Pandora Hardware - Why Did They Pick It All?

[Exophase]

50+ hours isn't totally unrealistic if the DSP can decode mp3s clocked at a really low rate (< 16MHz) and everything else is drawing close to nothing, with the CPU in a persistent deep sleep state. The big sticking point that I see is that you might not be able to accomplish this while relying on the CPU to wake up routinely to stream in fresh data from the SD card, moving forward in the file system and starting DMAs. So you'd probably need to have this functionality on the DSP too, which would be pretty painful. We'll all have to wait for this super optimized mp3 + SD code, I guess.

 

[Alec]

How many hours would it last if we stuffed the battery slot full of these?

 

[craigix]

I'd love to have an OLED screen in the Pandora but:

There was no 800*480 LCD available in the Pandora size until very recently - and the lead time on that part is 30 weeks!

Oh and then add on $120 to the price of the Pandora for having it.

Not so great.

 

[juniorm33]

I heard 100 hours of battery life.

You guys need to lurk harder.

100 hours was a totally hypothetical ass-pull based on an estimate of how long the battery would last if the DSP was used to decode music, and the screen, Wi-Fi, CPU, and maybe NEON were basically shut off.

I don't even know if that's possible to do, or how long it would last.

I could see 15 or 16 hours just playing music through headphones with the screen off, maybe.. I'm not sure how much power headphones need vs. the CPU.

You need to lurk more then you'd know about the reactor
We all know about the original estimate mp3 with everything off haha

 

[WizardStan]

That doesn't really sound like experimental results, just an estimation. I think fitting all that into a tweet wouldn't have been a problem but I digress ;p

As I recall, there was a lot more to the thread after I called them out on the "5% increase in battery somehow resulted in 40% increase in life" thing, but I could be remembering wrong. And I'm still too lazy to look up old threads of little bearing. Point is, 10 hours or 14 hours, whatever it is, it's a lot longer than what you'd have gotten if it were an x86 system.

 

[Polossatik]

I'd love to have an OLED screen in the Pandora but:

There was no 800*480 LCD available in the Pandora size until very recently - and the lead time on that part is 30 weeks!

Oh and then add on $120 to the price of the Pandora for having it.

Not so great.

Now you've mastered all the quirks and gotchas of producing your own handheld, maybe for Pandora TNG? Assuming you and the rest of the people want to do this once more in your lifetime

 

[#1 GameMaster]

I'd love to have an OLED screen in the Pandora but:

There was no 800*480 LCD available in the Pandora size until very recently - and the lead time on that part is 30 weeks!

Oh and then add on $120 to the price of the Pandora for having it.

Not so great.

Plus I don't think that OLED screene have as good a life on them unless they have improved that recently too.

 

[rabidpoobear]

I'd love to have an OLED screen in the Pandora but:

There was no 800*480 LCD available in the Pandora size until very recently - and the lead time on that part is 30 weeks!

Oh and then add on $120 to the price of the Pandora for having it.

Not so great.

Plus I don't think that OLED screene have as good a life on them unless they have improved that recently too.

It was mainly blue phosphors that were the problem and it's mostly fixed in new designs. OLED expected lifetimes are around the 60k mark, same as most other display technologies.

 

[cameroncros]

How many hours would it last if we stuffed the battery slot full of these?

2 months?

 

[Alec]

How many hours would it last if we stuffed the battery slot full of these?

2 months?

...except that two months later will it will still show that, right?

 

[Rockthesmurf]

Just a quick question on the pandora hardware.
Yes, Its mad.
But why did they/you all pick the hardware thats in it etc?
I have searched, there are a lot of threads around, so I just thought I would ask.

Things like the LCD why the current over something like an OLED which has great multi touch and resolution etc.

Why the 600mhz ARM over something larger and faster? The Pandora was designed awhile back, I understand and it is small and has heat to worry about.

These are just questions that I've been pondering.. :blush: :huh: I have a boring job.

They just chose what ever parts were available off the shelf at Walmart, or something like that anyway.

Steve

 

[Pleng]

Now you've mastered all the quirks and gotchas of producing your own handheld, maybe for Pandora TNG? Assuming you and the rest of the people want to do this once more in your lifetime

I guess something like an OLED screen would be something that could even be included in a future revision of the original Pandora, should prices become reasonable. I don't know how much hardware engineering would be required to perform such a task, but it wouldn't be something like a CPU/RAM upgrade which could alienate existing users.

 

[chole]

I guess something like an OLED screen would be something that could even be included in a future revision of the original Pandora, should prices become reasonable. I don't know how much hardware engineering would be required to perform such a task, but it wouldn't be something like a CPU/RAM upgrade which could alienate existing users.

There's a bunch of changes they could indeed make that wouldn't break compatibility (in the way that, for example, a faster cpu or more ram could make software written for a Pandora Plus unworkable on a regular Pandora). I'm guessing that serious considerations for this won't be reached until the breakeven point, which has to be at least after they sell through the second batch. Didn't they say that it'd take an additional half year or so to get batch 2 out? I'm too lazy to search but remember reading peoples' moans about that.

That said, there's a lot of fun addons that I think would be more interesting than adding some sort of crazy multitouch screen. Smallish outside (non-touch) LCD and cellular capability (that is, for networking, not for phone calling) would probably get me to blow some more budget before my normal "at least five years" rule, for instance.

 

[WizardStan]

I'm too lazy to search but remember reading peoples' moans about that.

There were two: one in which Craig said they'd be taking a few months off before batch two (which lead to some very ignorant comments about production and lead times); and the one where Craig said they'd be taking a few months off BECAUSE of the massive lead times (which also lead to some very ignorant comments about production and lead times, but at least they were directed at TI and not OP this time)
Lesson learned: explain the situation and some people will STILL act like idiots, but at least they'll direct their idiocy at someone else.

 

[juniorm33]

I called it an enforced break.
He mentioned wanting a break anyway, this way they just don't have a choice in the matter (and neither do we)

 

[Pleng]

Craig said they'd be taking a few months off before batch two (which lead to some very ignorant comments about production and lead times);

No it didn't

 

[mafia-man]

How many hours would it last if we stuffed the battery slot full of these?

2 months?

no where near, you would need thousands of the little sods as one battery can only output 16.2 nano-volts.


Edit:
After a quick check, apparently you would need 40,000,000 to power a phone although you could power it for 5,000 years. It's all about capacity vs output

 

[kloplop321]

How many hours would it last if we stuffed the battery slot full of these?

2 months?

...except that two months later will it will still show that, right?

wow. That "trade mark" has gone way too far there..

 

[Gary13579]

A BeagleBoard at full load takes ~400 mAh. Assuming the LCD/SD/keyboard takes 100 mAh, and you leave wifi/audio/bluetooth off, you'd get *roughly* 8.5 hours of battery life.

I suspect we will see 14 hours battery life, but only in rare situations (where CPU is at 5%, LCD brightness is all the way down, etc). Granted, what do I know, I don't have the Pandora to test it.

 

[WizardStan]

That's exactly how it was tested: low LCD, basic low power application, no wifi, etc... That's where the 14 hour revision came from. Which doesn't matter, because the original 10 hour estimate was with the same assumptions.
You won't be playing PSX under natural light for that long, but you should be able to watch 14 hours of standard quality video in a slightly darkish room, is how I read it.