-end routers use MIPS. Deep packet inspection engines use MIPS (Google for Tilera or Cavium...) cores aggressively. Most of the "Digital Picture Frames" use a MIPS core derivative. The PSP uses a MIPS core.

ARM...heh... Grab your mobile phone. If it's got anything other than phone functionality it's got at least an ARM9 or ARM11 core in it in the form of a Blackfin, iMX, OMAP or similar in the device. All those portable media players that do video use one of the aforementioned handhelds. A Nintendo DS uses one of them as well.

Sparc's used in high-end stuff and always has been. Unless you're using Linux or Solaris, you're never going to have ever used a SPARC either on a desktop or a server. It's in it's own space.

Of the architechtures you mention, only Alpha and Itanium's not really surviving. Alpha was because the owners of that design couldn't market their way out of a wet paper bag on that one- not because X86 was cheaper (it really wasn't), or better (it really wasn't), or that you couldn't run your X86 software at realistic speeds on it (you could...). Itanium was a folly on Intel's part and similar in nature to what Transmeta had. VLIW is hard to get right. VLIW is what Itanium brought to the table and the delta to IA64 didn't bring anywhere near the boost in performance that Intel had promised and the X86 support wasn't credible. X86_64 brought the speed that Intel promised and didn't need to emulate diddly in most cases. X86_64 is largely only X86 in name. It only really brings along 32-bit and adds 64-bit operations and doesn't provide all the rest of the cruft that leveraged x86 to it's current state. In reality, it's not really an X86 in the normal sense of it.

X86 got where it was, not because it's better, but because of Windows.

 

[Polossatik]

don't be too sure. x86 killed basically every competing architecture - and there were some phenomenally great ones. m68k, mips, sparc, ppc, dec alpha - heck even itanium couldn't survive. the x86 compatibility circuitry takes up less die space than you might think - about 10% for the atom if i am not mistaken. with the current atom intel made its first attempt into the mobile market and ook how far it has cur already. 2 or 3 iterations later and all cell phones might be x86 based. that's what i think will happen at least.

Hum, Dec alpha is however indeed a Architecture with a big A that HP decided to kill off. Just plain stupidity.

I see a awfull lot of HP boxes still on PA-RISK, the Itanium move is kept off for a long time by lots of HP shops. Itanium "failed" because it's just a silly architecture that now barely comes viable to use, but it will a long time to get rid of it's bad name, if it succeeds.

Stuff like PPC and SPARC are still alive and well in big iron.

I'll have a PPC AIX box for breafast anytime instead of a linux x86 if you're dealing with beasts like Oracle.

But don't think x86 is the architecture that is "winning", it just has the advantage of the mass usage on desktop, so it's cheaper or appears at least like that.

It all depends on what you want to do with that fat calculator of yours...

 

[Svartalf]

It's not that the Pandora is way advanced, it's just new, and many other similar devices are a few years old.

It's more advanced than what is currently fielded in the handheld space and there's only the N9x0 from Nokia that's going to be shipping within the next 6-9 months that's in the same space. Unless it's using an OMAP3, Snapdragon, or similar Cortex-A8 or Cortex-A9 SoC, it's not in the same class, and it's less advanced.

 

[oblivioner]

I think that CES 09 will some devices that could give Pandora some competition.

Check the next Sony Vaio Pocket ( http://jkontherun.com/2008/12/25/sonys-net...tbook-category/ ) Not much is known, but 1.33 ghz, Vista, 8' LED 1600x768, 60gb, nothing too impressive for a netbook, but, it says "it fits in your pocket", now that's getting into Pandora territory. However anything coming from Sony will be twice or more times the price of Pandora.