"Smach Z is Back!" ...?

[jeeks]

so this is some sort of crowd-based marketing or something? that's kind of cool considering how much a "real" marketing campaign costs.

 

[comradekingu]

It is clown-based marketing.

The idea that power of a platform that makes no money wont be abused for financial gain is rather naïve. It would reap commercial profit beyond belief. Even for small operations you would be hard pressed to blame thunderclap.
Not only is it spam, it is also the potential for identity theft.

Things that trust should not reside in because of these reasons, 1 Smach Z, 2, Thunderclap.

Henceforth I shall refer to it as blunderfap.

 

[MJPIA]

I've seen people use thunderclap before and some seem to have been successful but I'll admit I have no interest in giving anything access to any of my social media accounts even for a one time thing.

Do find the specs on the thunderclap page interesting though since they are the most detailed so far.
Obviously it says specs can be changed but one newsletter said they had decided on a 5.7" screen so not sure if they changed again or a small mistake.

Specifications*:

• CPU: AMD Merlin Falcon RX-421BD (15w) SoC at 2.1 GHz
• Cores: 4/4
• iGPU: Radeon R7 at 800Mhz
• RAM: 4GB (SMACH Z) || 8GB (SMACH Z PRO) DDR3 2133 MHz
• HD: 64GB (SMACH Z) || 128GB (SMACH Z PRO)
• Screen: 6” FULL HD (1920x1080)
• Battery: 5 hours of gaming.
• MicroSD Card Slot.
• USB 3.0 type C.
• HDMI video output connection.
• Wi-Fi connectivity 5.0 Ghz.
• 4G LTE mobile network connectivity (PRO model only)
• Bluetooth connectivity.
• Front-camera (PRO model only)

*Specifications are subject to change

They also mention Clickarm in the about section and here's comments from kickstarter about upgradability.

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you:

@Super Soup
Feb-March is an estimation and a goal. We can confirm that.

@Mairinger Wolfgang
Yes, you can upgrade your RAM. SoC (CPU+GPU) and RAM can be upgraded. So yes, you can buy the SMACH Z standard version and then buy 8GB or upgrade your SoC in the future. We don't have prices for that yet sorry, and take into account that this won't be available from day 1.

The confirmed components that will be possible to be upgraded are the SoC, RAM, and hard drive. The LTE may be possible too, but it's still pending on the final design, so we don't know yet.

I guess they fixed their gamescom prototype.
Still using a Intel processor but it can play Left for Dead 2 without the single fps it had before.
I can't decide if I like the controls or not.

 

[AVahne]

I've seen people use thunderclap before and some seem to have been successful but I'll admit I have no interest in giving anything access to any of my social media accounts even for a one time thing.

Do find the specs on the thunderclap page interesting though since they are the most detailed so far.
Obviously it says specs can be changed but one newsletter said they had decided on a 5.7" screen so not sure if they changed again or a small mistake.



They also mention Clickarm in the about section and here's comments from kickstarter about upgradability.




I guess they fixed their gamescom prototype.
Still using a Intel processor but it can play Left for Dead 2 without the single fps it had before.
I can't decide if I like the controls or not.

I don't. I don't like the form factor either. Should make a clamshell version.

 

[levi]

Given how much of a brick their single unit prototype was at gamecom, I can't imagine how big a clamshell would have been

 

[Grench]

It is clown-based marketing.

The idea that power of a platform that makes no money wont be abused for financial gain is rather naïve. It would reap commercial profit beyond belief. Even for small operations you would be hard pressed to blame thunderclap.
Not only is it spam, it is also the potential for identity theft.

Things that trust should not reside in because of these reasons, 1 Smach Z, 2, Thunderclap.

Henceforth I shall refer to it as blunderfap.

How to monetize that 'service'...
By having that level of access, they can also siphon off the user's entire connection construct and every message or image or like ever sent or received. Using that information, the user's data and their connections can be classified, segmented and -sold-. If you think they're only going to log in to submit one message on your behalf without poking around for their own benefit, there is a bridge that needs a new owner.

 

[Exophase]

At least they firmed up on a model number for the SoC. This is really not suitable for something like a phone or even a tablet, it's more like a laptop chip. And I mean laptops with 14"+ screens, not netbooks.

The Merlin Falcon G-series lineup actually matches up pretty closely to earlier Carrizo products. RX-421BD corresponds with the FX-8800P or Pro A12-8800B Carrizo chips.

Take this laptop: http://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-EliteBook-745-G3-Notebook-Review.158278.0.html It easily ramps up about 20W from idle and that's after throttling kicks in. 25W for the whole system under gaming load sounds like about what I'd expect from something with Smach Z's specs.

I get that they feel like no compromises can be made in GPU power for a gaming device, but when I see GPD struggling to keep a tablet-oriented Atom cool in a handheld form factor I don't really know how Smach Z is going to make this work. Granted being a really thick brick helps, but this isn't like holding a 14" laptop and they say it's supposed to become smaller in the end. I imagine it'll have a fan, but will that even be enough? And how can they get a 5 hour battery life with this? They can't put a 100Wh battery in this form factor, that's like four times larger than the one in the GPD Win or Pyra. And if they could, imagine how long it'd take to charge...

 

[Klumpen]

BTW: What became of the NVidia Shield?
It never reached Europe and didn't have a real successor as it seems, why is that?

 

[Exophase]

BTW: What became of the NVidia Shield?
It never reached Europe and didn't have a real successor as it seems, why is that?

They released a tablet under the label instead (with an included controller). Then a set-top box. I guess not enough people wanted the handheld version. Which isn't that surprising given that it wasn't very pocketable, and it ran Android which doesn't really have that great of a non-casual games library. It was good for emulators but that wasn't enough of a draw by itself.

Maybe in an alternate reality, a version of the Shield portable that was somehow x86 and ran Windows could have been measurably more successful. But nVidia doesn't have such an SoC so they're not going to do such a device.

 

[MJPIA]

Was just skimming their Facebook comments for anything of notice.

The prototype is not the final form-factor. The stick and buttons will be higher and nearer of the screen.

Yes, in the Kickstarter we will publish the new 3D model. However, you can already see in the previous 3D model on top of the Facebook group, that the controls are not like in the case prototype. We had to put them more vertical because of technical issues with the screen.

We're trying to do the controls as similar to Steam Controller as possible. However, for the final version the touchpads will be a little bit smaller to make the whole console more compact.

Nowak Matthias But what about the microcontroller? Will it be compatible to the other one, so that it uses the firmware updates from the original one

SMACH Z It works exactly like a Steam Controller, but it's not a official Steam Controller.

SMACH Z 11 October for the Kickstarter campaign. Feb-Mar 2017 for the backers shipments. December 2017/Q1 2018 for the market release.

9-10 month difference between when crowdfunders get it and it goes on sale for the general market?
What am I missing here?

Thanks Benoit! Yes you could get 10h with the extra battery. The SoC (CPU+GPU), RAM and Hard Drive will be clickarmed so you will be able to upgraded them in the future. The drivers will be amdgpu stack (you can install others if you prefer). Yes, we'll pre-install emulators too!

Thunderclap mentioned a second battery in the back for additional playtime but that number seems hella off.
Unless the add-on battery is the size of a suitcase.

Yes, you're right, going with 6" inches makes the device bigger, and it won't be possible to put in in your pocket. We had many internal discussion about that here, but finally players have voted for 6" and we want to really create the device that you want, so we will have to sacrifice some portability in order to have a bigger screen... and anyway I don't bring my Nintendo 3DS in my pocket either

I guess they did backtrack on the 5.7" they said they were gonna use in a newsletter.

 

[*royalt17*]

Has Windows version been confirmed, or are we getting SteamOS? I think they said there would be stretch goals for Windows.

Sent from my ASUS PadFone X using Tapatalk

 

[Yoyobuae]

I silly question: Can the GPU drive the screen at the advertised resolution? (running a game that is)

I have a Radeon R7 M370 on my laptop, which I think is comparable. To me it feels like it can't really run games at 1920x1080 resolution at an acceptable frame rate (for me 15+ FPS would be acceptable). Now that might be crap AMD linux drivers fault, then again SmachZ might have similar problems.

EDIT: Nope:

We recommend the AMD Radeon R7 M370 for gaming with highest details at resolutions up to, and including, 1280x720.

Is the iGPU on SmachZ more powerful? Doubt it, since my laptop gets hot fast while using the Radeon card.

Only hope is that amdgpu driver doing some kind of miracle. I can only run fglrx because amdgpu just crashes badly. I wonder if amdgpu will even be ready in time for SmachZ (for their specific GPU specifically).

 

[Exophase]

9-10 month difference between when crowdfunders get it and it goes on sale for the general market?
What am I missing here?

I can't think of any reasonable explanation, unless they think they'll sell a million and need to ramp up production capability and initial supply.

... not that that's exactly reasonable...

Does anyone know the size of the display in the prototype?

From what I can find on realistic LiPo battery capacity it's around 100Wh/kg. So 1 kg for their battery plus another 1 kg for an extra one. For comparison, Pandora weighs not even a third as much as this hypothetical battery. This ~3 kg handheld sounds like a real pain to actually hold.

I silly question: Can the GPU drive the screen at the advertised resolution? (running a game that is)

I have a Radeon R7 M370 on my laptop, which I think is comparable. To me it feels like it can't really run games at 1920x1080 resolution at an acceptable frame rate (for me 15+ FPS would be acceptable). Now that might be crap AMD linux drivers fault, then again SmachZ might have similar problems.

EDIT: Nope:

Is the iGPU on SmachZ more powerful? Doubt it, since my laptop gets hot fast while using the Radeon card.

Not being able to play games at native resolution is probably the least of their problems. There's at least some argument that the higher resolution screen benefits non-gaming applications.

 

[MJPIA]

I can't think of any reasonable explanation, unless they think they'll sell a million and need to ramp up production capability and initial supply.

... not that that's exactly reasonable...

Does anyone know the size of the display in the prototype?

From what I can find on realistic LiPo battery capacity it's around 100Wh/kg. So 1 kg for their battery plus another 1 kg for an extra one. For comparison, Pandora weighs not even a third as much as this hypothetical battery. This ~3 kg handheld sounds like a real pain to actually hold.

Technology moves on, new products come to market, theoretically shipping devices to backers in February or March and then waiting 10 months before the general public gets it sounds wrong no matter how I look at it.
Proto had 6" screen.

Yeah the device weight has been on my mind.
A device capable of playing a bunch of games for a long time that gives you cramps after a using it a bit isn't exactly ideal.
Unless you plan on using it as part of working out everyday in which case good job!
Bench pressing and playing video games wrapped into one device!
Also functions as a self defense weapon in case you get attacked!

 

[Yoyobuae]

Not being able to play games at native resolution is probably the least of their problems. There's at least some argument that the higher resolution screen benefits non-gaming applications.

But SmachZ has only gaming controls (+ two touchpads) and plans to run SteamOS (on some devices at least). Games are kinda their main focus.

I personally think they might've been better going with Intel (Sorry AMD). That same laptop of mine has an Intel GPU as well, and with recent kernel+mesa it's at the Radeons heels in terms of performance (with far less heat generation). I'm afraid SmachZ might end up being nothing more than a glorified hand-warmer.

EDIT: At least it's GCN 1.2 so maybe it'll get better support from amdgpu than the GCN 1.0 GPU on my laptop.

 

[Exophase]

But SmachZ has only gaming controls (+ two touchpads) and plans to run SteamOS (on some devices at least). Games are kinda their main focus.

Good point. Higher resolution may make sense for something like GPD Win but Smach Z less so.

Still, there are perhaps some classes of eg 2D games that could benefit from the resolution. These days we're finally getting some really high fidelity 2D games, but I don't know if they're really that light on GPU demand.

I personally think they might've been better going with Intel (Sorry AMD). That same laptop of mine has an Intel GPU as well, and with recent kernel+mesa it's at the Radeons heels in terms of performance (with far less heat generation). I'm afraid SmachZ might end up being nothing more than a glorified hand-warmer.

A higher end mobile Core-iX processor would have maybe had a somewhat more efficient GPU (definitely more efficient CPU), but would have came with a big price premium.

Ultimately I think it still wouldn't have really been able to hit the performance targets they want while being realistic for this form factor. I really think that Atom-class is the best you can reasonably deal with right now. Which isn't totally useless, in that it can still get some good mileage out of last-gen level games and most current indie stuff. Enough to be interesting to me, but clearly not what Smach Z envisions.

 

[MJPIA]

Someone tell me google translate is messing this up.
Please tell me this isn't right
https://translate.google.com/transl...l_specifikacio_merlin_falcon.html&prev=search

The device itself will not be too thin, and this is obviously compromises the right size battery, and passive cooling is necessary because, as the designers finally decided fanless machine. In the longer term this is positive, because the wind machine would only cause problems, so it pays slightly thicker product design. The battery provides 5 hours of battery life under usage, but the process is not yet measured data. It is, however, that comes with an additional battery and also what can be connected to the Smach to Z, and thus gained another 5 hours.

Maga az eszköz nem lesz túl vékony, és ez a kompromisszum nyilván a megfelelő méretű akkumulátor, illetve a passzív hűtés miatt szükséges, mivel végül ventilátormentes gép mellett döntöttek a tervezők. Hosszabb távon ez a kedvező, ugyanis a szélgép csak gondokat okozna, így megéri némileg vastagabb terméket tervezni. Az akkumulátor egyébként 5 órányi, használat melletti üzemidőt biztosít, de a mérési folyamatról egyelőre nincs adat. Arról viszont van, hogy jön majd egy kiegészítő akkumulátor is, amit hozzá lehet csatlakoztatni a Smach Z-hez, és ezzel nyerhető még 5 óra.

Passive cooling?
With a 15w amd chip?
On facebook they said

ImasD is very expertise in miniaturization which reduce temperature in the device. And we have enough space to include passive cooling materials. Of course, it's something that need to be worked on the final device, and one of the production challenges, but we're confident that it won't be an issue.

which just gave me the impression that they were sticking in a very large heat sink with the fan but this is the first time I've seen strictly passive cooling mentioned.

Hey no wonder they claim such a long battery life.
Won't suck down as much power once it throttles.

 

[TheOldOne]

2x batteries one of them hotswapable and there not claiming an infinite runtime?

 

[Yoyobuae]

2x batteries one of them hotswapable and there not claiming an infinite runtime?

It depends how it is implemented. Assuming power is pulled exclusively from the hotswapable battery while it is installed then there's still a period of time when the non-hotswapable battery is in use (ie. during swap). So runtime cannot be infinite.

Now if the hotswapable battery can charge the non-hotswapable battery then infinite runtime becomes possible.

 

[vcoleiro1]

" Feb-Mar 2017 for the backers shipments. December 2017/Q1 2018 for the market release"

When I read that , the same question popped into my head. Perhaps they planned a vacation to Vanuatu after they finish shipping to backers. Makes no sense