Pandora 2 specifications and price

[slaeshjag]

SD-slot takes more space than NAND, since it shares chip with RAM, and the RAM/NAND-chip is mounted on top of the CPU. Any other design would probably not fit on the pandora's PCB

In Mobile phones micro sd slots are often mounted on top or below something else as well.


So thats possible, it wont be to intend to make the pandora smaller, but to make it thinner.

Well, there's a keyboard on the other side of the PCB, so where would you put it?

 

[Foxgod]

SD-slot takes more space than NAND, since it shares chip with RAM, and the RAM/NAND-chip is mounted on top of the CPU. Any other design would probably not fit on the pandora's PCB

In Mobile phones micro sd slots are often mounted on top or below something else as well.


So thats possible, it wont be to intend to make the pandora smaller, but to make it thinner.

Well, there's a keyboard on the other side of the PCB, so where would you put it?

Below the PCB, or next to processor, it should not increase the height of the PCB, like Nand does when you stick it on the processor, leaving more space for a fine keyboard or a thinner case.

They will get the best SOC available when they actually start looking. also, I doubt we need 8GB of memory regardless.

Actually, the OMAP5 will be brand new,. as it releases Q3 2013, Craig wants to pick it up when its out, and push the specs to the limit.


This would put it ahead of consumer devices for a while, as major company's sell their hardware in incremental updates.


Craig wants the Pandora2 to be what he wanted the Pandora 1 to be, the most powerful handheld available upon release.


It may be usefull if the cases, keyboard etch are done before that time, so that the pcb production can be planned as soon as the socs are ordered, with assembly following shortly.


This also to prevent a misere ala CC.


And finally, you just cant have enough memory, ever

 

[ekianjo]

This would put it ahead of consumer devices for a while, as major company's sell their hardware in incremental updates.


Craig wants the Pandora2 to be what he wanted the Pandora 1 to be, the most powerful handheld available upon release.

Yeah, ahead of the rest for like... 6 months max. Let's not kid ourselves here. We want performance but anyway portable devices out there will be moving much faster and will outpace the P2 within 6 months, that's a given.


But that's not a problem. Just like the current P1 hardware is not an issue either.

 

[Foxgod]

This would put it ahead of consumer devices for a while, as major company's sell their hardware in incremental updates.


Craig wants the Pandora2 to be what he wanted the Pandora 1 to be, the most powerful handheld available upon release.

Yeah, ahead of the rest for like... 6 months max. Let's not kid ourselves here. We want performance but anyway portable devices out there will be moving much faster and will outpace the P2 within 6 months, that's a given.


But that's not a problem. Just like the current P1 hardware is not an issue either.

Not that fast, current tablets got 512mb and 1 gb of ram.


Sure the processor will be caught up with soon enough, as dual cores are already common for high end devices.


But in other departments the pandora could keep ahead.


And still like you said, that doesnt matter much, is about the release time, if its craigx his wish to do that, and still delivers a neat device we can use, what is the complaint?


And Craig might make a lower spec version too for people that dont want to pay top prices.


But if Craig really wants the top of the top, he might have to look at non ARM socs.


Question is, is the community prepared to move to a different SOC, it would kill the current software support.


A lot of porting would have to be performed again.

 

[Exophase]

EDIT: There might not be a need to move to a 64-bit arch; according to Ti's whitepaper on the OMAP 5, it has some form of physical address extension to support up to 8GB of memory, despite being a 32-bit processor. http://www.ti.com/li...048/swpt048.pdf (Page 9)

I mentioned this back in the first post I had on the matter:

The benefit of going for 8GB over 4GB on Cortex-A15 are going to be minimal. Yes, it has physical address extensions that could let you use it to some extent but individual processes will be limited to 4GB, including the kernel separation, and it's uncertain if support for the extensions will really be that great in Linux. The kernel devs are not exactly enthusiastic about it.

Linux on Pandora 2 will probably continue with a 3/1 split for user/kernel space. 4/0 split (or 4/4 if you want to call it that) is possible but has performance implications that I doubt people want to deal with on a device like this. So that'd mean 3GB max per process. In reality it's difficult to even allocate anywhere close to that much.


Linus is right that PAE sucks but the problem of having more physical memory than you can directly address in kernel space is already unavoidable. Still, you're probably not going to get a ton of total utilization past 4GB even if you're really trying, unless if you have a web browser that puts the tabs in separate processes like Chrome does. Although I heard years ago that Firefox was supposed to move to doing this it doesn't look like it is yet. Of course this is just for people that have a huge number of tabs open.. beyond that I'd be kind of surprised if people moved to massive multi-tasking on Pandora where they don't need a ton of memory for any one process but need a ton collectively. This is more of a useful usage pattern on servers. I'm surprised TI is even supporting it with OMAP5, but I'm sure they recognize that bigger numbers always attract people..

 

[Exophase]

SD-slot takes more space than NAND, since it shares chip with RAM, and the RAM/NAND-chip is mounted on top of the CPU. Any other design would probably not fit on the pandora's PCB

It does in Pandora, but I doubt they'd even find such a thing available for Pandora 2. Especially not if they're looking for 8GB of RAM in a single module (presumably PoP - I wonder if that will be available either.. I have my doubts)


Still, microSD is just a small PCB with a NAND chip and a controller chip. If putting the NAND itself directly on the motherboard takes up more space then you're doing it wrong (or you don't have access to the same NAND parts).. but there are IMO obvious advantages to having an internal (micro)SD slot over NAND.

 

[slaeshjag]

Indeed, if you got the board space for it, an internal µSD card slot would be preferred over soldered-on NAND.

 

[Grench]

So, hopefully that clarifies it and you'll kindly stop misstating my argument for me - and please, if you must continue to insert yourself in this, would you, and Exo for that matter, please make a logical argument why you NEED the internal slot to be a microSD? I've already, repeatedly, stated my reasons against having that slot be microSD.

No. You've dismissed every counter example presented to you, every compromise, every argument as not being exactly a 100% perfect match to your very specific use case. When you can simply ignore logic like this and declare your way absolutely superior in all ways then there is no reasoning with you.


For the record, neither Exophase nor I have ever once said that the internal slot needs to be microSD. The argument we have made several times is that it simply does not need to be a full sized SD card. It is you who is insisting that it needs to be something, and you have used your own personal contradictory use case as reasoning for that; we have simply pointed out that your use case is not everyone's use case, that your use case will absolutely fail for people who are not you, and that a compromise is the only way to make everyone happy, but you refuse to compromise.


Whatever, your arguments are egocentric and unless the next thing you say is "I didn't consider that other people might want to use their device differently from me and I guess a compromise a compromise where everyone's use case is covered and no one (not even me) loses their desired functionality wouldn't be so bad, even if it meant there exists a microSD card" then there is no point at all in trying to carry on this conversation. I will not respond again to anything you say ever. Sorry for having wasted everyone's time in a pointless debate.

So, to summarize the above: You don't care if I have legitimate reasons, supporting evidence or the support of roughly ~40% of the user community who really DO care what kind of slots this next unit has.


You state that I don't care about anyone else's usage case - but fail to provide ANY usage case that would support your claim that I'm wrong.


Is it that my stance is wrong, or is it that you just like to contradict me? You repeatedly misquoted, twisted and attacked my statements. You demanded supporting documentation, then dismissed it out of hand when it did not support your purpose. And somehow I'm the bad guy. OK.


Exiting this conversation is your choice. Good luck to you Sir.

 

[Exophase]

40% of the community is against using nothing but microSD. Not against microSD taking any place on the system (what this was originally about). The people who voted "no" on my poll are not merely opposed to any presence of a microSD slot. I had that option, that's at 9%. Assuming they understood the option properly. I'm really surprised it's that high, but it's hard to really draw big statistical implications from 5 people.


I'm personally at least mildly opposed to an all microSD system and I think WizardStan is too.

 

[Foxgod]

Btw, the amount of read/writes until an sd micro fails, is it roughly the same as Nand?


Not a problem ofcourse, but users should know to replace their sd micro once a while if it replaced nand.


And obviously thats better then replacing a NAND.

 

[Exophase]

Btw, the amount of read/writes until an sd micro fails, is it roughly the same as Nand?


Not a problem ofcourse, but users should know to replace their sd micro once a while if it replaced nand.

SD data is NAND. The reliability is the same. Of course I'm sure it varies depending on which NAND chip you use. The SD controller does wear leveling to minimize the chance of over-wearing the card; if there's straight up NAND then a special filesystem is used that does the wear leveling in software.


If you replaced something that was a soldered down NAND slot with an SD card then I definitely hope users won't have to think to replace the SD card due to over-use, since they wouldn't have been able to replace the NAND...

 

[Grench]

40% of the community is against using nothing but microSD. Not against microSD taking any place on the system (what this was originally about). The people who voted "no" on my poll are not merely opposed to any presence of a microSD slot. I had that option, that's at 9%. Assuming they understood the option properly. I'm really surprised it's that high, but it's hard to really draw big statistical implications from 5 people.


I'm personally at least mildly opposed to an all microSD system and I think WizardStan is too.

Exactly - the device, as CraigIX has stated, having ONLY microSD is being rejected by 40% of the community - which is exactly the device that I rejected.


You and WizardStan seem to have gotten confused and think that I rejected a two external SD device with one internal microSD. In that scenario I only reject the internal microSD slot as worthless - not the whole device. The internal slot, to me, is worthless for it's primary purpose (boot, programs, persistent storage) when compared to a full sized SD slot.


So, back around to compromise.


If there is room for the three slots you'd like (2xSDXC and one microSD), let's put one full sized SDXC slot inside, one full sized SDXC slot outside and one microSD slot outside? You get a microSD slot in a more accessible position, I get my full sized hidden slot to boot from, use for programs, swap and persistent storage. Same net volume used.


If there is room for only the volume of two SDXC and the device will not have an on-board nand drive, I'd like to put one internal SDXC, one external SDXC. This is because I feel that if there is no on-motherboard NAND type boot storage, that one of the card slots needs to be 'locked down' somehow to prevent the 'new user' from accidentally ejecting the OS card during operation.


But, if what CraigIX has stated is the way it will be with -only- microSD onboard, then I'll be looking for a different device in 2014. No worries - I'll find something. I'm all for making the next device thinner and smaller - but I'd give up a bit of 'thinness' in a Pandora 2 in order to have full sized SD card sockets - especially if there is a 'hidden' card socket meant for booting, etc.

 

[Neelix]

I honestly don't see where you are coming from with this 1 external micro SD idea.. If you're not going to be using it anyway wouldn't it be better for the unused slot to be the one that's harder to get to?


For most of us the disadvantages of microSD relate to handling it as a removable storage medium. For internal storage these disadvantages aren't as important. That's why 1 internal micro SD and 2 external SD slots make sense. I don't see any sense whatsoever in having 2 full sized SD slots and only making one of them accessible externally.


- Neelix

 

[bzar]

Grench:


Just to clear this out: you want a full-sized SD card slot on the inside of P2, because (as you claim)

1. SD cards have better capacity/price ratio than microSD cards in the high end cards
   
2. SD cards have better speed/price ratio than microSD cards in the high end cards
   

Exophase has counterargued, that

1. There is no technical reason for the speed/price ratio difference (SD and microSD are the same tech aside form the packaging)
   
2. The current situation regarding the speed you describe is because of current market needs
   
3. The market is shifting from SD to microSD, reversing or at least leveling the situation regarding speed you describe in the near future
   
4. There is some merit to the capacity difference due to physical size of the medium
   

I ask of you:

1. Do you have any reason to believe the market is NOT shifting toward microSD cards? Current trends in the most sold devices (cellphones) seem to gravitate toward microSD.
   
2. Are you suggesting microSD cards cannot for some reason be as speed/price efficient as SD cards? Why?
   
3. How large a microSD would be large enough to render the capacity issue moot?
   

I'll try not to get too caught up in this, but I found these parts to be confusing.

 

[Foxgod]

Grench:


Just to clear this out: you want a full-sized SD card slot on the inside of P2, because (as you claim)

1. SD cards have better capacity/price ratio than microSD cards in the high end cards
   
2. SD cards have better speed/price ratio than microSD cards in the high end cards
   

Exophase has counterargued, that

1. There is no technical reason for the speed/price ratio difference (SD and microSD are the same tech aside form the packaging)
   
2. The current situation regarding the speed you describe is because of current market needs
   
3. The market is shifting from SD to microSD, reversing or at least leveling the situation regarding speed you describe in the near future
   
4. There is some merit to the capacity difference due to physical size of the medium
   

I ask of you:

1. Do you have any reason to believe the market is NOT shifting toward microSD cards? Current trends in the most sold devices (cellphones) seem to gravitate toward microSD.
   
2. Are you suggesting microSD cards cannot for some reason be as speed/price efficient as SD cards? Why?
   
3. How large a microSD would be large enough to render the capacity issue moot?
   

I'll try not to get too caught up in this, but I found these parts to be confusing.

Fastest card i could find was a SDXC card, 433x class 16 UHS-1, this one is only available in regular SD size.


It makes sense, because regular SD cards have a bigger controller, bigger controllers are currently faster then smaller controllers of the same type.


This particular card is not only way faster then an SDXC micro, its also twice as large (64GB vs 32GB).


ALso, The Pandora is not a phone, its a mini latop, laptops tend to have both SD and SD Mini slots, for user convenience.


Personally i want a Micro SD on the inside tho, for the reason that i believe we dont need the fastest SD card out there.


What we need is the one thats fast enough, and affordable.

 

[bzar]

Fastest card i could find was a SDXC card, 433x class 16 UHS-1, this one is only available in regular SD size.

Read again. I never suggested that there would currently be a microSD card to compete with the best SD card. Just that there probably will be in the near future.

It makes sense, because regular SD cards have a bigger controller, bigger controllers are currently faster then smaller controllers of the same type.

Any source for this? I've never bumped into this myself.

This particular card is not only way faster then an SDXC micro, its also twice as large (64GB vs 32GB).

I don't doubt it. As Exophase pointed out, the capacity may be affected because of the physical size. I asked what would be big enough to make this a non-issue.

ALso, The Pandora is not a phone, its a mini latop, laptops tend to have both SD and SD Mini slots, for user convenience.


Personally i want a Micro SD on the inside tho, for the reason that i believe we dont need the fastest SD card out there.


What we need is the one thats fast enough, and affordable.

I argued for the internal microSD card. External ones should be regular SD for easier handling.

 

[Foxgod]

Fastest card i could find was a SDXC card, 433x class 16 UHS-1, this one is only available in regular SD size.

Read again. I never suggested that there would currently be a microSD card to compete with the best SD card. Just that there probably will be in the near future.

It makes sense, because regular SD cards have a bigger controller, bigger controllers are currently faster then smaller controllers of the same type.

Any source for this? I've never bumped into this myself.

This particular card is not only way faster then an SDXC micro, its also twice as large (64GB vs 32GB).

I don't doubt it. As Exophase pointed out, the capacity may be affected because of the physical size. I asked what would be big enough to make this a non-issue.

ALso, The Pandora is not a phone, its a mini latop, laptops tend to have both SD and SD Mini slots, for user convenience.


Personally i want a Micro SD on the inside tho, for the reason that i believe we dont need the fastest SD card out there.


What we need is the one thats fast enough, and affordable.

I argued for the internal microSD card. External ones should be regular SD for easier handling.

With further looking i found:


http://www.play.com/...33dcf50&cur=258


But this one is class 10, the SD card i described ealier is class 14, also the Micro version is about 30 euros more expensive.

 

[_wb_]

The Pandora 2 should remain big enough to fit 2, or perhaps even 3 full SD slots. It is not a phone. The cards are also not use like in a phone: in a phone installing a SIM card and a microSD card is essentially a one-time operation, so it does not matter that those things are uncomfortably small. In the Pandora 2, card switching will still be a relatively common thing to do - that is the point of having easy accessible external slots, after all.


If microSD would become cheaper and faster in the future, we can still use it (using those little plastic adapters that come with every microSD card) if we have full SD slots, but if that wouldn't be the case (e.g. because more cameras abandon compact flash and switch to SD; it is unlikely that cameras will ever switch to microSD because those cards are just too tricky to handle), we can at least still use full SD cards. It is very hard to predict market trends, with full SD slots we keep all options open, while with microSD we're committing to that particular size.


Especially the internal slot should be full SD for this reason: for external slots you could still use full to micro adapters (sticking out of the device), but for an internal slot that is impossible.


So my preference would be: 1 internal full SD slot, 2 external full SD slots.


If there's not enough space for that: 1 internal full SD slot, 1 external full SD slot, 1 external microSD slot.


If there's not enough space for that: 1 internal full SD slot, 1 external full SD slot.

 

[slaeshjag]

Full to micro adapters are not even an alternative for mobile devices, way too flimsy. If you get two full SD-slots and one internal µSD, but still with the possibility to boot from the external two, would that µSD slot really be an issue?

 

[bzar]

foxgod: Which part of my post did you reply to?


_wb_: The whole point of an internal SD is that it's not swapped all the time. An internal card should be for holding the operating system. The external ones are the ones you swap all the time. Having an internal slot is like having swappable NAND, so you can easily install a bigger and better than the supplied one if you so please. Full SD cards take a lot of real estate, so a micro one would be more suitable for this task.


Also, at least the µSD to SD adapter I have is exactly the size of an SD card, so it wouldn't stop one from using an adapter on the inside.


If it's not clear yet, I'd prefer the same configuration slaeshjag mentioned (2 external SD, 1 internal µSD).