Pandora Hardware - Why Did They Pick It All?

[kingoddball]

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.

 

[RoboShmup]

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/38155-our-new-machine-pandora

I doubt you want to read all those pages, but much of the discussion and debate over what was included on the Pandora exists in that thread.

 

[Game_over]

Well my friend, the time of those discussion, OLED was a new thing that was only available in smaller resolutions, plus OLED is not the most affordable thing in the word either. But you pretty much answered many of your own questions anyways. My job is boring too...sometimes

 

[rabidpoobear]

oddball, calm down a bit man. It's getting to the point where it seems like you're just posting to raise your post count. At least pretend like you didn't search, that would be forgivable... saying "I tried searching and found a lot of information but I thought I'd ask instead so I didn't have to read any of it" doesn't really make us want to talk about it.

 

[zhasha]

like an OLED which has great multi touch and resolution etc.

OLED has nothing to do with multi-touch, or touch at all.
It's all about what you lay over the screen. The pandora screen could just as well have been fitted with a capacitive multi-touch overlay like the iPhone, or even a resistive multi-touch overlay. The question is: does it bear any merit? It's not a device that fits like a screen in your hand like the iPhone, and it can't flip the screen over like a tablet (patented tech, unfortunately). Secondly, at the time I don't think the new cheap resistive (IFSR) touch tech was even around, meaning they'd have to go through Apple's tech which is in all likelyhood patented to oblivion (or wait, was that even around?).

 

[lulzfish]

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.

Um, because ARM cores are small and don't generate nearly as much heat as a similar-sized x86?
The OMAP3 is still one of the strongest ARM devices out there. The only thing larger or faster would have been x86, which would cripple the battery life, make it gigantic (netbook sized, not pocket sized) and basically they'd be making an EEE clone instead of a Pandora.

And yes, x86 does have to worry about heat. ARM doesn't. ARM also uses several times less battery. It's a no-brainer to use ARM for anything smaller than a laptop.

 

[WizardStan]

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

OLED is still very expensive. The payoff isn't high enough.
Multi-touch on a capacitive screen has a lot of trade offs vs the single touch of a resistive screen (multi-touch resistive screens only being something very recent). Capacitive screen can only by touched by something conductive; resistive by anything that can apply pressure. Capacitive also has (had?) a much lower resolution compared to resistive.

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.

Because there was nothing faster or larger that was suitable. The only thing faster that could have worked would have been some kind of x86, and x86 is inefficient and power hungry, wasting a lot of electricity as heat. ARM is very efficient, which gives us our 14 hour battery life with no noticeable heat.

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

Have you tried Google? You could have typed these questions almost word for word into it and gotten similar reasons. I hearby dub thee Aesir the second. Since you don't seem interested in doing any sort of thinking for yourself, I will no longer do it for you, either.

 

[juniorm33]

Have you tried Google? You could have typed these questions almost word for word into it and gotten similar reasons. I hearby dub thee Aesir the second. Since you don't seem interested in doing any sort of thinking for yourself, I will no longer do it for you, either.

Shouldn't laugh but... well....
OLED, as you said is a cost availability thing, for the size and resolution that Pandora is using, is there anything out there with an OLED screen currently? Very much doubt it, OLED in smaller screens cost wise is becoming more reasonable but not Pandora size.

Going Intel Atom, you may just be able to get down to Pandora's size (more so if your a big company) but the battery life would be really bad even if we could get it in there.

In the end it's all about compromises and as it stands I don't think OP has made that many to be honest. Unless you was willing to pay $700+ for it, and in that case it would end up being a different device for a different market.

 

[zhasha]

redacted, I need to read what people write more carefully

 

[Exophase]

Because there was nothing faster or larger that was suitable. The only thing faster that could have worked would have been some kind of x86, and x86 is inefficient and power hungry, wasting a lot of electricity as heat. ARM is very efficient, which gives us our 14 hour battery life with no noticeable heat.

So 14 hours is what people are saying now? o_o

 

[dflemstr]

Because there was nothing faster or larger that was suitable. The only thing faster that could have worked would have been some kind of x86, and x86 is inefficient and power hungry, wasting a lot of electricity as heat. ARM is very efficient, which gives us our 14 hour battery life with no noticeable heat.

So 14 hours is what people are saying now? o_o

Yay for no up-to-date centralized location of information!

 

[MooTheKow]

Because there was nothing faster or larger that was suitable. The only thing faster that could have worked would have been some kind of x86, and x86 is inefficient and power hungry, wasting a lot of electricity as heat. ARM is very efficient, which gives us our 14 hour battery life with no noticeable heat.

So 14 hours is what people are saying now? o_o

Yeah... http://twitter.com/Craigix/status/3700762975

"Oh, forgot to tell you all, the battery was upped to 4200mah and our tests are showing this monster is going to give something like 14 hours".

 

[WizardStan]

Because there was nothing faster or larger that was suitable. The only thing faster that could have worked would have been some kind of x86, and x86 is inefficient and power hungry, wasting a lot of electricity as heat. ARM is very efficient, which gives us our 14 hour battery life with no noticeable heat.

So 14 hours is what people are saying now? o_o

10 hours was the estimate.
When MWeston actually tested it, with power saving settings and whatnot, he got 14 hours, as per the link just posted. There was a big discussion about it.
The slight increase in battery actually had little to do with the sudden 40% increase in life. This was one of the few examples of the team underestimating and being pleasantly surprised. (instead of underestimating (ie, time lines) and still being disappointed )

 

[juniorm33]

Yea, but I'm still just thinking 10hrs+ but now that 10 is more assured

 

[Exophase]

Yeah I remember now, the "upped to 4200" part - I was confused since I thought the batteries were always 4200. This is the more helpful quote from MWeston:

14 hours was a number that seems likely with half screen brightness, down clocked for something like PicoDrive that doesn’t need the high MHz and maybe even Smart Reflex enabled. It’s all a plausible combination but you can’t fit that into a tweet.

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

None of this suggests any better battery capacity or device efficiency than the 8.5 hours they got with full CPU usage at 500MHz and LCD on full brightness.

 

[Phawx]

I heard 100 hours of battery life.

 

[Exophase]

I heard 100 hours of battery life.

Unfortunately

 

[juniorm33]

I heard 100 hours of battery life.

That was with the reactor, can't remember who was explaining it to me but it was well impressive. Maybe they'll use it for Pandora 1.5 though :lol:

 

[Trip]

I heard 100 hours of battery life.

I thought the 100 hours quote came from; playing music with the screen turned off, whilst using the DSP to handle all the grunt work?

EDIT: Plus all the power saving features working of course

 

[lulzfish]

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.