Should Pyra have a Camera?

[Kiga]

Damn you must have some heavy-duty rose-tinted glasses. The Pyra would be bulky to use as a phone, it would be very awkward to hold while making calls, and that battery will not last long if you are playing games while on a phone call using a bluetooth headset. Also, videocalling is another thing that is more of a pipe dream than anything. All of the video-calling solutions on phones, including skype, are proprietary. The only way you would get any of that is if we found a way to get the skype android application to run on the Pyra.

It's still easier to carry a Pyra alone than a Pyra+phone, so yes phone features would be very useful if you want to have your Pyra and phone everywhere you go.

Why would it be more akward while making calls than while playings games? Also you wouldn't have to hold it since you'd use a headset so it would be less akward than a smartphone alone.

3G standby drain few energy since a feature 3G 1000mah phone can last for a month, so it would depends on how much you call. Bluetooth 4.0 drain nothing, it could last for years with the Pyra battery. So phones features would not impact much on the battery life.

 

[God Ginrai]

It's still easier to carry a Pyra alone than a Pyra+phone, so yes phone features would be very useful if you want to have your Pyra and phone everywhere you go.

It's also "easier" to carry nothing. The fact is, it's not hard to carry both.

Why would it be more akward while making calls than while playings games?

Because to make calls, you are either typing the numbers on the keyboard, which is a long line of numbers (which is not good for typing numbers, hence why numpads exist) or you would be using the touchscreen, which holding your Pyra with one hand and using the touchscreen is much more awkward than holding a phone and using its touchscreen.

Also you wouldn't have to hold it since you'd use a headset so it would be less akward than a smartphone lone.

You have to use it to dial the numbers.

3G standby drain few energy since a feature 3G 1000mah phone can last for a month, so it would depends on how much you call. Bluetooth 4.0 drain nothing, it could last for years and years with the Pyra battery. So phones features would not impact much on the battery life.

And yet today's smart phones still have ~1 day battery life. A feature 3G phone does not last that long. I have one that I am currently using and it lasts a week or two at best. Also, my point was that performing all of those tasks together would waste your battery fast. It all adds up.

-God Ginrai

 

[Kiga]

It's also "easier" to carry nothing. The fact is, it's not hard to carry both.

Depend on what you do and what you wear. Also you say that Pyra is bulky, my point is Pyra alone is less bulki than Pyra+phone.

Because to make calls, you are either typing the numbers on the keyboard, which is a long line of numbers (which is not good for typing numbers, hence why numpads exist) or you would be using the touchscreen, which holding your Pyra with one hand and using the touchscreen is much more awkward than holding a phone and using its touchscreen.

Basically you don't need to type number often because they are in the phone. But when you would have to, there is a keyboard and even if we aren't accstumed to line number that's not a big deal. Also sms would be much easier to tape, not to mention that pandora is a lot easier to hold than a smartphone especially when you type.

You have to use it to dial the numbers.

Indeed, when you have to call someone you'd take it then put it in your pocket, a bit harder than with a regular phone but given the way it is uncomfortable to have 2 big devices in pockets and the way Pyra would be much comfortable to hold and use, I prefer it.

And yet today's smart phones still have ~1 day battery life. A feature 3G phone does not last that long. I have one that I am currently using and it lasts a week or two at best. Also, my point was that performing all of those tasks together would waste your battery fast. It all adds up.

Because smartphone are 3000 mah at max while Pyra would have 6000 mah and because they waste a lot of energy with bad software and hidden chip etc...  2 weeks is still good.

Of course it would waste battery faster if you use them all the time when you are outside but 6000 mah is enough to handle all that on a average use.

 

[moxie]

Damn you must have some heavy-duty rose-tinted glasses.

These kind of conversations reminds me of why it is such a good idea that the Pyra (and the Pandora before it) is designed with input from the community, not by the community. 

 

[God Ginrai]

Depend on what youd o and what you wear. Also you say that Pyra is bulky, my point is Pyra alone is less bulki than Pyra+phone.

If your clothes don't have pockets, then carrying the Pyra alone is already a problem. If your clothes do have pockets, there is normally at least 2 pockets.

Basically you don't need to type number often because they are in the phone. But when you would have to, there is a keyboard and even if we aren't accstumed to line number that's not a big deal. Also sms would be much easier to tape, not to mention that pandora is a lot easier to hold than a smartphone especially when you type.

That's so not true. Whenever you need to call a business, you need to type the number for that business in. That adds up to probably 1/3 of my phone calls.

Indeed, when you have to call someone you'd take it then put it in your pocket, a bit harder than with a regular phone but given the way it is uncomfortable to have 2 big devices in pockets and the way Pyra would be much comfortable to hold and use, I prefer it.

First of all, regular (I assume you mean smartphones by "regular") phones are not that large. Second, if you are planning to replace most of your smartphone with the Pyra, wouldn't it make more sense to get a feature phone? This takes up much less space and is hardly a "big" device.

Because smartphone are 3000 mah at max while Pyra would have 6000 mah and because they waste a lot of energy with bad software and hidden chip etc...  2 weeks is still good.

Of course it would waste battery faster if you use them all the time when you are outside but 6000 mah is enough to handle all that on a average use.

Yea, and I was talking about a smartphone that has a day of battery life w/ bluetooth and GPS off. You're talking about having those on, while playing games at the same time. There's no way you'd even get half a week out of that kind of usage, much less 2 weeks.

-God Ginrai

 

[Natsu]

Exactly.  If someone needs a phone they should buy a phone.   The Pyra is not a phone,  it just happens to be physically capable of acting like one. 

- Neelix

...and that is exactly why it is a very bad idea to advertise the Pyra as a phone. Because it won't be. So the solution is to not talk to others about the Pyra as a phone.

work as a phone

I know it's not a phone primarily(I never said it was), but if it was ready, the Pyra would be a more compelling.

The only feature Pyra will not have is vibrator

Actually, it may have that.

 

[Kiga]

Depend on what youd o and what you wear. Also you say that Pyra is bulky, my point is Pyra alone is less bulki than Pyra+phone.

If your clothes don't have pockets, then carrying the Pyra alone is already a problem. If your clothes do have pockets, there is normally at least 2 pockets.

It's not a matter of pocket number. If pocket are tight it could be VERY uncomfortable to walk with them. Also if you wear a pant without pocket and jacket with one pocket it's a problem... That's why I said that the hardness depend on what you do and what you wear.

That's so not true. Whenever you need to call a business, you need to type the number for that business in. That adds up to probably 1/3 of my phone calls.

You still can use the keyboard. (That's not a problem to me)

First of all, regular (I assume you mean smartphones by "regular") phones are not that large. Second, if you are planning to replace most of your smartphone with the Pyra, wouldn't it make more sense to get a feature phone? This takes up much less space and is hardly a "big" device.

I may will take a features phone, maybe something like a card phone. But what I defend on that topic is that a lot of potential users would want to replace their smartphone by the Pyra because it's perfectly feasible.

Yea, and I was talking about a smartphone that has a day of battery life w/ bluetooth and GPS off. You're talking about having those on, while playing games at the same time. There's no way you'd even get half a week out of that kind of usage, much less 2 weeks.

I'm saying that replacing a smartphone by your Pyra is feasible and better than having a smartphone+Pyra or a smartphone alone.You will still have much more battery with the Pyra than with a smartphone alone.

The Pyra's phone side will use less than a 3G features phones energy since there will not be weird chip or additional software. Given that a 3G feature phone last 3 weeks, with a 1000 mah battery (33 days on official specs of the nokia 515) If Pyra would use the same power (it's less) it would last 6x3 weeks so 4,5 month of standby, if you call (according to nokia 515 specs: 5h) 6x5h=30h of calling. Standby is negligible and if you call during 10h you still have 4000 mah so about the pandora battery life which is huge.

So yes, phones features will not impact much on battery life.

 

[God Ginrai]

The only feature Pyra will not have is vibrator

Actually, it may have that.

It better not. Anything that causes shaking or vibration in a handheld is more likely to cause failure in the device. The only reason phones can get away with it is because everything is so tightly packed in the case. This would not be the case for something like the Pyra, and is likely to be detrimental to it.

It's not a matter of pocket numer. If pocket are tight it could be VERY uncomfortable to walk with them. Also if you wear a pant without pocket and jacket with one pocket it's a problem... That's why I said that the hardness depend on what you do and what you wear.

Yea, it kind of is. If you have 2 pockets, you can put the phone in one and the Pyra in the other. Also, if you have very tight pockets, then your phone would fit and your Pyra wouldn't, so you wouldn't be able to bring your Pyra along anyway. Also, I don't believe a jacket exists that only has one pocket.

You still can use the keyboard. (That's not a problem to me)

 Yea, and you would be using that row of numbers, which, as I mentioned before, is awkward.

I may will take a features phone, maybe something like a card phone. But what I defend on that topic is that a lot of potential users would want to replace their smartphone by the Pyra because it's perfectly feasible.

 Then you are defending against the wrong person. I never said that it wasn't feasible to use the Pyra as a phone. I said it would be awkward and wouldn't provide the same quality of experience that a normal phone would.

I'm saying that replacing a smartphone by your Pyra is feasible and better than having a smartphone+Pyra or a smartphone alone.You will still have much more battery with the Pyra than with a smartphone alone.

The Pyra's phone side will use less than a 3G features phones energy since there is only the software side and the module consumption. Given that a 3G feature phone last 3 weeks, with a 1000 mah battery (33 days on official specs of the nokia 515) If Pyra would use the same power (it's less) it would last 6x3 weeks so 4,5 month of standby, if you call (according to nokia 515 specs: 5h) 6x5h=30h of calling. Standby is negligible and if you call during 10h you still have 4000 mah so about the pandoa battery life which is huge.

So yes, phones features will not impact much.

And that is not true. Because a 3G feature phone has a simple operating system that does a lot less than what the Pyra will do. It also will have much more power-efficient ARM processors than what the Pyra will have. There is absolutely no way that the Pyra would use the the same or less power than a 3G feature phone. The Pyra has a larger battery, but the system would also have a much larger drain on that battery.

-God Ginrai

 

[Kiga]

Yea, it kind of is. If you have 2 pockets, you can put the phone in one and the Pyra in the other. Also, if you have very tight pockets, then your phone would fit and your Pyra wouldn't, so you wouldn't be able to bring your Pyra along anyway. Also, I don't believe a jacket exists that only has one pocket.

If you have tight pockets it would be annoying to carry a Pyra alone and more to carry Pyra and a smartphone. I'm talking about inside pocket for jackets. There are many jacket with only one inside pocket. And I would not use an exterior pocket which the pyra could fall from.

Then you are defending against the wrong person. I never said that it wasn't feasible to use the Pyra as a phone. I said it would be awkward and wouldn't provide the same quality of experience that a normal phone would.

You started defending against me, I just said that carrying a Pyra alone is better than  smartphone+Pyra.

And that is not true. Because a 3G feature phone has a simple operating system that does a lot less than what the Pyra will do. It also will have much more power-efficient ARM processors than what the Pyra will have. There is absolutely no way that the Pyra would use the the same or less power than a 3G feature phone. The Pyra has a larger battery, but the system would also have a much larger drain on that battery.

I didn't count the Pyra operating system since I wanted to know how much would consume the module+the software. We all know that Pandora have a great standby time, Pyra will have a better since the processor would be better and there will be a larger battery. I don't know how much off the processor would use the phone software but even if it's pretty more than a feature phone, there would be enough battery since ED said that the Pyra with 8000 mah battery would last for 24h playing pandora's games so 18h  with 6000mah. For the phone consumption it'd depend on the software optimisation. But I guess you'd be able to last at least 2 days with playing often and calling, which is great.

 

[God Ginrai]

If you have tight pockets it would be annoying to carry a Pyra alone and more to carry Pyra and a smartphone. I'm talking about inside pocket for jackets. There are many jacket with only one inside pocket. And I would not use an exterior pocket which the pyra could fall from.

No, it wouldn't. Because your smartphone would be in a separate pocket, because you'd have 2 pockets. And you could easily fit a feature phone into one of your outside pockets without it falling out, then place the Pyra in the inside pocket. And this is assuming your pants don't have pockets, which is unlikely.

You started defending against me, I just said that carrying a Pyra alone is better than  smartphone+Pyra.

No I didn't. I pointed out that anyone who wanted a good phone experience would not replace their phone with a Pyra. Just like how someone wouldn't try to replace their 3DS with a smartphone if they wanted a good gaming experience.

I didn't count the Pyra operating system since I wanted to know how much would consume the module+the software. We all know that Pandora have a great standby time, Pyra will have a better since the processor would be better and there will be a larger battery. I don't know how much off the processor would use the phone software but even if it's pretty more than a feature phone, there would be enough battery since ED said that the Pyra with 8000 mah battery would last for 24h playing pandora's games so 18h  with 6000mah. For the phone consumption it'd depend on the software optimisation. But I guess you'd be able to last at least 2 days with playing often and calling, which is great.

The Pandora has a good standby time with bluetooth and wifi off. It also doesn't have to be powering a 3G chip with GPS.

-God Ginrai

 

[Kiga]

No, it wouldn't. Because your smartphone would be in a separate pocket, because you'd have 2 pockets. And you could easily fit a feature phone into one of your outside pockets without it falling out, then place the Pyra in the inside pocket. And this is assuming your pants don't have pockets, which is unlikely.

Of course it would because I don't like to carry a lot of stuff. You can't deny that it's easier to carry a Pyra alone than a Pyra+a phone. It is physically proved. And I may have something else to put in my pockets, that's why all in one stuff like Pandora exist.

No I didn't. I pointed out that anyone who wanted a good phone experience would not replace their phone with a Pyra. Just like how someone wouldn't try to replace their 3DS with a smartphone if they wanted a good gaming experience.

A good phone experience is to be able to hear who you call and being heard and also to be able to send sms. Others stuff are superfluous and it's just your subjective opinion. If I follow your reasoning we should just abandon the Pyra and buy a full sized laptop for a good computing experience, and I see no reason to put a chronometer in a smartphone we should buy a straight chronometer (not a watch) otherwise we will have a bad chronometer experience. As I said a phone can call, others stuff are subjective, there is no "good phone exprience" unless being able to phone.

 

[God Ginrai]

Of course it would because I don't like to carry a lot of stuff. You can't deny that it's easier to carry a Pyra alone than a Pyra+a phone. It is physically proved. And I may have something else to put in my pockets, that's why all in one stuff like Pandora exist.

I'm not denying that it is "easier", I am denying that carrying the two is "hard".

A good phone experience is to be able to hear who you call and being heard and also to be able to send sms. Others stuff are superfluous and it's just your subjective opinion. If I follow your reasoning we should just abandon the Pyra and buy a full sized laptop for a good computing experience, and I see no reason to put a chronometer in a smartphone we should buy a straight chronometer (not a watch) otherwise we will have a bad chronometer experience. As I said a phone can call, others stuff are subjective, there is no "good phone exprience" unless being able to phone.

No, that's a good 2-way transceiver/pager experience. A good phone experience involves the ability to dial with minimal frustration. It doesn't need to run apps, but dialing has been an essential part of the phone experience for over 90 years ago. You cannot write that off as superfluous.

-God Ginrai

 

[Kiga]

Of course it would because I don't like to carry a lot of stuff. You can't deny that it's easier to carry a Pyra alone than a Pyra+a phone. It is physically proved. And I may have something else to put in my pockets, that's why all in one stuff like Pandora exist.

I'm not denying that it is "easier", I am denying that carrying the two is "hard".

I never said that, I said:

It's more feasible to carry a Pyra alone than to carry a Pyra + a smartophone, right?

No, that's a good 2-way transceiver/pager experience.

That's what I meant with my bad english.

 

[God Ginrai]

I never said that, I said:

It's more feasible to carry a Pyra alone than to carry a Pyra + a smartophone, right?

 You are right. However, I assumed that you were using this to support this claim you made earlier:

It's a shame, A LOT of people would want to use the Pyra to replace their smartphone, Pyra would be a smartphone killer since it can do all a smartphone better and with enough battery, except... a camera.

For something to be a "smartphone-killer" for a lot of people, it needs to be not only an alternative, but a preferable alternative for a lot of people. If it's not hard to carry both, there isn't much reason why using just the Pyra would be the preferable alternative for a lot of people.

-God Ginrai

 

[WizardStan]

Drivers: This may exist, but I think that it will be unlikely that it will be feature complete.

As far as I understand these should exist. The Gemalto chips use basic TTY over USB for data (everything from basic data transfer, GPS, and commands such as "dial this number" and "is there an incoming call?") which is highly documented, and I2S standard (which OMAP5 speaks) for the audio. So long as TI provides the USB-serial and I2S drivers for the OMAP5 (and they're pretty good about providing Linux drivers for their hardware which is one reason to choose TI over Qualcomm) then it'll work.
Hypothetically, a bash script should be able to do something like


arecord -D hw:1,1 | aplay -D hw:2,0 &
arecord -D hw:2,1 | aplay -D hw:1,0 &
echo "ATxxx ###-###-####" > /dev/umtstty
CONNECTED = "1"
while [[ "$CONNECTED" = "1" ]] do
read foo < /dev/umtstty
if [[ "$foo" = "PHONE HANGUP STATUS" ]] then CONNECTED="0"; fi
done
killall aplay
killall arecord
Bash script literally thrown together right now and is definitely broken in several places but that's the gist of the minimum it would take to get started.A more complete solution would do things like making sure it had reception before dialing, checking the call status before the loop, and just slurping down the buffer probably makes it completely incompatible with using data and GPS while also on a call, but you should get the idea.

 

[God Ginrai]

Is it confirmed we are getting a GSM-only chip? Because AFAIK, the method of communicating with CDMA is proprietary, and isn't so simple.

-God Ginrai

 

[WizardStan]

Yes, the PHS8 is the confirmed chip they're using, until such time as ED or gta04 change their mind. It is GSM/UMTS and takes care of all the specifics, the software just needs to send AT commands for the high level stuff, telling to to connect to networks, getting tower information, dialing numbers, downloading data, etc...

 

[Kiga]

It's a shame, A LOT of people would want to use the Pyra to replace their smartphone, Pyra would be a smartphone killer since it can do all a smartphone better and with enough battery, except... a camera.

For something to be a "smartphone-killer" for a lot of people, it needs to be not only an alternative, but a preferable alternative for a lot of people. If it's not hard to carry both, there isn't much reason why using just the Pyra would be the preferable alternative for a lot of people.

Why carrying a smartphone+ a Pyra if you can only carry a Pyra? That's my point. Of course some people love their smartphone usability. But I'm talking about features, yes Pyra can do all a smartphone can do better (instead of camera)  and longer so it's a smartphone-killer in features.That's why the phones features aren't negligible and another little step should be done by adding a camera to be able to do all a smartphone can do.

 

[spud42]

It's a shame, A LOT of people would want to use the Pyra to replace their smartphone, Pyra would be a smartphone killer since it can do all a smartphone better and with enough battery, except... a camera.

For something to be a "smartphone-killer" for a lot of people, it needs to be not only an alternative, but a preferable alternative for a lot of people. If it's not hard to carry both, there isn't much reason why using just the Pyra would be the preferable alternative for a lot of people.

Why carrying a smartphone+ a Pyra if you can only carry a Pyra? That's my point. Of course some people love their smartphone usability. But I'm talking about features, yes Pyra can do all a smartphone can do better (instead of camera)  and longer so it's a smartphone-killer in features.That's why the phones features aren't negligible and another little step should be done by adding a camera to be able to do all a smartphone can do.

your biggest assumption is that a LOT of people want to replace a smart phone with the Pyra. i do not believe this is true.  Ed has also stated that there will not be a camera so there goes another smart phone feature.

I think the vast majority of potential buyers of the Pyra would not want it to be a phone. there is already a lot of paranoid users that do not want the 3G module in the Pyra either so a phone for them is completely out of the question.

 

[slaeshjag]

^ While that is true, to those of us who'd want to use it as a phone, it's annoying when the 3G module would bring it *so close*