Mer on Pandora? - Page 2 - maemo.org

attila77 | # 11 | 2009-09-23, 18:08 | Report

Originally Posted by danramos View Post

Meanwhile the CPU they decided on using is sloooowly becoming more and more outdated. I hope they quickly rev into gear for the next iteration and not spend too much time on it, now that they'd finished doing all the hard work on an older revision.

Actually there was newsflash that the cpus should be able to run on 720 MHz instead of the declared 600. A cortex A8 is hardly outdated, it's mainstream (if you think it's outdated, a tegra is ancient history

)

danramos | # 12 | 2009-09-23, 18:12 | Report

Originally Posted by davidgro View Post

Just in case it's not obvious - refresh that page and pay attention to the time....

...The joke being that it is Always two months away. (Which has been the status quo on the forums and blog posts) I think now perhaps they are a bit closer, so it should be Always one month away instead.

More seriously, it seems to me like they have been doing a lot of "1 step back, 1.1 steps forward" but are genuinely closer to release than they were even 3 months ago. At least they have the boards. "sometime in 2010" does seem to be a realistic guess to me - if they don't fail completely.

Considering they originally announced it to be released in November 2007... then April 2008.. and so on and so on.. and now it's 2009... I'm still not instilled with confidence.

allnameswereout | # 13 | 2009-09-23, 18:15 | Report

Originally Posted by attila77 View Post

Actually there was newsflash that the cpus should be able to run on 720 MHz instead of the declared 600. A cortex A8 is hardly outdated, it's mainstream (if you think it's outdated, a tegra is ancient history

)

That is why he wrote 'sloooowly'. Cortex A8 has been available for a while now. If Pandora was released end 2008 it'd have been one of the first devices with that processor. If Pandora comes out in summer 2009 it may be one of the last because OMAP4 is on the rise.

davidgro | # 14 | 2009-09-23, 18:48 | Report

Originally Posted by danramos View Post

Meanwhile the CPU they decided on using is sloooowly becoming more and more outdated. I hope they quickly rev into gear for the next iteration and not spend too much time on it, now that they'd finished doing all the hard work on an older revision.

True enough. But I'll be happy as long as the CPU and GPU are sufficient to play .FLVs from youtube and (at least) 640x480 videos at full frame and bitrates without skipping while I'm commuting. 720p would be awesome if it can do it, but the screen res means that it won't look better anyway. This is stuff my N800 can't do, and why I want the dual full-size SDHC slots.

The other linuxy stuff I want to do with it is not CPU bound, and games will of course be optimized to run on it.

(Really the N800 is almost there already - but it falls just short. Also I really miss the hard case from the 770 which the Pandora's clamshell makes up for - "Pocketable" is not merely size.)

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attila77 | # 15 | 2009-09-23, 19:51 | Report

Originally Posted by allnameswereout View Post

That is why he wrote 'sloooowly'. Cortex A8 has been available for a while now. If Pandora was released end 2008 it'd have been one of the first devices with that processor. If Pandora comes out in summer 2009 it may be one of the last because OMAP4 is on the rise.

In any case, upgrading to OMAP4 is far easier than making a whole new device - if there will ever be a followup device, which I doubt

Also, if there will be a higher spec 35xxx, that would be trivial to pop in. BTW I expect the first OMAP4 devices to appear just before next xmas at best, so no rush there if they want to stick to TI...

allnameswereout | # 16 | 2009-09-23, 19:59 | Report

Maybe they will marry Intel

Ahem. Thing is, if you build a device and keep delaying the release the features it provides are becoming less and less interesting because of fierce competition and hardware development. Although not always; see popularity of N800.

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Matan | # 17 | 2009-09-23, 20:03 | Report

Originally Posted by danramos View Post

Meanwhile the CPU they decided on using is sloooowly becoming more and more outdated.

Don't tell Nokia that. If they find that the CPU in their not yet released crown jewel is outdated, they'll immediately stop working on its software and will concentrate solely on the next device.

allnameswereout | # 18 | 2009-09-23, 20:10 | Report

Wow. Someone is angry...

danramos | # 19 | 2009-09-23, 20:30 | Report

Originally Posted by attila77 View Post

Actually there was newsflash that the cpus should be able to run on 720 MHz instead of the declared 600. A cortex A8 is hardly outdated, it's mainstream (if you think it's outdated, a tegra is ancient history

)

[deadpan] Yay. What a boost.

I didn't say it's outdated yet... I said it's sloooowly becoming outdated. At this rate, by the time it's finally released, there's likely going to be a much more interesting crop of similar small ARM architectures worth hacking about.

Originally Posted by davidgro View Post

True enough. But I'll be happy as long as the CPU and GPU are sufficient to play .FLVs from youtube and (at least) 640x480 videos at full frame and bitrates without skipping while I'm commuting. 720p would be awesome if it can do it, but the screen res means that it won't look better anyway. This is stuff my N800 can't do, and why I want the dual full-size SDHC slots.

The other linuxy stuff I want to do with it is not CPU bound, and games will of course be optimized to run on it.

(Really the N800 is almost there already - but it falls just short. Also I really miss the hard case from the 770 which the Pandora's clamshell makes up for - "Pocketable" is not merely size.)

I wholeheartedly agree with pretty much everything you said, right down to the clamshell design.

Originally Posted by allnameswereout View Post

Maybe they will marry Intel

Ahem. Thing is, if you build a device and keep delaying the release the features it provides are becoming less and less interesting because of fierce competition and hardware development. Although not always; see popularity of N800.

That's precisely my point. Although I disagree about the N800--the only reason the N800 is still overwhelmingly the most popular is because it was such a well designed piece of hardware but it's showing its age and it makes me ache for something more capable, JUST outside of its current abilities: play unconverted video, have more memory resources and to do openGL and so on. I don't need an N900. I need an N800 with increased resources. It seems like the Pandora would fit that bill VERY, very nicely.

Originally Posted by Matan View Post

Don't tell Nokia that. If they find that the CPU in their not yet released crown jewel is outdated, they'll immediately stop working on its software and will concentrate solely on the next device.

"Fixed in Harmatten" is the new "Fixed in Fremantle!" Cripes.

Originally Posted by allnameswereout View Post

Wow. Someone is angry...

Who are you talking about?

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allnameswereout | # 20 | 2009-09-23, 21:13 | Report

Yes, but Nokia N800 has some features no other device provides as of now. Some of which Pandora has too. Like 2 SD cards. That Nokia N800 becomes less relevant over time is logical, and that people who love the features would eventually love a device akin to it but with some better hardware (like OMAP3) is also logical. Yet, we don't see that. I agree Pandora fills very much the niche N800 did which N900 won't but Pandora lost some of its credibility, and its being delayed and delayed, slowly but surely making it less relevant because of alternatives.