It's yummy. But you can't eat it!

[PowerGod]

Which is a mistake. ED is involuntarily advertising GPD and now that they seem to become a threat, maybe it isn't such a good idea.

Instead, I think the mistake is to consider it a threat

 

[EvilDragon]

Which is a mistake. ED is involuntarily advertising GPD and now that they seem to become a threat, maybe it isn't such a good idea.

The GPD Win will come out eventually. There's nothing preventing that.
So there either will be some other german distributor which will grab some Pyra customers or I will myself sell them, make profit and can use that to fund further Pyra development.

Don't forget: The money issues Craig had was because he stopped selling GPH products as they were competitors to the Pandora, so he didn't make any money anymore. Due to the delays of the Pandora, he had to run out of money eventually.
I continued to sell and support the WIZ and the Caanoo, and there wasn't any problem. My shop covered the monthly costs. These days, it's even big enough to cover the monthly costs AND pay the Pyra hardware development, so I would be nuts giving away the GPD Win to someone else.
Besides, it makes sense in my shop as well. I can clearly see how some users will prefer the GPD Win instead of the Pyra (which makes sense, everyone chooses what suites him / her best), but if I wouldn't sell it, they would buy it somewhere else.

 

[PSC]

Yes, as mentioned, the GPD Win will have an impact on the Pyra, and it might even lead far enough that it will not go into production, if they grabbed too many preorders from us...

The reason why they choose the GPD Win without hesitation is the following:

* It's hard to imagine sizes with a rendering. Most have probably not realized that the middle section of the GPDs keyboard is out of reach.

* They see two similar devices, most don't think about the additional features the Pyra has, like the SD Card slots, GPS, multiple USB ports, upgradable CPU, replacable battery, etc.

* They think the GPD Win will be a lot cheaper - which is only true for the Indiegogo price. They stated themselves that the retailer price is $499, which won't be far off from the Pyra.

I think your customer are people who know their demands clearly, they will not change their course just because a cheaper choice.
As those people who feel hard to make a decision between GPD and Pyra, they are unlikely to chose Pyra but they can't be influential. Even without GPD Win, they are unlikely to buy one Pyra finally, because they don't know why they had to pay so much for a handheld device with a keyboard.
As for me, once I read that GPD Win is a windows console, I decide I will wait for Pyra, even though it is more expensive. Oh the 4G module is another thing I really want. But I do like GPD Win's capacitor touch screen... what a pity.

PS: I am a Chinese, could anyone tell me, is that possible to make Pyra support Chinese? I means display and type in. If can not, okay, I also accept it.

 

[Klumpen]

Don't forget: The money issues Craig had was because he stopped selling GPH products as they were competitors to the Pandora, so he didn't make any money anymore. Due to the delays of the Pandora, he had to run out of money eventually.
I continued to sell and support the WIZ and the Caanoo, and there wasn't any problem. My shop covered the monthly costs.

Good point.

Oh I just hope there'll be a Pyra since it would certainly add a good alternative to all the flawed Android stuff in the world.
I'd rather pay 700€ for this than 300€ for some rushed Win10 based crap. I wouldn't touch this OS with a stick even if it would be coming on a perfect system (which it is not).
Seeing how similar the final price of those systems will be, I wonder how things will go since Windows is a big + for many people while it's a big - for me and people around here.

 

[Blue Shadow]

Yes, as mentioned, the GPD Win will have an impact on the Pyra, and it might even lead far enough that it will not go into production, if they grabbed too many preorders from us...
* They see two similar devices, most don't think about the additional features the Pyra has, like the SD Card slots, GPS, multiple USB ports, upgradable CPU, replacable battery, etc.

Speaking of the upgradeble CPU-Board, I think this is one important thing that needs to be on the specs page, rather than being "hidden" in the wiki and the forum. Also the word "replacable" should be added to the battery sentence (I understand that this was not neccesary at the point and probably seemed obvious).

Which is a mistake. ED is involuntarily advertising GPD and now that they seem to become a threat, maybe it isn't such a good idea.

Well good thing is, so ED can do a comparison chart/video without looking defensive, as he is just comparing two devices from his shop.

 

[rygD]

I don't see anything on wikipedia saying it had to be x86, just that they're PCs with a small form factor.
I don't know why you're getting so hung up on the definition though, the term "UMPC" was literally invented as a marketing gimmick: someone said "hey, this tiny laptop thing, what can we call it to distinguish it from other stuff? Ultra-Mobile-PC sounds good to me, anyone disagree? No? SHIP IT!"
Is it a PC? By the true definition of the word. Is it mobile? That's obvious. Is it ULTRA mobile? Well, it's more mobile than a laptop, or even some of the other things already classified as UMPCs, so I guess it is.
Pandora is UMPC as far as I'm concerned.

I wasn't getting hung up on anything, I just thought they were different classes/types of devices. Palmtops, I thought, were basically tiny pocketable laptops, and UMPCs were bigger, more powerful and not as portable. It doesn't matter, I just viewed them as different things, but I was the only person making a distinction, I guess. That was probably due to how I wasn't very interested in what I was seeing that was called UMPC, but still very interested in palmtops.

As you said, UMPC is just a marketing term, by Microsoft and Intel if I understand the intro from Wikipedia correctly. It is that, and that they were designed to run Windows XP/Vista/7, that led me to say the x86 thing. Additionally, I didn't see any that weren't, but I didn't dig too deep. Since palmtop wasn't an official industry designation (except maybe by HP, but it is used for others as well), it could also be used for devices not using x86 CPUs. The "See also" section here is pretty interesting.

To answer some of your questions, by how the term PC is used now, UMPCs were/are, the Pyra is debatable (I say no, since it has no ties to the original IBM PC and compatibles, however since it does offer most of the functionality of a desktop OS, perhaps). Ultra mobile, yes, at the time they were introduced UMPCs were, and the Pyra is even more portable than some of those, as are smartphones (and I think Pyra is more portable than some phablets, tablets and such). For most of us, either term will probably work, as does "a laptop that fits in your pocket".


@EvilDragon what can we do to help you make sure the Pyra goes into production?

 

[Eight Bit]

@EvilDragon what can we do to help you make sure the Pyra goes into production?

Order enough units?
If it was up to me I'd order extra one for my wife and two for my daughters but unfortunately they're not interested and prefer to keep on using the ipad instead... Sigh... Life is tough as the only man in the house

 

[Klumpen]

Order enough units?
If it was up to me I'd order extra one for my wife and two for my daughters but unfortunately they're not interested and prefer to keep on using the ipad instead... Sigh... Life is tough as the only man in the house

This affinity to Apple products present in so many girls/women... I can't even...

 

[b_o_b]

Good point.
I'd rather pay 700€ for this than 300€ for some rushed Win10 based crap. I wouldn't touch this OS with a stick even if it would be coming on a perfect system (which it is not).

I agree, but we are a minority. Most people like to have a proprietary OS like Windows on their devices and the low price will certainly be a deciding factor as well. That said, this community tends to be Linux minded and it will be interesting to see how much of the visitors of this site are willing to pay the premium price.

If ED needs pre-orders to start production I am willing to pre-order one (wasn't planning to). I would never take the risk of pre-ordering a GPD WIN though.

 

[Klumpen]

I agree, but we are a minority. Most people like to have a proprietary OS like Windows on their devices and the low price will certainly be a deciding factor as well. That said, this community tends to be Linux minded and it will be interesting to see how much of the visitors of this site are willing to pay the premium price.

If ED needs pre-orders to start production I am willing to pre-order one (wasn't planning to). I would never take the risk of pre-ordering a GPD WIN though.

The GPD WIN's final price will be about $500 so there you go. It doesn't even have a real price advantage.

 

[TeDaDeS]

I think the interest in such device as GPD and Pyra/Pandora is good. The PS4 has some hardware advantage on the Xbox-one but they both still sell great. Not like sales drop to zero for the Xbox.
You might even be able to do a rebrand on the GPD, sell them as Pandyra.

 

[Klumpen]

I think the interest in such device as GPD and Pyra/Pandora is good. The PS4 has some hardware advantage on the Xbox-one but they both still sell great. Not like sales drop to zero for the Xbox.
You might even be able to do a rebrand on the GPD, sell them as Pandyra.

or Pandeyro


although I don't know how long it would last as a drum.

 

[ekianjo]

This news is now on the first page of Hacker News:

https://news.ycombinator.com/news

 

[sepulep]

Yes, as mentioned, the GPD Win will have an impact on the Pyra, and it might even lead far enough that it will not go into production, if they grabbed too many preorders from us...

Which is a mistake. ED is involuntarily advertising GPD and now that they seem to become a threat, maybe it isn't such a good idea.

I think we shouldn't see this as a zero-sum game!! the potential market for a pocketable UMPC like device is orders of magnitude bigger than the Pyra production run..It may very well be that the appearance of the GPD win enlarges the market as a whole. And since the
Pyra and GPD are sufficiently different some of the "new" customers will realize the Pyra fits better with what they want..in this sense its important to get the word out and make sure every time the GPD win is mentioned, Pyra is there too as the linux based opensource community driven alternative

 

[ekianjo]

I think we shouldn't see this as a zero-sum game!!

Yes!! Totally agree with this.

 

[Klumpen]

I think we shouldn't see this as a zero-sum game!! the potential market for a pocketable UMPC like device is orders of magnitude bigger than the Pyra production run..It may very well be that the appearance of the GPD win enlarges the market as a whole. And since the
Pyra and GPD are sufficiently different some of the "new" customers will realize the Pyra fits better with what they want..in this sense its important to get the word out and make sure every time the GPD win is mentioned, Pyra is there too as the linux based opensource community driven alternative

Sorry, I just panicked a bit.

The market is probably big enough since there still isn't much of this kind available.
I just hope Pyra pre-orders are available soon before many people jump ship.

 

[WizardStan]

Pyra and GPD are sufficiently different some of the "new" customers will realize the Pyra fits better with what they want

That's an excellent point.
I'd still wait until after the GPD Win's campaign is over and the price "normalizes" before attempting to make any comparisons though.

 

[EvilDragon]

Sorry, I just panicked a bit.

The market is probably big enough since there still isn't much of this kind available.
I just hope Pyra pre-orders are available soon before many people jump ship.

I could start the preorders basically every day, but as mentioned, I wanted to wait until I got the full working prototype (including the case).

GPD Win is only earlier because their campaign runs on renderings... well, our first renderings were out loooong ago

 

[fusion_power]

* They see two similar devices, most don't think about the additional features the Pyra has, like the SD Card slots, GPS, multiple USB ports, upgradable CPU, replacable battery, etc.

...and keyboard lights!!!

Well, the discussion here already shows, how important good marketing is. Everybody is talking already about the GPD WIN, a device that only exists as rendering so far. Pyra development is much more advanced but eventhe community here recognizes that the pyra is lacking of any mentionable marketing so far (outside of the community).
GPD Win has a polished Crowdfunding campaign (some grammar issues but oh well) and very nice renderings. And the overall design of the device looks sleek and valuable. The Pyra Prototype looks brick-like and compared plain. That's what new users see at first of course. Pyra needs deeper explanation until the people see how promising it will be. GPD WIN is more or less self explaining, at least so it looks.

In Short: no matter how good the Pyra will be, it needs serious marketing to get out of the niche. Full working device with full working software on it will also help there of course. And sadly, time is not at our side now that we have competition.

 

[kuru]

I keep thinking "let's just wait till both are out". When the independent reviews start popping up and the devices are shown side-to-side minds will be made up.

And yeah Pyra and WIN are two different classes. I want something pocket-friendly, so WIN is a no-go.