On marketing and buzzwords

[Exophase]

Motivated by this post:


http://boards.openpa...219&qpid=174661


Where Grench argues that a 720p or 1080p screen is a pro, because it'll appeal to more people who resonate with the overall marketing behind these terms.


Generally speaking, do you see marketability as something that should play a role in how Pandora 2 is designed?

 

[bismuthdrummer]

But this poll is structured all wrong... you need to list out a bunch of possible areas in which OPT can market, allow people to vote anonymously on multiple choices of marketing possibilities, then sum the categorical aspects of the results while ignoring what the graph shows.


THAT is the real question.


Just wait for Grench to post his, he'll get it right I am sure.

 

[skeezix]

I intensely dislike 'spec wars'; lets add more pixels (that no one can physically see and that slow down every application trying to fill them all) just to have a bigger 'spec number' than someone else. Lets have more RAM than we need for this kind of device, draining power, for bigger marketability!


Bah


The options are slanted; theres no 'we must be mindful of intended uses, but always mindful of the market place as well; one cannot look to only one or the other.'

 

[Exophase]

The options are slanted; theres no 'we must be mindful of intended uses, but always mindful of the market place as well; one cannot look to only one or the other.'

Well there's a yes option ;p I thought about options for why you'd vote yes, but I really couldn't think of anything outside of the obvious "because it gets more sales and we want more sales." Honestly your option is something I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around.. being mindful of the market means what exactly? Knowing what your customer base wants and will benefit from, or knowing what they like hearing for other reasons?

 

[skeezix]

There are times when ytou know a niche of customers needs X, but if you build X, they wont' buy it; they _think_ they want Y.


But whats going on here is someone wanting to sell Z because its BIGGER, BETTER, FASTER! Thats bad, I think many/most of us agree .. but I didnt' want to just say the total opposite -- you can't just totally go for exactly what you think people need, since there are outliers, and emotional response.


I mean, same sort of thing that causes an Thingy to sell for $5.99 instead of $6.00; same price really, but psychologically very different. Or sometimes a product colour is lisghtly different or the grain runs a different way, because subconsiously it sells more.


An old example from my home town.. a comic shop had a crummy comic that was reasonably rare, and had a little bit of value due to rarity; call it $15 say. It sat on the sehflf for years, no one buying; one day the guy marks it up to $100 for lulz, and a few weeks later, it sells. Coincidence or perceived value increase due to higher pricetag? (A well known thing in marketing -- higher price can help split you into a niche, evne if you are identical to competitors in every way. Ever heard of Monster Cables?


Anyway, what I'm saying is theres a gradiant along a continuum, like heat; theres hot, theres cold, and theres everythign in between.


You can't focus purely on the utility, or purely on the marketing; I myself think it shoudl be what is needed, but if you have to fusdge specs a little to make it marketable 'at all' or to catch ja few people, thats okay; but when you do stupid things, they're still stupid


jeff

 

[Foxgod]

Yes and no, give priority to important specs, only add candy specs that dont eat too much out of the proposed price range for the panda2.


It never hurts to try and get the panda some attention from gadget freaks, but if the price becomes too high that potential customer base wont bite, and will only end up hurting the core customers in their wallet.

 

[Grench]

This poll's language is twisted up so bad there is no way it can get anything accurate.


Should marketabilty alone have a bearing on Pandora's specs?


Look at that... Should marketability ALONE have a BEARING on Pandora's specs?


So - you're asking if marketing should be the ONLY concern and then 3 words later saying it should have a partial influence?


Huh?


Of course it should not be the ONLY concern. If you look in the actual context of my statements, marketability of 1080p and 720p resolutions shouldn't be overlooked as an additional concern - I never stated it should be the ONLY one.


There are advantages to being able to claim popularized specs. I know many of you would like to claim otherwise, but the Pandora exists as a commercial concern - not just an enthusiast device. Marketability of specs isn't the -sole- or -only- concern, but it should be something involved in the conversation.


If you only concern function over aesthetics and marketability, you wind up with a Pontiac Aztek.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_Aztek


Arguably the ugliest vehicle ever sold. Not even 'cute ugly'.


This poll is intentionally biased using wording designed to influence the result combined with an answer set that tilts the result to suit the author's agenda.

 

[Exophase]

Unfortunately you misunderstand what the "alone" means. It isn't asking if marketing should be the only criteria for Pandora's specs. It's asking if any individual feature should be considered if its only value is marketing. Should "this will help it market better" ever by a positive criteria that can stand on its own, or is it always necessary for there to be at least some other practical criteria to weigh it against other choices? It doesn't count if you can replace it with a legitimate pragmatic advantage. The question is should they ever give any consideration to a design choice that is known by those who are sufficiently educated to be nothing more than fluff? Should "1080p tests well with buyers" qualify as a legitimate ADDITIONAL positive over real technical advantages?


And marketing is not synonymous with aesthetics either. Let me be clearer if you still don't get it - I'm talking about evoking language that are powerful only because the recipient has some kind of conditioned response to it, where they superficially affiliate it with quality without any real substantial value added. That's precisely what statements like "don't underestimate the marketing value of 1080p" strikes me as - the buyer isn't impressed because they recognize the usefulness of the feature but because they've seen other things in the industry float it so it must be a symbol of quality, right? Or how years ago a lot of bottom of the barrel video cards would come in variants that would have as much RAM as high end cards and charge a nice profitably additional cost for it, even though the cards were far too weak to utilize said RAM, because more RAM is always better, right?


It does NOT mean designing a product that in some way matches what the people want to buy, that could refer to ANYTHING. And it doesn't mean sacrificing form for function.


Maybe this is a difficult thing to put in precise language. I edited the poll several times trying to put down what I'm thinking. I thought the point was obvious but if it wasn't I hope it is now. But if you think the wording was so intentionally misleading then I don't know why you went ahead and voted "yes." And lolz at "agenda", what's my agenda Grench?

 

[Linux-SWAT]

Marketing is made for seducing idiots.

 

[ShleeDragon]

The marketing for the P2 should be the truth.


It has this SOC at this speed. Battery lasts this long. full keyboard. nubs. gaming controls. touch screen. linux and android OS. community.

 

[Askarus]

Marketing should be as it's now.


Not focus on hardware and specifications but on what is possible.

 

[Batou456]

If you only concern function over aesthetics and marketability, you wind up with a Pontiac Aztek.
http://en.wikipedia....i/Pontiac_Aztek


Arguably the ugliest vehicle ever sold. Not even 'cute ugly'.

How is _anything_ about the Pontiac Aztek driven by functionality concerns, rather the blind marketing requirements? If anything you're just making a stronger case against your favoring 1280x720 over 1280x800 with that.

The Pontiac Aztek:


-Too expensive for its intended market (Critical)


-Had horrible gas mileage (Critical)


-GM's reputation of poor engineering, QC and QA helping to insure you will be throwing good money after bad, and thus something relatively intelligent YPs are going to tend to avoid like the plague (Important)


-Had a lot of gimmicky stuff of utility only to the marketing department's dream of uber rich kids that routinely just use a single car to go on vacations involving oversized cargo, rather then using a hitch and trailer like all the successful crossovers. Something that allows the actual car to be made lighter and thus of reasonable fuel efficiency for normal use. (How Marketing forced the design to look pregnant, and thus kind of ugly, while insuring it had no practical or pragmatic value for anyone who can't treat cars like a stereotypical rich woman treats shoes.)


Note: _the_ car in that market currently is the Mazda 3 Hatchback, with things like the Honda CRV, Honda Element, Scion xB and Toyota Matrix being common examples of the type. The Aztek is the result of what happens when marketing "features" dominates over actual practical use, and the engineers are forced to try to make it work with an unsatisfactory compromise. Kind of like in Pentagon Wars.


So if anything that's actually a perfect example why Exophase is fully justified here.


P.S.


It's not even close to the ugliest car ever sold. The Engineering and Industrial Design teams did a reasonable job with what Marketing gave them. Don't blame them for the traditional Marketing department feature insanity.

 

[albo]

Craigix: P2 will be the best handheld ever


People: I don't need 720p


What happens now?

 

[Askarus]

^


Most people agree that a 720x1280 or 800x1280 is a good solution.


1280p is too much.

 

[_wb_]

720p would be OK (if that's what is available easily and good in terms of visibility, ghosting, etc.). 800p would be better (for upscaling standard retro resolutions etc.).


1080p would be insane, just too many pixels.

 

[sebt3]

Right, I'll try to make it clear :


320x240 = 76800 pixels so the CPU have to send 153ko of data to the GPU every frame


800x480 = 384000 pixels, that's 768ko of data to send every frame or 46Mo/s to reach 60fps which the pandora barely reach


1280x720 = 921600 pixels, that's 1.8Mo of data every frame for 16bpp => 110Mo/s to reach 60fps or 165Mo/s at 24bpp.


So either the pandora2 have 3 times the memory bandwidth the current pandora have or your shiny 720p will lag like a plague. (hint : I'm not aware of a soc capable of this...)


Dont get me to talk about 1080p.

 

[fusion_power]

I could live with 800x480 forever on handheld size, as long as all the programs/emulators/games are fluid. Better use the Processor Power to speed up actual programs instead of keeping an HD screen alive at maybe 5 fps or so.


NOBODY needs an HD screen that is only 5" in size...except Craig himself maybe.

 

[Exophase]

Right, I'll try to make it clear :


320x240 = 76800 pixels so the CPU have to send 153ko of data to the GPU every frame


800x480 = 384000 pixels, that's 768ko of data to send every frame or 46Mo/s to reach 60fps which the pandora barely reach


1280x720 = 921600 pixels, that's 1.8Mo of data every frame for 16bpp => 110Mo/s to reach 60fps or 165Mo/s at 24bpp.


So either the pandora2 have 3 times the memory bandwidth the current pandora have or your shiny 720p will lag like a plague. (hint : I'm not aware of a soc capable of this...)


Dont get me to talk about 1080p.

Memory bandwidth is actually slated to be much higher, for instance OMAP5 supports 2x LPDDR2 @533MHz. That's 5.33 times the bandwidth DM3730 has (and 6.4 times OMAP3530). OMAP5 also has a 2D compositor engine so the entire screen doesn't usually have to be updated. 1280x720 is generally fine on the OMAP4 Galaxy Nexus and that'd be a generation behind whatever they choose so I think it'd be okay.

 

[craigix]

The OMAP5 is designed to drive a HD screen, it's what they (sometimes) demo it with. They expect it to be used in portable devices with HD screens.


But then all the next gen SoCs are being designed with HD screens in mind.

 

[sebt3]

Memory bandwidth is actually slated to be much higher, for instance OMAP5 supports 2x LPDDR2 @533MHz. That's 5.33 times the bandwidth DM3730 has (and 6.4 times OMAP3530). OMAP5 also has a 2D compositor engine so the entire screen doesn't usually have to be updated. 1280x720 is generally fine on the OMAP4 Galaxy Nexus and that'd be a generation behind whatever they choose so I think it'd be okay.

Sure but the CPU/memory also does many other thing like musics hoo and the actual game/emu/app too

The OMAP5 is designed to drive a HD screen, it's what they (sometimes) demo it with. They expect it to be used in portable devices with HD screens.


But then all the next gen SoCs are being designed with HD screens in mind.

Thanks for your clarifications guys