What a great start - prepare for the next level!

[_wb_]

Why are so few of the first 550 preorders currently set on the 4GB version of the Pyra variants? Isn't that a high risk as it's not yet been tested and that it could EAT so much into the Pyra's battery life (for each battery I know)? Did you know that the RAM and CPU are on the same socket so that if you need more RAM you could upgrade to a newer CPU with a bigger RAM amount in the future?

I'm assuming that RAM refresh is only a tiny fraction of the power consumption. It should be insignificant for the usage time (i.e. when the screen is also powered, which will consumes orders of magnitude more power). It will have an influence on lid-closed standby time, but if that's too big of an issue, we can always implement suspend-to-disk to improve the standby time.

Also I'm assuming that it might be possible to disable half the RAM in software (at boot time or something) and switch it off completely, effectively turning the 4GB unit into a 2GB unit for all practical purposes.

Finally, I think that if the choice is between 2x1GB chips or 4x1GB chips, then it might be the case (but I don't know enough about this to be sure) that 4GB units will not just have more RAM, but also faster RAM since the half-filled configuration (2GB) might take less advantage of the available memory bandwidth.

So taking all these things into consideration, plus the relatively small price difference between the two options (only 5% extra), I think 4GB of RAM makes sense. While I don't think I'll really need the extra RAM, it never hurts. I think RAM is most likely to become the first performance bottleneck as the device ages, especially if we're going to use software that's intended for desktop/server hardware where RAM is usually available in generous quantities.

 

[Ted]

So taking all these things into consideration, plus the relatively small price difference between the two options (only 5% extra), I think 4GB of RAM makes sense.

I also Pre-ordered the 4GB version due to whatever reason.
Now the key question is: does the 4GB version has been developed/tested? Or, 4GB is theoretically supported?



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[the_marshal]

I don't have any hard data, but I think the concern about the 4GB battery usage are greatly exaggerated. Take any modern phone, if you close all application / disable network connectivity and put it in standby (ie. don't use it) it will usually run for a pretty long time...

So I can only think the RAM is probably a very small part of the overall power consumption.
Really the main concern I see are more with the state of the OS and how well power saving will work. Also there is a lot of things on the Pyra board (LED keyboard, multiple SD card slots, USB ports, Wifi, bluetooth, mobile chip...). Hopefully it is possible to keep the consumption for each of them in check (and disable when not needed).

And as Evildragon mentioned before, the 4GB has not been tested. It was planned to used 4x 512mb RAM chip. However the RAM manufacturer now has a compatible 1024mb RAM chip.

The Omap5 soc can support 4GB on paper and using the 1024mb RAM chip should work without any change to the PCB. As with everything, it need to be tested / confirmed first.

 

[TheOldOne]

On paper the OMAP5 supports 8GB of RAM.

 

[EvilDragon]

No worries, we'll test the 4GB soon, but I doubt there should be any issues, as the OMAP5 should support it according to specs.

It's just that I still want to try it upfront.

 

[Xcl4m4t10n]

@EvilDragon, can you please add the spanish text to the owncloud? I would like to send those today to the spanish sites .

 

[Mr_Loon]

No worries, we'll test the 4GB soon, but I doubt there should be any issues, as the OMAP5 should support it according to specs.

It's just that I still want to try it upfront.

I'm pretty sure that most regulars on these boards fully understand that, however think what a person who had not followed the project (only heard about the Pyra via an article on Ars Technica etc.) would think if they saw : 'At the product page here you can choose whether you want a 2GB or 4GB RAM version. It's not 100% clear that we'll create a 4GB RAM version, so if we won't produce one, you'll (FILL IN THE BLANK) the 2GB version.'

My guess is they'd be pretty confused.

Please consider changing the wording to something like :

At the product page here you can choose whether you want a 2GB or 4GB RAM version. It's not 100% clear that we'll create a 4GB RAM version, as we have not tested the Pyra with 4GB of Ram yet, the tests will be done soon. There is no reason to expect there to be a problem with a 4GB version but if in the highly unlikely event there is a problem you'll be offered the option of paying for the 2GB version or a full refund.

 

[Blue Shadow]

I'm pretty sure that most regulars on these boards fully understand that, however think what a person who had not followed the project (only heard about the Pyra via an article on Ars Technica etc.) would think if they saw : 'At the product page here you can choose whether you want a 2GB or 4GB RAM version. It's not 100% clear that we'll create a 4GB RAM version, so if we won't produce one, you'll (FILL IN THE BLANK) the 2GB version.'

My guess is they'd be pretty confused.

You mentioned that "fill in the blank" thing before but I honestly already didn't unterstand it the first time. To me it seemed it was clearly stated that the 4GB Orders will be automatically be replaced by 2GB orders if no 4GB version would be produced.

And in the german version it is actually clearly stated. So I was very confused about your postings.

Now I checked the english version once again and noticed that where you did your (FILL IN THE BLANK), there was a missing word(or maybe more). So it's a simple typo/translation error.

 

[WizardStan]

Yeah, there's a missing word and for professionalism sake it should be fixed, but I don't honestly believe it causes confusion.

 

[EvilDragon]

Well, as I am sure that the 4GB units will work (there's no reason it shouldn't), I've removed that part completely from the text.
[doublepost=1462711395,1462711013][/doublepost]

@EvilDragon, can you please add the spanish text to the owncloud? I would like to send those today to the spanish sites .

Could you please recheck the translation?
I've changed a few things (regarding the amount of preorders) in the English text, could you update these in the translation as well?
Thanks!

 

[Ted]

Well, as I am sure that the 4GB units will work (there's no reason it shouldn't), I've removed that part completely from the text.
[doublepost=1462711395,1462711013][/doublepost]

Could you please recheck the translation?
I've changed a few things (regarding the amount of preorders) in the English text, could you update these in the translation as well?
Thanks!

Could you please add some sort of version / date / track change information to the press kit? As such information will help people to know whether they are on the latest version.

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[matzesu]

And when 4gbs will suck the batterie empty in no time??
Then whe have to go back to 2gb on all units..

 

[Djoga'Ro]

And when 4gbs will suck the batterie empty in no time??
Then whe have to go back to 2gb on all units..

What for? To get a battery life of no time times two?

 

[matzesu]

I meant, if the tests whit a 4gb Prototyph shows, that its have a huge impackt of the batterielive , and this is more than maybe 1 Hour comparet to the 2gb Prototyp, what will happen??

 

[Blue Shadow]

Could you please add some sort of version / date / track change information to the press kit? As such information will help people to know whether they are on the latest version.
Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

There is a "modified" column on the right side of the file list, where you see something roughly when it was modified, like "2 hours ago". If you hover the mouse over it, you will see the exact date and time. Not sure if it considers the local time zone though

 

[Klumpen]

I meant, if the tests whit a 4gb Prototyph shows, that its have a huge impackt of the batterielive , and this is more than maybe 1 Hour comparet to the 2gb Prototyp, what will happen??

In this (very unlikely) case, you could write a bit of code that lets us deactivate half of the RAM.

 

[EvilDragon]

Could you please add some sort of version / date / track change information to the press kit? As such information will help people to know whether they are on the latest version.

I don't think the english versions need any more changes, so you're free to go now.

 

[Galaxis]

On paper the OMAP5 supports 8GB of RAM.

While Cortex-A15 supports LPAE to address up to 1TB of memory (see http://lwn.net/Articles/415190/), I don't think it's being used much, if at all (it's said to have an performace hit). No idea how much of the 4GB will get lost to things-that-are-not-memory requiring chunks of the address space without LPAE.

 

[mecksg1]

Why are so few of the first 550 preorders currently set on the 4GB version of the Pyra variants? Isn't that a high risk as it's not yet been tested and that it could EAT so much into the Pyra's battery life (for each battery I know)? Did you know that the RAM and CPU are on the same socket so that if you need more RAM you could upgrade to a newer CPU with a bigger RAM amount in the future?

It's shows that we want a 4gb version if it works. If not we all know we will at least have a 2gb version with the ability to hopefully have a 4gb one in the future board upgrades

 

[EvilDragon]

Okay, updated the landing page with a link to the Presskit, the information the we have working prototypes and a link to the image gallery.