Planet Computers : Gemini - Psion Returns

[elwing]

Using mAh as unit never had sense anyway, it's not like if battery had constant voltages...

 

[ekianjo]

I know I need at least A4-sized keyboard for comfortable typing, the difference between 12" and 10" laptops is huge for me.

have you ever used a Psion back in the days? I have, and even though it was small, it was awesome for typing.

 

[Eight Bit]

I still have my old Psion S3a, 512KB... interested?

 

[dimag0g]

Using mAh as unit never had sense anyway, it's not like if battery had constant voltages...

mAh ratings made perfect sense when LDO regulators were in wide use, which just reduced battery voltage to 3.3V while keeping the same current.

Anyway, no single rating would cover all the cases, since batteries don't simply store a constant amount of charge or energy. Any rating would be an approximation, and mAh is not a bad one. At least, it's easy to measure.

 

[benoitb]

Wouldn't watt-hour just be better to measure a battery's capacity ? Easy to understand, easy to predict how well it will serve you, easy to compare batteries of different voltage.

 

[elwing]

That's my point, exactly

 

[vcoleiro1]

Seems they are moving ahead with things.

Last update showed a populated PCB.

 

[rygD]

Thanks, I will go look for a link so I can see the full update. Have we talked about keyboards lately?

 

[vcoleiro1]

Seems they are making a lot of progress which they oultined in a 4 part update here: www.indiegogo.com/projects/gemini-pda-android-linux-keyboard-mobile-device-phone#/updates/all
Looks like they are working with Debain 9

 

[dflatline]

That keyboard has some serious issues, like a lack of F keys.

 

[ible]

well, it's not really meant to be a linux workstation... i rarely use my F keys anymore. i usually hit them accidentally, like F1 when i'm trying to Escape in Vim .

the keyboard actually is pretty decent, besides tilde being on backslash, and a concern for where quotations will come from

 

[rygD]

Definitely some interesting stuff there. Maybe ED would consider selling things like this for his nongaming customers (physical keyboard on a tiny computer that might run Linux). I need to look at the specs and ports to see if there is potential interest from me.

Kinda amused by the camera stuff.

 

[vcoleiro1]

Apparently they will be at MWC Americas congress on Tuesday with a prototype. They also organised a backer meetup on Wed night

 

[torpor]

I sure hope these guys make it to market .. I'm looking for a new little Linux machine these days, and I have to say .. 10 cores .. mmmhhh .. not bad!

 

[levi]

They're putting a 10 core SoC in there? If so, there's no chance any of the cores will be able to ramp up for more than a femtosecond or two, unless they're going to do some significant modifications to the case.

I wonder if there's a way to work out the optimal number of cores for a given efficiency and cooling rate. Obviously, for quite a lot of algorithms still, single core performance is king, but for a theoretical process than can split evenly over all available computing resources, without doing any maths, I reckon it'll come out even - you get the same performance however many ways you split it, but in practice CPUs aren't equally efficient at all clocks, and even well behaved processes have a limit to how many ways they can be split.

 

[vcoleiro1]

They wont operate all together, but rather the 3 different sets of cores/frequencies will cut in depending on work load. Probably able to run on as low as one core

Here are the three sets of cores

2x Cortex A72 @2.5GHz
4x Cortex A53 @2.0GHz
4x Cortex A53 @1.55GHz

 

[crazyhorse]

Some more details-

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/11/gemini_psion_alike_pre_production_prototype_handson/

 

[Ian J]

From the above article:

The bad news is that the "double sized" 8000mAh battery hoped for on the IndieGogo launch page will actually be a 4220mAh model: the 8000 mAh wouldn't fit. The team is aware that some buyers will be disappointed so is examining the feasibility of a clip-on battery shell that fits under the device. That's a great idea.

 

[vcoleiro1]

Well if you go back through this thread, most of us had questioned how they were going to fit a 8000mAh battery in there. Seems we have the answer we all expected.
But the clip-on battery shell is a good idea.

The biggest issue I have with this as I mentioned early on, is the cooling, I don't really see much of it. I wonder if they are planning to use the back as a heat sink or something.

 

[rygD]

If the "extra" battery clips on the back, using it for cooling seems like a bad idea. Where does the main battery go?