PGS Windows 10 gaming handheld - GPD WIN competitor


Latest backer update is interesting

Update #5
Jul 4 2016

Intel Corporation is ready to help us
Good news. We received a message from the Principal Engineer of the performance Lab of Intel Corporation.

They see an opportunity to assist us in the development.

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If the negotiations go well, maybe they will become our partners. For us it would be a great honor.

We are confident that the partnership with corporation like Intel will help us to achieve the best results.

That seems highly unlikely for such a small project, especially with Intel dropping the Atom line. Maybe i'm just being skeptical and this is possible?
 
Well, the PGS campaign has just ticked over 4 days since it started. They have 868 backers so far in that short time frame, which is more than the total of backers the Pyra has obtained in 65 days including the 4 days of pre-preorders.

Clearly spending lots of money and years developing a prototype is not the way to go. Clearly what's needed to be successful is a nice drawing. If only we had of known

@Gr8one

They said they would be talking to Intel (and had in the past I think) to try and get factory overclocking of the GPU. Since the next stretch goal is factory overclocking of the GPU, that's probably why the contact at this point in time. Doesn't mean I believe any of this, just saying.
 
Well, the PGS campaign has just ticked over 4 days since it started. They have 868 backers so far in that short time frame, which is more than the total of backers the Pyra has obtained in 65 days including the 4 days of pre-preorders.

Clearly spending lots of money and years developing a prototype is not the way to go. Clearly what's needed to be successful is a nice drawing. If only we had of known

Naah, that's not all.
The reason they have so many backers is the price for those specs (which seems impossible, in my opinion), the video (we all know it looks cheap, but most people see it as professional and awesome video and they believe those guys) and the fact that so many didn't really realize that there's no working prototype as well as that many think this is as fast as a modern desktop PC (I can't count the number of comments who would like to see GTA V or Witcher 3 running on the system...)

Heck, someone in the comments even mentioned he's not scared because he thinks he'll get the money back from Kickstarter in case they won't receive anything... oh boy.

If I had promoted the Pyra like that, it would've sold like hell as well... actually, the Pandora did work like that. The price Craig set it to was 220 USD at the beginning, WAY too low for the production...
And it sold 4000 without a couple of days, then we closed the preorder.

The Pyra is expensive, which means not that many are going to back it.
 
Maybe i'm just being skeptical and this is possible?
I have 2 theories about this:
1. Intel seeks new market penetration and revenues () or wants to make the chip look good.
2. It is the Intel engineers that, for the love of technology, help out a bit (similar to T.I. helping out with the OpenPandora, iirc)

Although Businesses still buy intel chips for the servers (Wintel and Lintel), PC sales (where AMD and Intel reign) have been in decline, and other segments, like mobile phones (where intel penetration is minimal) erode the profits.
Who knows, maybe they (not upper management, but lower management) see potential in the handheld market segment, with a little investment of Intel resources, they potentially can gain a lot? (like competing with the Nvidia-Tegra, TI-OMAP, etc)
 
The thing I'm struggling to work out, ok , there's many things, but the current one is how they are going to implement a replaceable battery in a metal case. I can only think that it would have to be that the back plate is removal by screws or something.

By the way, are metal cases expensive to make?. Would have thought so
 
By the way, are metal cases expensive to make?. Would have thought so
They are impractical.
Thin metal with about the same weight as a plastic case gets bent and dented really fast (and destroying the sensitive stuff unterneath then) and if you make it thick enough it gets extremely heavy.
 
I have 2 theories about this:
1. Intel seeks new market penetration and revenues () or wants to make the chip look good.
2. It is the Intel engineers that, for the love of technology, help out a bit (similar to T.I. helping out with the OpenPandora, iirc)

Option 3
PGS: Hey Intel, can we buy some of your chips?
Intel: Uh, sure... Selling chips is our job, so why not?
PGS: Can we have some datasheets and stuff?
Intel: Of course. It's all available on our website. You don't even have to ask.
PGS: Hey everybody! Intel is "working with us"!!!

If there is any truth to this announcement, it's going to be more along the lines of #3 than anything else. Frankly, I'd be surprised if it's even that true.
 
The only project you can back for 1$ and get close to some out of mind action.
But there is enough show for even someone who finds that too much to ask:

Today's major misconceptions:
  • You can sell a titanium shell without a minimum order requirement.
  • Ok, how about a MAXIMUM of 10, at the price of 800$, with innards included.
Thats 8k$ - with a straight up cut of thousands for the machines to put in them, alone being a huge stretch for 800$, then additional organisation, to produce at least 4 different parts (or hit us with the unibody meme, go on, you are on a roll already), and laser engrave them. Then you need to make special case files, and buy raw material, titanium being one of the really expencive ones.

What am I trying to say → You do not end up with money to do CNC-machining, p e r i o d.

How many big name megacorporations have tried to take on apple and samsung for luxury handsets? Something that btw. has no moving parts, and only one screen.

HTC, Motorola, Lenovo, Microsoft, Nokia, Intel, Huawei, etc etc etc. They would love to be able to operate on these margins, but they can't, because THEY DO NOT EXIST.

And somehow 10 people, two of which are engineers, are going to do better than samsung and apple. Their R & D budgets for hardware are m a s s i v e. They have every advantage you could think of, and then some. Not to mention they are both routinely convicted for operating illegally, but hey-ho, totally kickstart this idea into your head, that doesn't matter. We just sell it cheaper. I know right.

If people say you cant do something you promised, don't promise more fantasy projects.
  • Lets just change category to "Project design" and get away from the technology requirements on kickstarter. Nobody will even notice.
You are just as wrong, but now adding insult to injury, for a combined sum of pathetic.
 
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There are titanium phones but they cost $3000+ and I'm sure have much higher volumes than 10. And phones have much simpler housing than this. I agree this is another big red flag that they don't know how to realistically budget this.

This is the first time I've seen a KS's photo-realistic renders get downgraded to much simpler and clearly not realistic drawings. Must have gotten nervous.

Here's another eyebrow raising quote from the KS comments section:

When it is time to send devices to backers, we will ask each backer about preferable color.

So.. how does this work exactly? You'll pick the case color when they're ready to send? Even if they over produce it so they have enough colored cases for everyone they'd still have to perform the final assembly (which doesn't look that straightforward) only once the case color is known. So they can't actually be ready to send at all.

Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to ask people what color they want as soon as the KS is over? So they know how many of each to make upfront?

Then again, having multiple colors is just yet another unnecessary complication in an already woefully unrealistic project...
 
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Well, it looks like the Principal Engineer at Intel really is in communications with them and has offered to help tune performance with the PGS. Color me surprised.



They have also added some new stretch goals

https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/01...sless=true&s=40252e6772790f2984cce235a7ae3232

You are in the early stages of talking to Intel who have offered to help, yet you add a strecth goal to maybe use an AMD chip. Oh boy.
 
Yes, and?
That's "performance support". It's no real support, they will just help to tweak the system, maybe help prevent some bugs in design, but that's it.

We have multiple of such supports for the Pyra as well.

Now, if Intel decided to help them with the design, production or sponsor the product, that would've impressed me... but not help with the fine tuning or similar.
 
They only ever said they would contact Intel for tuning support. It was a question of whether that was true or not. A lot of people did not believe they had contacted the Principal Engineer at Intel and had gotten support to help tune the thing.

ie , At least they were telling the truth in that regard
 
Why shouldn't they? I don't think they are ill-doing.
It's probably similar to Craig: They are very optimistic and probably don't know how complex these things are...
 
So.. how does this work exactly? You'll pick the case color when they're ready to send?
If they're titanium cases then they're probably thinking they'll just anodize them to whatever colour the customer wants just before shipping.
 
If they're titanium cases then they're probably thinking they'll just anodize them to whatever colour the customer wants just before shipping.

The titanium cases are only supposed to be a limited run of 10 and even they don't claim to be able to do them in different colors.
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Well, it looks like the Principal Engineer at Intel really is in communications with them and has offered to help tune performance with the PGS. Color me surprised.


If anyone was going to do it I'm not surprised it was Francois Piednoel. I can't speak to his technical credentials but he's kind of a forum troll who occasionally does things without much appearance of forethought.

They have also added some new stretch goals

I love Kickstarter stretch goals. Start with a totally broken system that heavily promotes failure, then encourage creators to double down with more and more delivery burdens. As many as their imagination allows. Anything that can drive that pledge sum as high as possible because that above all is the true goal.

Sometimes I wonder if they're being deliberately gratuitous to make some kind of point.

If I ever decide to stop boycotting Kickstarter I'll probably loudly pull funds when a project decides to add stupid stretch goals in the middle of the campaign.
 
@Exophase
A lot of their backers are complaining about the stretch goals in the comments section of the KS project.

As for the last stretch goal, if you are in talks with and are trying to get Intel to help you as much as possible with tuning etc. Then why at the same time would you announce a stretch goal to ditch Intel and go with AMD. Makes no sense at all.

I kind of get the feeling they are recent grads , I got the feeling their video was shot in a uni - nothing specific to say that to me, just get that feeling. Like the lockers in the background in the final shot. Could be work lockers, but combine that with their age and evewrything else. I just a get a feeling about it. Pure conjecture from me, so take it with a grain of salt
 
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