116 replies to this topic

[Binky]

I say the P2 should be designed around both the screen and comfortable access to the controls.

[Franko]

I think that we're coalescing towards a genuine consensus here.  I've read back, and forward.  Looked at the polls.  No OP Team member may ever read this, but I feel better in the here and now.  I really enjoy and respect the opinions of you fellow Pandorian bloggers.  It's good to have some sort of dialogue, because you'll die in a desert with vultures plucking at your eyes if you desire an immediate opinion from official sources.    

...At least I have this area to "dream".

[xiongxioi]

I wouldn't assume a 1080p screen will cost peanuts any time soon either. Pandora's screen is still a very substantial part of the overall cost (~$50 IIRC) despite being something like 6+ years old. Let's say we're looking at 1 to 2 years from now (optimistic I know).. it may well be that all the common top tier and even middle tier phones are 1080p as dictated by spec war but that doesn't mean there won't still be cheaper phones using lower resolution displays. Which means savings will still exist. Look at Archos's recently announced $99 phone (http://liliputing.co...-99-and-up.html), the thing has a 320x480 display..

I'm not aware of that at all, thanks for pointing it out.

If then, I guess HD screen on 2014 may still cost around 100 to 200 bucks, that would be not make sense financially.

I'd rather give ED a bit more profit margin than watch him trying to compete with the big boys in town. 

 

Just out of curiosity, Exo, I never saw you get hyped up or anything like that. Even with all the great things you have done for us, like the Ds emulator, or the pcsx default gpu core.

What kind of things would you like to see on P2? What kind of machine do you think the community is truly deserved?

You have spent precious time with us commoners, yet you seem to enjoy it some what, what is the reason that kept you here?

I say the P2 should be designed around both the screen and comfortable access to the controls.

I will keep my hope high for a decent keyboard.

Maybe a keyboard made of bubble wrap, I like popping those. ( I mean the feeling of true feed back)

[Franko]

Commoners?  Exophase isn't from royalty...he's from Cleveland!     

That being said and laughed at because I'm me, well...... Exophase really just knows his $hit.  I'm learning a bit whenever I'm reading his posts.

 

Edit 1:  I'd even venture to say that we're blessed with Exo's presence.  He has contributed a lot to the community and I doubt that he's gotten little back in the matter of a payment or even thanks.  Same goes for a lot of Devs I think.  Like Notaz and Skeezix and countless others.  We owe them a debt of gratitude.  They make this great product sing.

 

 Thanks to you ALL...ALL of you Developers that make this Pandora an even better product, day after day.  I think it was ekianjo that wrote a story on this, but ports and original games are UP....this community is thriving now.  It's good to see.

[Steven Craft]

Just for fun, I checked the asset size for one of our games, Swashbuckler:

 

Resolution  Device        Size
---------------------------------
480x320     iPhone         40 MB
800x480     Pandora        49 MB
1024x600    PlayBook       93 MB
960x640     iPhone Retina 100 MB
1024x768    iPad          103 MB
1280x768    BB10          108 MB
2048x1536   iPad Retina   260 MB

 

Each platform has assets which map pretty much 1:1 (texel to pixel), it isn't necessarily the biggest consideration in the world, but a ~50 MB download for the current Pandora could be ~260 MB if the Pandora ended up with a screen with as many pixels as the iPad Retina. Of course lower resolution assets can be used, but at that point you aren't make much use of those extra pixels anyway.

 

For what it is worth, I voted 16:9, 5", 720+, the aspect ratio I am not so worried about. I don't consider the Pandora to be the least bit pocketable, however this isn't based purely on size (maybe I could squeeze it into certain clothes pockets) but it is also based on fragility. I always keep my Pandora in the official carry case, I wouldn't want to put it in my pocket 'as is' which is what I do with my mobiles).

In terms of pixel density, I do find higher resolution screens look much nicer than lower resolution ones, for a Pandora (ish) sized screen, I feel 1280x800 would look nice. I would certainly be interested to see Swashbuckler running on a 1920x1080 mobile screen with 1920x1080 assets and compare that to 1280x800 mobile screen. My gut feeling is, providing the screen isn't inferior in some way (contrast, response, whatever), it will be visibly better at 1920x1080. The game will look sharper/crisper, detail on the character/terrain will be visible more clearly. I think it will be detail you'll have to look at quite closely though. So a nice extra if there, but not something you'd probably miss otherwise. However, this test case would be software specifically set up to work at all resolutions, with GUI etc. scaled based on screen size, NOT screen resolution. As _wb_ has pointed out, a heck of a lot of software scales based purely on resolution, meaning it would be pretty much unusable on a 1920x1080 screen without some help (the help perhaps being lowering the resolution in the window manager, so general desktop apps may run at 1280x800 but then full screen games can set a flag in the PND to request full 19280x1080).

[vcoleiro]

Well Project Shield will have a 5" 720p screen, so putting the same screen on the P2 might be a benefit if games are developed for the Shields Resolution - ie Shield Tegra Zone specific games.  This assumes the P2 is dual boot Linux & Android (both fully supported)

[monstercameron]

Well Project Shield will have a 5" 720p screen, so putting the same screen on the P2 might be a benefit if games are developed for the Shields Resolution - ie Shield Tegra Zone specific games.  This assumes the P2 is dual boot Linux & Android (both fully supported)

wouldnt ouya be a better target vs shield, in any case for android >720 is best

[_wb_]

Why are more than 720 vertical lines better for Android? Do you really mean >720 (strict inequality) or is 720 good enough? As far as I know, Android works just fine even on 320x240 screens.

[ParadisoShlee]

What's the general idea? 6-7" screen? 720p with a good refresh rate?

[_wb_]

6-7", no way unless you want to make something significantly bigger than the current Pandora.

 

I think 16:9 aspect ratio, 5.5" diagonal, or 16:10 aspect ratio, 5.3" are the largest possible sizes that would fit. Anything larger would need a lid that is either wider or taller than the current one. I wouldn't object to a slightly wider size, but it's kind of pointless since that would make the screen even wider than 16:9, while many want 4:3 for emulation. I would object to a taller size, because that would decrease pocketability a lot. (Not that it matters for this discussion, but I'm also expecting the Pandora 2 to be slightly less thick than the current one; I would object to anything thicker than what it is now, and also to anything with a base that is more than 5mm thinner than what it is now, because some thickness is needed for ergonomics imo.)

[ParadisoShlee]

Agree in general.. 16:9 720p screen with as much clearance as they can find. 

If you would make something with a similar size as the Pandora. Removed the speakers and filled the top area with just screen.... You could get 6-7" screen in there with minimal edge. or NO EDGE

 

Like the bullshit 'Realistic Mockup' thing I made up...

 

[_wb_]

You have to take into account that the active area of any screen is smaller than its total area, and you somehow have to encase the total area. Most likely we're gonna need more bezel than big companies like Samsung or Apple, but what they need is certainly a lower bound for what we need.

 

The Galaxy Note II screen is 5.55" (141mm) diagonal at 16:9, so it must be 122.9x69.1mm. The Galaxy Note II itself is 151.1x80.5mm; I assume some of that horizontal space can be trimmed, but that vertical bezel is probably pretty close to optimal. So let's say at least 6mm of bezel is needed on all sides.

 

The Pandora is 140.3x83.5mm, but the lid is quite a bit less tall than that because of the hinge; I don't have any accurate measurements here, but I'd guess that we have roughly 140x75mm for screen+bezel. So the Galaxy Note II screen barely fits (assuming a tiny hinge and tiny bezel).

 

Assuming 16:9, a 6" screen is 133x75mm. A 7" screen is 155x87mm. If you add a minimal hinge and minimal bezel, you would end up with a Pandora 2 that measures something like 145x90mm for a 6" screen, and 167x100mm for a 7" screen.  I could live with that width increase, but not with that height increase.

[Grench]

The Galaxy Note II screen is 5.55" (141mm) diagonal at 16:9, so it must be 122.9x69.1mm. The Galaxy Note II itself is 151.1x80.5mm; I assume some of that horizontal space can be trimmed, but that vertical bezel is probably pretty close to optimal. So let's say at least 6mm of bezel is needed on all sides.

 

 

I happen to have a Galaxy Note II here and a see through metric ruler.  None of this changes your point - just wrapping the facts on it.

 

Screen is 124mm x 70mm yielding 142mm diagonal or 5.59" or just a tad over 5 9/16".

Bezel is 3.5mm + 1.5mm for case rounding - so if you use calipers you'll get screen+ 5mm on each case edge to make 80mm edge to edge sideways over the screen+case.

 

The short end bezels are longer on the phone than the sides (of course) - I'm not sure if they could be shortened to the 5mm point or not.

 

I think that the GN2's screen is fairly well ideal for a Pandora II device.  However, I also think that by the time the P2 comes along, 1920x1080 screens will be 'the norm' and may be easier/cheaper to source than 1280x720 ones.  There are cheap 4.8" phones out there now with 1920x1080 screens - not that anyone can tell at that size.

 

I think that either one would work out just fine.  Whichever one we can get with the best brightness, contrast, refresh rate, touch screen and price.

[vcoleiro]

I'd like to see a power sipping IGZO screen in the P2

 

http://ces.cnet.com/...o-display-tech/

[_wb_]

Sharp's IGZO sounds promising: they're claiming less power, better response time, more ppi, more accurate touch possible. I cannot find any hard numbers on any of the specs (besides the ppi) though; how does it compare to Samsung's AMOLED screens in terms of power consumption, contrast and response time?

[Franko]

Interesting tech.  Looks like the PPI can get quite small, but it still is LCD - so it does require a back-light (albeit a thinner and less power-hungry one).  Also, it won't be flexible...not that we'd necessarily need that function in our next device.  If they can provide these things cheaply, then it might be suitable for the "P2".  I just don't think that this tech will be around long.  It's not the "future" of portable screens (IMO), like AMOLED screens are.  I'll just assume that being LCD, that the contrast won't be as impressive as AMOLED (the same with response times).

[vcoleiro]

Interesting tech.  Looks like the PPI can get quite small, but it still is LCD - so it does require a back-light (albeit a thinner and less power-hungry one).  Also, it won't be flexible...not that we'd necessarily need that function in our next device.  If they can provide these things cheaply, then it might be suitable for the "P2".  I just don't think that this tech will be around long.  It's not the "future" of portable screens (IMO), like AMOLED screens are.  I'll just assume that being LCD, that the contrast won't be as impressive as AMOLED (the same with response times).

 

IGZO can be used in OLED(whuch sharp have produced already) and AMOLED screens as well, in fact Samsung are working on producing them . Samsung invested $112 Million into Sharp to access there IGZO tech