I made a couple videos about the Pyra.

[Kelvin]

The first one is about the external design:
And the second one is a discussion on the specs and comparing what the site says to other devices:
Hoping to get some feedback on these and spur some discussion on Youtube, since that would help get the Pyra some exposure and hopefully get more units sold. I'm also planning a few more videos about the open-source scene, so if anyone's interested, I should have them up within the next week.

[EDIT] Didn't expect it to parse the URLs into embedded video. Sowwy. ^.-.^;

 

[ible]

verizon wouldn't work, it runs on a different network AFAIK. T-mobile and AT&T are the ones that would possibly work (or other subcarriers on those networks):
https://www.pyra-handheld.com/wiki/index.php?title=Modem

(although, it depends on whether or not these networks will allow the device on the network, too. but this is the bare minimum...)


[edit] you can preorder a 4GB pyra, so in your second video you could make a correction. it's not fully tested, but it should work.

battery life will probably be worse than pandora at first, since it lacks optimizations, but it should get better or equal over time.

also, the case will not be made of carbon fiber -- it's some polycarbonate -- but it will be very strong as you mention. (not that i would hammer on it, because the vibrations may bother the things inside the case...)

 

[erico]

The first video, with that cheesy 3d , is ok for a while, then it gets tired to look at the same model, maybe use the transparent version and also use the other renders? Maybe that one with the parts blown up? You may use the schematics, x-rays, the many pictures the pyra team took and so on. It would make it have a richer visual and I think that is important since the product is not out yet.

The second video is more of an audio thing, I´d try to have the video channel showing stuff that is said on the conversation.

I´m just picky, both are quite fine and very welcome.
It is great to show the world what the pyra is about, many have no idea that a product of this kind not sucking your blood can exist.

 

[levi]

Nice videos (at least the first once, which I've watched so far). Bit odd to have no intro, then music over unscripted chat, but that's fine I guess - I soon got used to it.

Some notes on mistakes you made while chatting:
- The 'other' USB port is a USB2 port which originally was the designated charge port (but I think it's more recently been said you can charge through any port), and of course it's just another USB port you can use at USB2 speeds.
- It won't run at 2GHz most likely - the stock speed is 1.5GHz, but it's dual core, which is nice.
- It's got three LEDs inside (one under the power button), and two on the outside under the logo. It's not clear yet how those will be used to convey information, but I opened a thread about it and we had ideas about multiplexing information onto them, so they blink different colours to show different things. Maybe that'll work, maybe not.
- That model isn't showing screw covers - the lid is fixed with three screws, and two tabs that lock into the lid outer. The two dimples you saw are real dimples in the plastic, to mirror the screws on the other side - they don't really have any other purpose.
- The screen isn't capacitive, it's still resistive, although apparently it supports multitouch. Resistive touchscreens are good for us, because they're more precise and you can use a more pointy stylus, rather than those fat ones that you use with capacitive touchscreens.

The video was a bit long, but I watched it on fast forward, and that was okay.

Oh, and I've watched the second video now. With a general script (which I assume you go off of quite a lot) it flows a lot more tightly. You're very optimistic about what it'll be able to do, and I don't expect the battery life to be as good as the pandora at least to begin with, because the Pandora's had all those years of hacking, and because the CPU can take a lot more current if you stress it than the Pandora's could. There's too many things to mention that are probably a little misleading for this post, I'm afraid.

 

[AnimatedFreak]

Good videos overall, did find one point a bit misleading, about emulation. If the Pyra will be able to emulate ps2 and gamecube is still up to debate. The GameCube and PS2 may be outdated by todays standards but they used pretty complex hardware with customs chips and would be much harder to emulate despite the Pyra being far more powerful. The emulators avalible uses pretty complex code to get the emulation, which the Pyra may not be capable of handling. Of course with optimization some may argue that it will be able to handle those emulators but it would take a lot of work to do so. It does however already handle Dreamcast emulation beautifully.

 

[slaeshjag]

As for gamecube, there is no currently existing emulator that supports the GPU inside the OMAP5, and for non-trivial reasons.

 

[Xcl4m4t10n]

The two first dislikes of the day. Good morning youtubers!

 

[WizardStan]

The two first dislikes of the day. Good morning youtubers!

Some people just hate when others have fun

 

[Xcl4m4t10n]

Some people just hate when others have fun

 

[kuru]

Wouldn't call it a review without having my hands on the actual item. But I guess if you youtube, you gotta clickbait.

Btw, afaik down-votes only help visibility since they're a form of interaction.

 

[ible]

he said "Preview", not "Review." mind your p's and q's...

also no need to be so negative...

 

[kuru]

he said "Preview", not "Review." mind your p's and q's...

true, my bad

 

[Kelvin]

I posted my update:
Also, let me know if you guys know of any other open-source projects you would like me to cover. Open-source needs more exposure!

 

[TheOldOne]

Actually Verizon does use LTE for there 4G and will supposedly allow any 4G LTE data only devices on their network to comply with an agreement with the FCC but won't activate a SIM unless it's in an approved device.
It's possible that a SIM could be activated in an "approved" device then moved to the Pyra but I don't know if the modem supports the Verizon LTE bands.
Also Sprint uses LTE for 4G but doesn't use standard SIMs.

 

[Kelvin]

Nuuuuuuuhuuuuuu! *sigh* Missed a detail. >.-.<; Well, I suppose still being off by one isn't so bad, especially since I posted a list anyway, so people will see the mistake for themselves.

 

[WizardStan]

It's possible that a SIM could be activated in an "approved" device then moved to the Pyra but I don't know if the modem supports the Verizon LTE bands.

It should cover two of the three bands Verizon uses. Just because they use them, though, doesn't mean they're widespread enough to be useful, so I dunno about the reality.
About the SIM, it's also possible they could approve the SIM but only with a specific device imei.

 

[levi]

FWIW, I know operators in this country say they will only let approved devices on their network, but I've run their SIMs in debug devices with an IMEI of 0000 for weeks at a time, and they never stopped me. If a device has a valid IMEI and a working radio I don't even see how they can tell if you've plugged their sim into an approved device or not, but maybe I don't know all of their tricks.

 

[TheOldOne]

It should cover two of the three bands Verizon uses. Just because they use them, though, doesn't mean they're widespread enough to be useful, so I dunno about the reality.
About the SIM, it's also possible they could approve the SIM but only with a specific device imei.

I've moved Verizon SIMs from one approved device to another approved device a few times with no issues so unless they're keeping a list of approved imei numbers it should work.