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I was sitting in a cafe yesterday in a shopping mall sipping coffee and using my Vario II to check my e-mail (messaging), get the sports results (PIE), look at some recent photos from a friend (mobile Flickr), and chat to my wife (Skype for PPC) - and I thought...wow!
Bill Gates was right when he said that we are disappointed in incremental change over the short term but long term change is amazing. My story would have been science fiction five years ago.
bobbyelliott said:
I was sitting in a cafe yesterday in a shopping mall sipping coffee and using my Vario II to check my e-mail (messaging), get the sports results (PIE), look at some recent photos from a friend (mobile Flickr), and chat to my wife (Skype for PPC) - and I thought...wow!
Bill Gates was right when he said that we are disappointed in incremental change over the short term but long term change is amazing. My story would have been science fiction five years ago.
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Click to collapse
I like your comment because it balances all the negative news we get on the forums. Of course folks are wanting help with their problems and this is an ideal place to get it. If you were to read all the posts you would form the impression the Hermes was a piece of junk with virtually nothing that works and in respect for those with some of the older poorer devices, yes there have been problems.
Thanks for the positive comment - like a breeze of fresh air!!
Mike
i would agree, while there are a few quirks with this phone that need to be ironed out, especially the poor battery life, but overall this really is an amazing device overall... give it a few months and we should be able to make this device more than amazing!
bobbyelliott said:
Bill Gates was right when he said that we are disappointed in incremental change over the short term but long term change is amazing. My story would have been science fiction five years ago.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well...
Since 2000 I had been using a Psion 5mx. When this thing was connected to my Siemens S35i (via IR), I could dial-up to an internetprovider, and view websites and send/receive emails. The thing is, I don't consider myself to be a very early adopter.
Granted, it was very primitive: lining up the mobile and the 5mx, the connection was only 9600 bps, the display was 16 greyscales (32 greyscales if you were willing to have fewer battery life, ...).
(I know colleagues did similar stuff using their laptop + mobile)
The overall change is actually not as short term as it often appears to most people. But the improvements have been incredible in just a few years time, and most people fail to realize what technical marvel they are carrying.
(but every device, no matter how good it is, will always cause some frustration at one point )
Jörg
lovely little beast
I could further extend this discussion, with a real experience! Take for example last Friday.....
Yes! I am sitting at 8:00 am at the Syntagma square at the center of Athens(Greece), enjoying my cafe under the sunny sky of Athens and also enjoying free 4Mbps WiFi Internet, browsing with my TyTN and PIE a special electronic service that provides me with the press clippings related to my organisation.
Before leaving the cafe, I download news headers to my RSS application to read at the Metro (where there is no steady signal), just to exploit the 10 minutes, on the road to a meeting.
During the meeting, my boss calls for an issue, but my complete office is in my pocket (actually in my TyTN and its 2GB card!). No problem to answer e-mails, browse documents or powerpoints and provide immediate insight on the spot. Everything is always sync'd to my home and office PCs.
After finishing the meeting, and inputting all relevant meeting details and future reminders at a note on my TyTN, my push e-mail sends me an e-mail from my secretary, where she has included all phones/ people that called while I was away. I just copy+paste them to my calendar as tasks and no-one slips....
And the story goes on and on........ The best part (and one that I am the happiest about recently) is that while driving to meetings that are in places I don't know, I just put my TyTN on the car-holder, link it with bluetooth to a BT GPS and drive by the directions that this lady-voice gives me!
I have asked the GPS software to divert me to the closest branch of my bank for some ATM withdrawals, and after that and before entering any new meeting, I just finish a web-banking transaction with my TyTN, paying my electricity bill on the road.
Isn't it a lovely beast?
Regards,
_____________
Yannis, Greece
I get a bit annoyed when people, looking at my phone, ask, "What is it?" or, "What does it do?"
Mainly because I really don't know where to start. My nice little story about the awesomness of this device is the following:
In my university class on financial institutions (banks) my group of 5 people was supposed to do a presentation on the financials of our bank. Four groups were presenting that day. Lucky us, we were picked to go last. Once the first group started, we realized that all of us forgot to do an introduction about the bank's history. I looked up Wikipedia on PIE, and wrote down a summary in MS Word on my device. We also realized that one of the Excell sheets I built for calculating fractons had wrong data. Lucky fo me, my TyTN can open and edit those as well. I fixed the problem, then spent a bit of extra time creating line graphs to show trends in various numbers over the years to show in a slideshow presentation, since apparently other people did too. All of this was done just in time, since I attached all these new files to an e-mail and hit send as I was getting up from my seat to go to the front of the class. The e-mail was sent to the teacher's laptop at the front of the class, which was connected to a projector. By the time we waked to the front, the e-mail arrived, we opened it, and were able to do our presentation. So, with the help of PIE/Wikipedia, Word, Excell, and e-mail on the fly (transfering as we are walking across the classroom) our project grade went from what would've been a C, to a perfect A
Hoping
Just bought myself the SPV M3100 (Trion etc..). am just hoping afetr a few weeks or couple of months of getting to grips with this peice of art i can enjoy the beauty that this phone is capable off.
p.s.. cant seem to put it down at the moment... and as i work for Orange UK i am currently waiting to go on a special tarrif that allows me 130MB internet download a month for £10. cant wait...
But for now... sorting out little tweaks, bits and bobs.... Patients is the key
bobbyelliott:
You know, in 1995 with my Psion Series 3a I was able to access CompuServe forums and e-mails, also Internet browsing (though there are people who believe that Internet was invited by Bill Gates!)... I had a very powerful word processor and shreadsheets there, lots of other productivity tools, also some games. I was able to write programs directly on that device, very good and useful programs... I had a good income selling them...
It didn't have a color display, so no photos. It had no enough storage space for such purposes either... But its 480x160 grayscale display without any backlight was clearly visible even in twighlight.
The amazing thing it that it had 512 kilobytes (yes, Kilobytes!) of RAM dynamically allocated for internal storage and to run programs. I also had a 4 megabytes flash card in it, and an external 3.5" floppy drive. It powered from two alkaline AA batteries, which I was changing every 2-3 months. It supported true pre-emptive multitasking, of course (not that "kind of" that was in Windows 95 those days!).
It didn't support firmware upgraing, and the firmware was in true ROM. It never required it though. It never required a hard reset during several years of use, and didn't require a software reset for an average user (developers are different, of course!).
I'd also like my current device to run at least a week from two alkaline batteries, have no memory leaks and to be bug-free (at least without really annoying bugs), and to see the screen content without a keypress, and being not afraid to drain the battery to 0 very fast... But it's non-science fiction during over five years already, and, probably, forever!
But what did you say, in general, is a real life for many people during past 10 years and even more, for those who know that Bill Gates is/was never first and best, but he always the last, unfortunatelly. He is great in winning the market, but he's nothing more.
I'd better have my current device Symbian/UIQ based, like my previous one (SE P800), but, unfortunatelly, they've lost this game once again.
I am impressed how powerful Pocket PC are and what they are going to be.
Soon you can run Windows XP from it and run your usual programs on it. Okay if this is an improvement in all points is another thing.
I had an Palm IIIe some years ago. That was nice to do some things. But i had to synchronize it with an extra cable to my PC. Before using an xda there where three devices: mobile phone, mp3 Player and pda. (i am a firefighter so there were 1 to 2 devices more in the time from change to analog to digital alarm, makes 4-5 devices to carry with me.)
I started just this year with an xda mini s and had all together in one device and even more (excepting the last two devices ;-) but i heard from people using sms alarm... ^^).
Its getting more and more like my home PC. Its amazing. I like it.
Okay there are bugs. But I can handle them. Maybe most wouldn't exist any more if the providers would release the newest AKU a bit earlier. I read somewhere feature Versions of WM have WindowsUpdate. An direct Update for the OS would be nice.
Before I changed from mini s to trion I read some really bad news about this device. And it sounded more worse than it actually is. The reason for this is maybe, that i am working with computers for years and i can handle many computer problems. If there is a problem an automated reaction follows solving it in some way. And in the last time i see more and more people with another background using such devices. From that point of view there where mobilephones with simple functions working everytime. And now they have a mini pc with problems like big pcs ;-)
My persistent knocking on the doors of mobile phone providers within a 30 mile radius from my home finally paid off today when I finally managed to get my hands on a HD2 (hoorah).
I have always said that there is no way on earth I would spend over £500 ona sim free device without first seeing one in the metal and testing it out. No one in their right mind buys a house or car without first seeing it and, if appropriate, testing it out before buying.
First Impressions:
Even though I had seen a dummy earlier, the size of the screen does come as a bit of a surprise. However this is a very thin device which makes the whole thing just about manageable. It is not quite as in-your-face, size-wise, as, say, the Toshiba TG01. Be aware though that there is absolutely a shedload of real screen estate to play with on the HD2.
Build quality looked very good. The back plate looks like a well machined item. I tweaked the keys around a little but did not experience the "wobble" that others have talked about.
The screen is a fingerprint magnet of the first order; however it is nothing a quick blow of hot, moist breath and a clean handkerchief can't cure very quickly. Maybe an appropriate screen protector might be helpful; however I cannot confirm.
Something else that was immediately apparent was just how fast the device is. Apps opened near instantaneously and the device was simply a joy to use.
The camera was rather interesting: as a brand new device, straight out of the box and booted up for the first time, the camera screen started up with a pink hue across the whole of the screen. I immediately thought of the pink issue that a lot of people have spoken about. However after about a minute the camera settled down and the pinkish hue cleared up.
The guy from o2 said that he had seen this start-up effect on all of the cameras he had seen/used/demonstrated/sold to date so I am assuming that this is "feature" of the device.
All the shots I took (indoors in artificial light) came out just fine and the quality, to my eyes, was good as far as camera's on mobile phones go.
I did not find the lack of a hardware camera button a problem. The fact is I actually preferred the on-screen shutter button; seemed pretty cool and effective.
The Keyboard:
I opened up MS Word and moved onto the dreaded keyboard.
Within a couple of seconds I could clearly see why some of you have given up on this device and sent it back. The keyboard out of the box is awful and stringing 2 words together was a real pain. However switch off the T9 function and the keyboard is transformed into something very very useful.
Yes, you have to be quite accurate with your fingers. I found I got the best results using my fingertips pointing near vertically downwards rather than horizontal and flat. The former method presents a narrow minimal area of the finger to the keyboard, resulting in reasonable/acceptable accuracy, while the latter method simply created problems, pulling in adjacent letters to the ones I wanted to use on nearly every occasion.
The key here is that, given I had no more than a half hour with the device, I found that I made no more mistakes with this keyboard, at no greater frequency, than I do now with my resistive keyboard on my TYTN, which I have had for over 3 years.
I did not get a chance to test the voice, email or sms functions as I did not have the time. Therefore I am unable to verify whether the problems others have mentioned were present in the device I tested or not.
Availability:
It is difficult to work out what the strategy is with the supply of this device. The 3 o2 shops I went into had only received 2 devices each! 2 out of the 3 shops had sold them on within a day and the 3rd, where I did my test, had 1 left.
None of the shops could confirm for certain when their next supplies would be in or how many handsets they would get. Each one suggested contacting them on a regular basis to see what the position is.
For me, given that this is a device in demand at probably the most advantageous marketing point in the year, i.e. the run up to Christmas, I cannot understand why there is so much uncertainty around the supply chain.
What Next?:
Now that I have finally laid my hands on the device, the key question I had to address was this; given all the horror stories on here about various problems, etc, was it sensible for me to become another early adopter given that this device will be used for business purposes where reliability is essential.
The decision I have made is, given the work currently being undertaken by C'monex and others coupled with custom roms already in the pipeline, plus the hints and tips thread in this forum, on balance I think it is just about worth the risk me jumping in and purchasing a device.
I was at this point 3 years ago when I first purchased my TyTN. To this day I consider it an absolute miracle that the device did not end its days under a hammer within the first week of ownership, so appallingly awful was that device straight out of the box.
Over time, and with a lot of people doing sterling work on here, things turned around to the point where I have a device that is rock solid stable, reliable and good to use.
I would strongly suggest that if anyone is considering buying this device, they find a live model to play with first before making their minds up. I can see why the keyboard could be a real deal breaker although I intend to purchase a capacitive stylus to get around some of the problems I foresee with non-finger friendly winmobile applications.
Conclusion:
This device looks very promising and yes, it does have issues, based on the reports we have seen here on XDA. You need to play with one first before making a decision to buy.
The keyboard is very different to a resistive one and requires patience, perseverance and good technique to get the best out of it.
I did not have enough time to have an exhaustive, comprehensive play with the device; however I have seen enough to determine that, on balance, and based on emerging developments here on XDA, I could live with it. Besides my current device is now long in the tooth and needs replacing.
The only fear I have is that once I have paid out my hard earned cash for this device, HTC bring out an Android HD2-like device using the snapdragon processor, which is really what I would prefer.
My order for a HD2 plus a HTC Hero goes in next week, depending on stock availability in the UK.
I hope this quick walk through is helpful to those who are trying to make a decision on this device, one way or another.
WB
Thanks WB for this excellent overview - certainly more down to earth and focused than most reviewers who don't know what to expect in HTC phones.
I too had a similar experience to your TYTN when I purchased my Polaris. Mine nearly took a high dive from the 30th floor of an office block when I got it. However in February this year, I installed epimazzo's KhanX ROM and didn't touch it again given how stable and usable everything was.
I've been watching the Leo forum closely for the past two weeks and I can see some of the top cookers hovering and waiting to pounce (oh, Hard SPL, wherefore art thou?). This device has so much potential and is so exciting that I purchased mine sight unseen.
The bugs and wrinkles are...ahem...par for the course if you buy a HTC phone these days. To my mind, there is nothing that appears insurmountable to the ROM chefs (respect). As I said, the phone has monstrous potential - seems like a solid GPS implementation plus the accelerometer, compass and proximity sensor. Bingo!
I had the option of going for any of the Samsung Omnia II, the Acer F1 and the Toshi phones. But none of those has the depth of support found here on xda (only iPhone comes close in community support). HTC owes many people on this forum in a big way - without it, probably you and I would have sh_tcanned HTC years ago...
And for someone who is always fiddling with my phone every day, the possibility of squeezing performance out of this thing is half the fun. May not suit those who need a perfect phone OOTB (like the iPhone for example).
He says confidently before he hits the SMS lag problem...
Update
Well, since I wrote the short review above and read XDA LEO forums end-to-end so my initial thoughts on jumping in and buying the device faded a little. Part of the problem was the sheer volume of negative noise coming from a number of people on these forums plus the fact that I have been here before with the Tytn, taking a year before I had a device I could both trust and like.
Those painful memories made me think long and hard about jumping in and doing the deed. What I needed to do was to get a sense of perspective and balance which was proving difficult to find on XDA. Also being able to lay hands on a device at will to play with was proving very difficult as the limited stocks becoming available were flying off the shelves as fast as they were coming in. This was at odds with all the negativity I was picking up here.
Now don't get me wrong, I am not knocking people. Those that were brave enough to post their honest views about the device, albeit negative ones, did me a huge favour, despite the fact that most of them faced massive hostility from the masses. What this meant for me was that instead of going into any decision rosy eyed I knew that if I bought into the HD2 world there would be problems to overcome, over and above the usual tweaks that one does because its windows, don't you know?!
Some sense of balance was found via the following polls, which I found to be invaluable:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=598900&highlight=polls (severity of grid display)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=595655&highlight=poll (weird touch-screen behaviour)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=591011&highlight=poll (earpiece and voice quality)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/poll.php?do=showresults&pollid=2075 (HD2 speaker quality)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=592375&highlight=poll (in search of balance).
So, approaching the festive season with the family nagging me to tell them what I wanted for Xmas, I rang a supplier, talked through all the known issues with them, which they were aware of. However the rate of returns on HD2's to them was so small as to be infinitesimal which meant one of 2 things:
- People were buying the device and either liking it or could live with it or
- The supplier wasn't telling me the truth (highly unlikely as I have been using them for a while now).
They were happy enough to agree to take the device back and return my funds if I did not like it either under the 7 day distance selling rules in the UK or by me ringing them up and indicating my preference.
Went back to the family, gave them the news and......a brand new HD2 landed in my sack on Xmas day via Santa Claus. What an amazing guy he is! Someone should offer to have his children for him.
Broke the box open last night, ie Xmas night and despite my anticipation, took time out to charge it up properly. Time spent now conditioning the battery correctly equals solid battery performance later down the line.
Tackled the beast in anger today. It is true to say that in the metal, this is a beautiful piece of engineering. Build quality on my version at least is excellent with none of the wobbly keys and ill fitting screen problems reported by others being noticable.
Went through setting up the device as I want it (yes, its been a long day and I have stopped now), made a complete backup immediately as my master backup, then installed tips no 8, 44, 46, 58 from the hints and tips thread and made another backup, separate from the original. This way if anything goes wrong I can simply roll back to the last successful change.
Points Worth Commenting On:
Keyboard:
The keyboard needs a degree of accuracy to use it successfully. I did not find the sensitivity out of the box an issue at all. Where I had to be absolutely accurate was in keying in my sim unlock code into the phone. Got that wrong too many times but practice will make perfect.
An even greater level of accuracy is required when trying to put ticks into selection boxes, e.g when installing Memmaid. This can prove frustrating as can the process of copying and pasting. I am sure that the capacitive stylus coming out of HTC will help with this "problem".
For me the keyboard works best without T9 switched on. However for sheer speed the Swype keyboard which I have installed is the way to go. Another version of this board (SlideIt) is readily available and I will be moving to that asap as Swype is NOT free-ware nor, as I have just found out, not officially released yet for the windows platform.
Weather Animations:
The weather animations are very good, just the sort of thing a chap needs to gain bragging rights down at the local pub. I have already seen most of the animations today due to the readily changing weather conditions we have had where we live.
Back Cover:
There is a serious but amusing thread on here where someone could not get their back cover off. Having already been through that thread I was not looking forward to my experience. However I can report that as long as you follow the instructions in the guide the cover is pretty easy to take off and put back on.
Overall First Impressions:
There is a hell of a lot to like about the HD2. There are things that I felt needed to change to suit me better. I have altered SMS to show in traditional mode rather than conversation mode as this works best for me.
Twitter and Facebook are of no use to me so these have not been configured.
I have yet to work out how to get the built-in picture viewer to pick up and show my pictures on the external SD card and there are a whole host of other things I have yet to get done. However day 1 has gone very very well indeed.
I will add to this post as I get to know the device a little better. In the meantime I am off to read the full manual to pick up on what else I need to know.
WB
PS: For those interested I am running Rom 1.48 straight out of the box. Not bothered with the SMS fix as I have not had any issues with SMS sending and receiving so far.
I am being meticulous about killing off apps not required but running in the background via the task manager. Also been straight onto the notification queue lock-up problem by installing Memmaid to sort that out.
Need to find a way of making sure that the X button really does kill off these open apps to save valuable memory space.
PPS: Really annoying niggle is after 10 goes I have not been able to put on the HTC screen protector properly. No matter how hard I try, even using a large cardboard piece to smooth it out, I can't get all the air bubbles out. I really want to use the protector but as it stands, I might have to take the risk and ditch it unless someone can pass on a full-proof method for putting the damned thing on properly.
I have never ever had this problem before in all the years I have had of devices that needed their screens protecting.
More updates soon.
WB
Regarding keyboard I recommend to use Swype or Finger Keyboard.
its a support forum 99% of posts here will be problems
wacky.banana said:
The only fear I have is that once I have paid out my hard earned cash for this device, HTC bring out an Android HD2-like device using the snapdragon processor, which is really what I would prefer.
My order for a HD2 plus a HTC Hero goes in next week, depending on stock availability in the UK.
I hope this quick walk through is helpful to those who are trying to make a decision on this device, one way or another.
WB
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Honestly I'd recommend waiting for the Xperia X10 if you want an android device. The HD2 in its current state is not something I'd want to use for everyday business use; it has still got some minor problems that needs addressing.
Toss3 said:
Honestly I'd recommend waiting for the Xperia X10 if you want an android device. The HD2 in its current state is not something I'd want to use for everyday business use; it has still got some minor problems that needs addressing.
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Click to collapse
have they sorted the speed of the x10 out yet, last videos i saw it was terrible
sharpey said:
have they sorted the speed of the x10 out yet, last videos i saw it was terrible
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's still in its beta stages so the software is bound to get faster once they've sorted out the minor bugs. I really doubt Sony would release it in its current state, but considering HTC released a device without proper texting support and awful call quality I can't say I'd be surprised.
Next year HTC brings out the HTC Bravo, it's an Android Phone (V. 2.0) with the snapdragon 1GHz and total similar to the HD2 instead of the 3,7" AMOLED (more than 16 mio colors) display .
I think it's the same as the hd2 just the android version of it
regards
HTC BRAVO: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/08/htc-bravo-pictured-more-lucidly/
sharpey said:
its a support forum 99% of posts here will be problems
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@ sharpey,
Hey fella, merry Xmas to you. If you have been on here as long as I have you would know that XDA is not a support forum but a Developers forum, hence the name XDA-Developers. The conversation and posts used to be about cooked roms, hacking, development of tools and utilities, etc and pushing the technical envelope, NOT coping with people who won't or can't RTFM (read the manual).
It's only in recent times that new users have attempted to change the format and shape of the forum and it has now become, in part, a support forum because people like me like to help other people. Only problem is the noise generated by this process tends to obscure the real nuggets of good information one is looking for before investing in a device like this, e.g, SPL availability and associated development, availability of cooked roms, flexibility of the device from a hacking perspective, and so on. This is what I meant when I said I was looking for a balanced view on here but found it difficult to find what I was looking for although the polls I have linked to also provided useful info.
@ all others,
This thread is just a running update of the journey I went through until I got a HD2. I know there are a lot of people out there who are holding back on buying one as they are confused by how much information/misinformation there is out there on the HD2. All I am doing is sharing my experience in the hope that it helps someone.
Right now the device is 2 days old and I am Just loving it. :. Yes, there are some minor annoyances like the lack of a sent indicator when sms messages are sent; however I trust the device and if I want to be sure I simply look in my sent box to confirm the message is gone.
If you are considering buying a HD2, read this thread plus all the links, read the independent 3rd party reviews then go play with one in the metal, and, if you are happy, go buy one and ENJOY!!
WB
I have been somewhat following the whole Phonebloks and ARA scene, participating in the Dscout missions, and generally have to say that there is a lot of buzz and hype with very little meat behind it. The general populace is thinking legos, colors, fancy shmancy materials, and other appearance related nonsense. There seems to be very little technical content, and the majority of the crowd seems to be lured by key words such as "eco", "reusable", "repairable", "customizable" and so on.
Certainly, in terms of driving sales, this is good attention, something Motorola needs.
The downside, however, seems to be that people do not understand how things work, have no patience for it, and want things to "just work."
I highly doubt that this will be something that is user friendly out of the box.
The biggest misconception seems to be that you will be able to build anything you want out of this. If this idea is not curbed, this project will fail. People will become disappointed. Already they seem to think that they can have an espresso maker and a telescope added to the thing.
On top of it all, Motorola has a track record of taking good ideas and executing them poorly. Think Atrix lapdock.
So what is the clear mission of this project?
Ease of repair? That can already be done using current production methods. Look at the iPhone vs Galaxy series in terms of screen replacement. Its night and day.
Reusing parts? What could you reuse from an iPhone 4 when building a 5s? The headphone jack? Batteries die, radios, memory, sensors, processors, become old news by the time they hit the assembly line, and screens evolve at a fast pace.
There is no mention of a core device with expansion bays, the project seems to suggest you could swap all basic components on the fly. This is nonsense. Is it really worth taking steps back to make separate little bricks for Bluetooth, Wifi, NFC, GSM radio, etc., when current production methods can squeeze these into a single system-on-chip design at a fraction of the cost?
Imagine for a minute if Googorola took the Moto X approach to hardware: You log into your Motomaker account, and at checkout you pick your options. 3 choices of screen size, 3 choices of processors, 3 choices of storage capacity, an 8, 13, or 16 Mpix camera, 3 different battery capacities, cdma, gsm, or global radio, etc., then once you select your hardware, you customize the case colors, and you're done.
I know this rant is way into the TL;DR territory, but there are other factors to consider, perhaps profitability being paramount. Open source phone, with open source modules, etc. How will Motorola make $ on this? How long till knock off modules hit the market? What is the pricing scheme, etc.
I would love to get a serious discussion going, touching on some of the things I brought up.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app
I wouldn't say they're doomed from the start but their social network app and stuff seems pretty gimmicky to me. I definitely think that modular phones are in the future but they need to spend more time talking about the actual hardware and open sourcing drivers and stuff instead of their weird Instagram clone in my opinion. I'm still staying optimistic if they don't do it someone else will.
Sent using Tapatalk
Nice idea, but people here at xda would have a nightmare with such a thing, meaning rom development for every and each component combination.......
Lets ask ourselves, when would it be appropriate or papamount to upgrade a hardware component of any of our phones now? The reasoning now is more like, 'it would be cool if we could'. I cant think of any necessary reason now for needing to change harware unless it needs repair. I believe necessity should be a starting point for this whole concept. Necessity often drives truly good design.
I personally think that this would be good because of the fact that technology advances at such a rapid pace that being able to upgrade your components when a better version comes out would be good. Obviously there would be some compatibility issues between some parts that would be unavoidable. It would be more for the person who wants the high end device. Take me for example, I have the S4 and I love it but next year when the S5 comes out it wouldn't be the latest and greatest and I can't upgrade for two years. I could love a Moto X but I don't wanna pay the off contract price for it. So I think this is the only time it would be good and efficient, not a huge game changer but a slight game changer.
Also about the knock off or cheap parts, if they have the drivers and protocols open source than it shouldn't be to big of an issue, not anymore than buying a knock off replacement screen. Still something to look out for when buying modules.
I think that the idea from Phoneblocks or Ara are really good but I think that the project will prospere
Project Ara.
Being a modular design, brings complications, but with those complications comes new opportunities in the hardware section as well as the software side of the development.
The metric is quite valid and tangible, even more so today, wth the manufacturing techniques available, this idea actually makes far more sense than feeding the giant a steady diet of the same old thing.
You save money if all you require is a modified version of the RF section, you install that block.
The same goes for the remainder of the phone, easy upgrading, no downtime, and lower overall cost for the entire market, not to mention the lowering of landfill garbage from dumped devices that could not be upgraded.
The engineering end of this is wonderful, I wish it arrived years ago. A 'Lego-Phone' you build and upgrade as you need to, no more buying an aircraft carrier, when all you require is a shuttle.
We can finally drive the market, provide for ourselves, push manufacturers in the direction we need them to head, instead of driving us with their own thoughts on what is necessary.
I don't use much in the way of media, so anything more than 720P is of little use, but I do appreciate an HDMI-type format screen.
The RF section is far more important to my needs, and of course, a micro-SD card slot.
I prefer a sensitive front end, high dynamic range, and a superbly augmented IP3(third intercept point) as a basis for my receiver design.
I have grown tired of matchbox quality RF systems, and when in poor signal areas, or in a heavily wooded area with sparse cell tower penetration, i prefer my phone have the ability to connect with a site even if the RSSI indicates no signal, at least a data channel should be able to 'hear' a short text message for help if sent.
If the phone can't hear well, it can't talk well, either.
Most subscribers assume that cell signals are routed through the power lines*!*
I have had customers that actually said this...But this is the basis of my most desired and important 'want', a solid RF system, receiver and transmitter section that works!
High density areas have few problems with dropped calls, if the site loading is low, but in rural areas, loading is not an issue, it's accessibility, and sites spaced 10 miles apart, can actually have users drop calls even near by, due to dense foliage or hilly/mountainous terrain, even though the tower is within eyesight, you still drop a call. This is where fresnel zones come into play, and where a good RF section makes the difference.
If you think rain kills RF signals, see my pic I just snapped from my door, of the trees filled with heavy snow!
Poorly designed RF systems can't decode signals properly, the B.E.R suffers, causing message failures, call time-outs as well as just lousy QOS due to noise, echoing, raspy speech processing and a host of other problems.
The memory subsystems are important, as well as the GPU and video systems, but you can still make a call if the video drops, not so much if the RF section dies.
We all have our own desires, as well as what is most important to our needs, but overall, i do believe that project Ara is a great step in the right direction for a change....Where the customer drive the market, not the manufacturers!
Now I don't know if you were aware, but Google only owns Motorola's Research Lab. The actual company was purchased by Lenovo a few weeks ago.
Besides, I sort feel the same way, because, besides the hubbub, it doesn't seem like a very user friendly process in my mind. That's why I think it feels like nothing more than a research project with a couple of news reporters locked inside their facilities.
Sent from my ST21i using XDA app-developers app.
Don't forget to hit thanks if I helped!
In the beginning, they will have to offer options in a controlled environment like one poster abive said. It will be similar to
1. CHOOSE YOUR PROCESSOR:
a. Good
b. Better
c. Best
Etc etc....
The first question probably will be "Choose Your Carrier". Then all of the module choices will be pre-screened to function together on that network.
Samsung Galaxy S4 "Fort Knox Edition"
Guys, believe in Google. They made a search engine wich is now the most used engine. They also made a very good browser, an operating system for mobiles, an online map wich has street view and many other good things. Why they couldn't make project ara?
Sent from my LG-P880 using xda app-developers app
PenguinStyle said:
Guys, believe in Google. They made a search engine wich is now the most used engine. They also made a very good browser, an operating system for mobiles, an online map wich has street view and many other good things. Why they couldn't make project ara?
Sent from my LG-P880 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just making sure it wasnt a misinterpretation but google did not create android, Android Inc founded by andy rubin(correct me if im wrong) http://www.techradar.com/news/phone...e-phones/a-complete-history-of-android-470327
PenguinStyle said:
Guys, believe in Google. They made a search engine wich is now the most used engine. They also made a very good browser, an operating system for mobiles, an online map wich has street view and many other good things. Why they couldn't make project ara?
Sent from my LG-P880 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All those things you mention are software, that runs on high performance computers. What ARA requires is a total rethinking of the hardware and engineering of today's mobile phones.
Can any module be swapped for some other type of module? How do they interface? What bandwidth limitations do these interfaces introduce?
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
SynGates said:
All those things you mention are software, that runs on high performance computers. What ARA requires is a total rethinking of the hardware and engineering of today's mobile phones.
Can any module be swapped for some other type of module? How do they interface? What bandwidth limitations do these interfaces introduce?
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The ARA developers conference already answered most of this, so its possibility is not the question. Its availability and adaptability is the question. Will people flock to it or despise it?? Will it make people feel more in control?
If google can advertise this thing as something that gives people more power it will definitely catch on. Plus if Google is truly looking to start their own mobile network as rumoured, then they could start in that manner and make others envious to catch on.
Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk
It's going to be a wait and see what happens on release thing I think. I don't personally don't think it's going to explode instantly onto the mobile scene but give it a year or two and hopefully it will start changing the game. With everything being open source it might pave the way for smaller companies to get into the handheld scene where they don't have the money or resources to develop full devices but can focus on just a single module. Much like the way of the custom pc market.
replicamask said:
It's going to be a wait and see what happens on release thing I think. I don't personally don't think it's going to explode instantly onto the mobile scene but give it a year or two and hopefully it will start changing the game. With everything being open source it might pave the way for smaller companies to get into the handheld scene where they don't have the money or resources to develop full devices but can focus on just a single module. Much like the way of the custom pc market.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My sentiments exactly.
Koreans will really fight against this project. They won't be willing to loose the cellular market to Google. ARA has a lot of potential in developing countries, provided the prices for modules will be adequate. But yes, even with adequate pricetag such innovation will require a drastic change in marketing-infected minds of people.
Sent from my SM-N900W8 using Tapatalk 4
I hope it could work really well. I'd like to see the ability to transfer all the core modules from one endo 'frame' to another - SIM, WiFi, ROM, storage plus camera and perhaps CPU/RAM from a larger 'everyday' frame to a smaller 'night out' frame. I'd like an 'everyday' camera and a 'holiday' camera. I might carry a speaker module, but would swap it in against a torch module only for those occasions I'd need it. I'd carry spare battery modules and expect to see external chargers for them.
Didn't read the whole thread, but I'd say the whole "eco friendly" concept is BS from the beginning. People will start buying new components everytime they are out, thus generating MORE electric waste.
till22 said:
Didn't read the whole thread, but I'd say the whole "eco friendly" concept is BS from the beginning. People will start buying new components everytime they are out, thus generating MORE electric waste.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is possible and a good point. I think they could counter this by placing some inherent value on modules so you could trade them in for cash or credit towards other modules.
I think this will work much better than trading in phones since all modules should work for all ara phones.
What you all need to remember is that the microcomputer revolution didn't really become a mass market phenomenon until the IBM PC arrived with its open "Industry Standard Architecture". This allowed the rapid emergence of third party expansion cards and other "PC compatible" hardware, and "PC clones". Not only did this accelerate the pace of technology development it also pushed prices down significantly. If IBM had not made the PC architecture both expandable and open, general purpose computing would have remained an expensive and specialised tool available only to business and the very rich. Imagine the effect that wouls have had on the development of the worldwide web a decade later.
If you are of the generation who grew up uaing laptops you may not have realised that modular technology is cheaper and more flexible, and it means longer hardware lifecycles.
Hi guys, I am the owner of OXY SmartWatch, a new SmartWatch available in two versions: Round and Square.
Here a few preview renders of our final product:
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This is our website:
http://www.oxytechs.com/
And our Google+ page where you can follow our progresses:
https://www.google.com/+Oxytechswatch
The watch is running Android 4.4 AOSP and we have built a custom version of Android that is more feasible for SmartWatches than Android WEAR. Plus we have custom Android Studio templates to work with our product and we give the possibility to install any ROM without breaking warranty or support.
In this thread I want to share with this community a preview of the Watch and our links.
We are also looking for Android Developers, Android Kernel Developers and iOS Developers.
We also accept candidates from remote locations so feel free to share with us at info[at]netarchitectures[dot]co[dot]uk your resume or feedbacks about our product.
If you want to join our Developer Program, follow this link:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/android/software/oxy-smartwatch-development-t3185452
The watches have:
CPU MIPS M200 Dual Core
512 MB RAM
4 GB Disk Space
Heart Rate Sensor
Vibration
AMOLED Touch display covered with Gorilla Glass
Speakers and Microphones
Magnetic contact charging mechanism
Gyroscope, Accellerometer and Magnetometer
Bluetooth 4.0 and BLE Compatible with iOS and Android and PC
Light sensor
400 mAh LiPo Battery
72 hours with BLE and 1 week without Bluetooth enabled
Stainless steel IPV6 water proof
Right now we are working at our website www[dot]OXYTECHS[dot]com and for the end of August you will be able to see the full product description, accessories and various demo.
The 15th of November 2015 we will open the PRE-SALE Campaign.
We have a batch of 5,000 pieces available per model, so a total of 20,000 pieces:
5,000 Round Stainless Steel
5,000 Round Black Stainless Steel
5,000 Square Stainless Steel
5,000 Square Black Stainless Steel
This project is related to the porting of IWOP (Ingenic Wearable Open Platform) for OXY SmartWatches.
The platform IWOP is available here for download: http://iwop.ingenic.com/.
OXY is giving hardware development kit to each developer who is willing to contribute to the platform.
Attached to this thread there are architecture views, UX mocks and interaction design about the OXY custom ROM.
More details related to OXY are available here: http://www.oxytechs.com/
OXY ROM is composed by:
A watchface manager
Home launcher
Control manager app
Settings app
Apps navigator
A set of utilities apps delivered with the product
XDA:DevDB Information
OXY SmartWatch V 1.0, ROM for the Android General
Contributors
raffaeu
Source Code: http://iwop.ingenic.com/
ROM OS Version: 4.4.x KitKat
ROM Kernel: Linux 3.10.x
Based On: IWOP
Some preview videos of OXY ROM:
Notifications Manager
Watchfaces Manager
Phone Calls Manager
Only IPx6, multiple (more than 3) actions to access key info and apps for "Probably 249 or 299"? Hard sell, even with custom ROM support.
On the square version, a bezeless display is easily possible if the PCB and battery are not larger in area than the display area.
Lokifish Marz said:
Only IPx6, multiple (more than 3) actions to access key info and apps for "Probably 249 or 299"? Hard sell, even with custom ROM support.
On the square version, a bezeless display is easily possible if the PCB and battery are not larger in area than the display area.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Lokifish and thank you for your feedback.
The answer you mention is about the Black version, which is full Black Stainless Steel, including the wristband. Consider that only the wristband has a production cost of 28$ (without VAT) the price of 249$ does not look that bad to me. Think about OLIO SmartWatch, it's a full Stainless Steel watch with locked ROM and it's sold for almost 600$ a piece.
About the square version, we couldn't find ANY manufacturer in Taiwan, China and Singapore capable to produce a full baseless square display, only round can be baseless but if you know any manufacturer capable of making AMOLED display squared with Gorilla Glass I would be more than happy to get your help, we are still in the beta version of our product and any feedback is welcome and well appreciated.
The OLIO is also design by watchmakers, uses 316L SS, and has a water resistance 50 times greater than that IPx7 with no time limit like IPx7 has.
As far as the band, you can get decent quality folded SS bands for around $15-20 USD at full retail price.
A bezeless square display can be done. It requires an approach not seen in smartwatches though that makes assembly a little more difficult but is still doable. Also, "Off the shelf" designs simply don't cut it as it requires the "crystal" be cut a certain way.
Have your guys look over "U.I Design", "Why this Martian.. ", and "I bet your smartwatch..." links in my signature below. Feel free to pick my brain and use the information in the links. The minimum I ask is that you give proper credit if you use any of it.
Looking at your G+ posts, nice job with the Ingenic BTW. I designed and built a smartwatch using the same platform. Too bad I killed it during a 5 ATM water resistance test.
Hi Lokifish, again useful details and feedback.
You are right, a nice and decent band is probably available on AliExpress for less than 20 bucks, but we made our with a different manufacturer and for the first batch we ended up with a cost of 28$.
This is another reason why we want to get this project into the community, to get feedback and suggestions from people that faced these problems before us.
About OLIO, of course they used high quality materials, a nice design, but I personally disagree about the ROM and UX choices (but this is my personal feeling). The point for me it's about the price. Pebble manufacturer their watch for 18$ and sell it for almost 199$, now dropped to 149$ if I am not wrong.
We are a startup and we will probably endup in some incubators or crowdfunding website in order to start the mass production. Probably the price will be around 199$ on retail but again, the prices and costs we are facing are a bit different than the one faced by watchmakers that have been on the market for many years.
What we believe is different between OXY and the rest of the world is the community, we want to make an open product, we want to make the customer capable to install custom ROM, customize the body and more. This is where we see the added value that other watch makers do not have at the moment.
@Lokifish Marz - thanks for the reply and pointing out OXY ... I feel like there's ... just a little hope ... maybe
@raffaeu - please take into account Lokifish Marz's advice, he will be very valuable to you, from a historical, current & future point of view. You'll save a lot of time and effort.
There are only a few people in the world that can make a decent, let alone a 'good smartwatch', due to greed/profit, but it can be done with the right goals and vision. Always know your history! Courtesy to the Martian ... again
I'm not a techy as such, but an important aspect of a good product is the non-functional business aspects, how to make a robust watch and then marketing, communication, support, together with making a little profit of course. Techies alone can't do this (no offense). Out of desperation we started the Nowt Watch thread, please have read, some very interesting discussion. No doubt you're at a stage where you can't go back with your current products, but we can always better our understanding and add to our knowledge and experiences.
I purchased an Omate clone recently (I had to get it out of my system), some of the non-techy issues, charging it - a pain! Straps - awful! A companion watch, should still be like a stand-alone watch first, meaning, above all its a robust time-piece that many can/would use without a phone as maybe a sports and leisure watch.
I'm curious, what does OXY mean? You have my support if you want it. I used to be a software tester, as well as marketing, strategy, process ... all that boring important stuff. Good luck
@Lokifish Marz has some interesting articles and idea that we are taking into consideration. Our primary targets are:
make an open source product
build a brand and trust from the community
make a real watch, solid, durable and with style
We designed OXY to being able to run with a phone and without, in fact without the battery stay charged for almost 1 week. Secondly is the charger which is magnetic, so that our customers are not having the frustration of the USB cable pain.
We are here to get feedback, idea and of course help. Anybody is welcome to join us, we are also hiring so anything is possible. Of course we are a startup so we still need to pay salaries and bills but we are not willing to become rich but we are willing to build a trusted brand for IoT products and more precisely for smartwatch. I always say that OXY is a mission for me and not a company.
OXY is an acronym for oxygen, something that you need and that's required to humans to live.
Feel free to contact me @simple1i and we can discuss further our project. In the meantime I'll have a look at your links.
Oh I see Oxy. I do like the name Horology, that's what all good (smart)watch lovers are, there's an idea for a name of a smartwatch.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you decided to used Android because it's the cheaper/faster (way to get it up and ready) option? Do you have Playstore on the OXY? Google can be very awkward about this.
Listening to the tech' community is a good thing, but for a 'fine dining' watch the experts are few, you need the Horologists, the real trick to to know what opinions to take on and what to discard. Then its a matter of goods ideas/functions vs costs. This might be a tough one to address, but the OXY needs to be either better then the Moto 360 2's (rumoured specs) or similar with a lower cost. So far I'm impressed. I am waiting to see what Pebbles does with the I/O port on the back of their watch, what hardware add-ons will they come up with? A good future proof strategy for them to expand functionality.
I'll be in touch.
@simple1i it was not easy, we had to search for conflicts with other trademarks, copyright and we also needed something simple to pronounce considering that our product will be sold worldwide. OXY sound easy but it is still a nice sound to pronounce
Our PCB is an extension of Ingenic Newton2. We had to modify the plug for the display because the original one was not enough for round and square displays plus we added an heart rate, a vibration motor a different Bluetooth and a Lipo battery of 400mAh. We changed the USB port and overall we came up with the cheapest but more flexible solution.
Why? Because we have a public AOSP for Android 4.4 and Linux which means that our product can fit any development configuration without any license problems. Just use git, download our AOSP and create your own smartwatch.
Google play will be added later, as I said our goal is to provide an open platform with a default set of apps but without any license or warranty limit. Our license and warranty will cover only the hardware, about the software our customers will be able to fully customize the product.
For sure v1 won't be perfect, for sure we will need time to build up a community but based on the fact that we have an AOSP on git, that you can easily make custom apps with Android studio and that our price range will be lower than other android smartwatches, I think and hope that our product will be well known very soon.
Finally, we will run a crowdfunding but our mass production is already set. A big, big advantage compared to other crowdfunding campaigns
Unless Google has retroactively changed a number of things and not published it, official Google Services support (certification, service framework, Play Store, etc) is a no go. A couple of smartwatch manufacturers found out the hard way, one of which made it into tech news because of it. That's just one of many sites that covered it and I was working directly with Omate at the time this happened. The only smartwatches with official support run Wear, which requires partnership status.
Here's a good place to start
@Lokifish Marz partnership status is a no go. Also Pebble tried somehow to have a sort of partnership with Google, even if Pebble does not run Android at all, but they go a big no. Regarding Android WEAR, we have submitted in June 2 requests including draw, project details, hardware details and more and we never got an answer from anybody. We know that our OXY can run Android WEAR, we also took apart the SDK of Android WEAR to see how it works and at the end we choose to stay Open Source and give up on Google WEAR for now. Then in the future anything can happen, we are totally open to any conversation but our mission is to make an Open Source Smartwatch, so having a smartwatch locked down by Android WEAR .apk is not our business model right now. The giant Samsung has left Android WEAR and also OLIO did not even approach Google at all. Why? Probably because Google is taking some business decisions that cannot fit all watchmakers out there right now.
About Google Play, that's a different story. Our current hardware is better than Asus Zenwatch and the Moto 360 v1.0, the only limit for Google Play is the resolution. Our Round watch has a resolution of 400x400 while the squared has a resolution of 320x320 and we are using the same displays manufacturers used by LG and ASUS. But again, when you talk about smartwatch, you open a Pandora Box. It is the new business for any manufacturer, Forbes announced an estimation of over 30 billion dollars business between now and 2020.
But again, we can manually install Google Play and it just works fine, so what's the point here? We need first to create a community, distribute our product with a basic ROM so that users can receive notifications, phone calls, download and create watchfaces and all the things you want to achieve with a smartwatch. We have already setup an Azure play store where any developer can grab our SDK and our Genymotion virtual image, create apps and distribute them via our Cloud.
Then, probably next year, we will see how the things go and we will be able to present again a request to Google for both, Android WEAR and Google Play.
Again, I have spent now almost 1 year in R&D and I feel confident that Android WEAR is a closed business. You must be a big firm otherwise is a no go for now. About Google Play I am more positive but only time will say. For now we are focused on our website and marketing campaign, building a community and customizing our existing ROM and SDK. Btw, if you look at the potentialities of OXY, we have already a more powerful product in terms of frameworks and hardware, than a Pebble, which has sold more than 1,---,--- pieces between 2012 and 2015. We also got a conversation with Cyanogen which gave us a go to customize Cyanogen for OXY but at this point is worth to have our own Open Source Android version and move from there with the help of the community.
I get the issues with Wear and Google, I've been there multiple times. I also agree that open source is needed for the development community. The issue with not having Google Services support (Play Store) on an Android based smartwatch is that a fully stocked app store needs to be in place and filled with all big names like Facebook, EAT24 and the like and properly formatted to the display/UI/UX. If not, it severely limits your customer base. That's why many of the Chinese based smartwatches have had a hard time getting traction.
Now if you have a long haul plan that brings in average Joe smartwatch and watch buyer on, lets say, v.2 that's great. Keep in mind that after the multitude of less than stellar attempts by others, both xda and G+ can be very unforgiving. Especially if crowdfunding is involved.
This is starting to get into areas where private conversation may be justified so lets table this until after you make a decision. Then we can pick it up elsewhere.
@Lokifish Marz you got the point and probably you got it because you have been there before us. The only big difference thing is that we want to build a smartwatch, I don't think it would be of any use having a squeezed Facebook or Google+ app on your 400 pixels smartwatch. We are focusing on other criteria.
Motion track so that you don't have to press a button to view the time, real time notifications that when received turn on the display and show the notifications on top of the watch and many other watch oriented functionalities. V1 will give to crowdfunders a working "companion", a smartwatch that is a smartwatch, a companion app that can download .apk and install them and a decent SDK that allows developer to create custom apps and watchfaces or customize existing functionalities.
I am open to have a nice conversation with you guys. This month I'll visit China and Taiwan soon, where we are manufacturing the watches but it would be nice to setup a private call/chat for when I'll be back. Probably you know better than anybody else other members of XDA that may be seriously interested and involved in the project.
Update
We are preparing some VMs on Azure running Ubuntu LT12 with our Android AOSP source code.
Right now we have 3 versions for the AOSP: Android Square watch, Android Round watch, Ubuntu Touch.
Compilation is quite easy, for Android is something like:
./build/smk.sh --preset=oxy_v11_wisesquare_iwop
./build/smk.sh --preset=oxy_v11_naturalround_iwop
Next step for us is to host the whole repository over a public Git and distribute the Ubuntu VM so that anybody can start to download the VMs (already synchronized) and contribute. As soon as everything is ready I will open a different thread and start to have private conversations with the people interested in the OXY project.
Re: Ingenic Newton2 - (someone made this point) you can buy the Newton1 or Newton2 as a devkit, but you cannot buy the modules wholesale. So this isn't truly a SoM - it isn't meant to buy off the shelf and integrate into a product. It's meant to be a reference design that you can either copy, or tweak, or modify in to suit.
In other words, with Newton, you're still going to need to have someone manufacture and assemble PCBs, and it'll require a normal (and expensive, unpleasant) certification process. A true SoM would come pre-certified, making that process a lot easier (you still need to do a certification, but one one that's much less rigorous and costs a lot less)?
simple1i said:
Re: Ingenic Newton2 - (someone made this point) you can buy the Newton1 or Newton2 as a devkit, but you cannot buy the modules wholesale. So this isn't truly a SoM - it isn't meant to buy off the shelf and integrate into a product. It's meant to be a reference design that you can either copy, or tweak, or modify in to suit.
In other words, with Newton, you're still going to need to have someone manufacture and assemble PCBs, and it'll require a normal (and expensive, unpleasant) certification process. A true SoM would come pre-certified, making that process a lot easier (you still need to do a certification, but one one that's much less rigorous and costs a lot less)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@simple1i You got the point. We bought Newton2 and made our watch using 3D print. Later we joined IWOP (Ingenic Watch Open Platform) which is a custom version of Android but more powerful than WEAR and better designed. At that point Ingenic gave us access to resources that are absolutely not available to private, so you can purchase the Newton2 dev kit but you cannot go far without their IWOP platform.
After that, we joined a partnership with two manufacturers, which are partners of Ingenic, and start to built our PCB and changed the Display (the display of Newton2 kit sucks, it has only 130 DPI).
About certifications, there are two phases. First you need to be sure that your PCB is ready for mass production, second, when the smartwatch is ready, you have to make IFC and CE at minimum, depending on where you want to sell. And this is the most painful part cause especially for CE, the process is long and full of obstacles. Consider that products like Pebble or other crowdfunded watches were shipped without any certification cause they were T2 prototypes expressly produced for the crowdfund campaign.
It looks like a nice piece of kit - in fact I love the design, it actually looks like a watch! Unfortunately, I'm not really sold on the idea of buying a 'smart' device where there's a very good chance of there being zero app development. Android Wear is rubbish right now (and of course, as you say, is a closed platform which creates big issues for us 'experimental' types and smaller organisations like yours trying to bring a device to market) but at least it's a group of companies working towards a common goal - in my mind that's far more likely to foster a community of developers than yet another smartwatch platform with a small userbase which will depend on yet another third party companion app and the headaches that creates with ongoing OS updates and trying to properly handle notifications and other interactions with the host device. I love the Pebble platform and larger ecosystem - I find the hardware and usage model vastly preferable to Wear (passively lit displays and buttons vs backlit displays and touchscreens, though I prefer the black and white ones, the Time lacks the contrast that makes the OG so easy to use AS A WATCH.) but they're odd looking devices which are 'obviously' not normal watches (not that I care, but I guess most people do) and the companion app has serious issues - they tend to get fixed fairly promptly but other app updates cause new issues pretty frequently - I still can't figure out how to stop it giving me notifications from the GMail app twice... What makes you think you could even do as well as a company who easily garners the kind of support they do on Kickstarter (and hence probably has a sizeable budget for a development team)?
Azurael said:
What makes you think you could even do as well as a company who easily garners the kind of support they do on Kickstarter (and hence probably has a sizeable budget for a development team)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@Azurael you make a good point here.
I do not want to talk about WEAR because it's obvious that WEAR is the biggest market so far, but only because Google is pushing really hard to get tons of Watchfaces and Apps available for their platform. Also, comparing ourself to WEAR will sound very arrogant. We will never be able to become big like Google WEAR community and this is not the mission of OXY.
About Pebble, if you look at their backlog, most of the incoming releases have bug fixes and enhancements of the Firmware. And this is after almost 4 years (Pebble started in 2012). They sold their crowdfunding watch made of plastic, without heart rate, without AMOLED touch display and without microphone or speakers (1 version of pebble) for a range between 99$ and 149$. We will sell OXY for 199$ in PRE-SALE, and in my opinion that's a great deal compared to the hardware of the Pebble.
So, on our side we played the "partnership role" with Ingenic Semiconductor. Ingenic has developed an entire platform on top of Android AOSP called IWOP (Ingenic Wearable Open Platform). It is a set of APIs that allows you to achieve exactly the same results of WEAR but even more. It is designed specifically for Ingenic Hardware so it uses less energy, it is bug free because the hardware is tested and provided by Ingenic (so no issues with multiple smartwatches vendors) and it is already largely adopted in Asia. The advantage is that behind us there is a big hardware company which supplies already thousands of pieces to Chinese manufacturers, so it is in their interest to keep the platform up to date and bug free.
Of course we lack on apps, this is the only problem of OXY and I am totally aware of, but I am not worry about it. When Pebble came out, and same applies for WEAR, there were almost no apps or watchfaces available. After a couple of years of adoption the marketplace became bigger and bigger and now the two platforms are well known. Compared to Apple Watch, our SDK is way more powerful and more developer friendly.
We will play the same strategy here, except that we have already commissioned almost 100 apps to an external Software House in order to have a pre-set of free apps available on our platform as soon as we will be out with our PRE-SALE campaign. Than, we will start our "developer program" which will grant to each developer a free OXY smartwatch and access to all our documentation and articles. In addition to Pebble or WEAR with OXY you can also create your own ROM, your own Home Launcher and customize even the kernel. I am sure that many developers will be happy to put their hands on such a platform and get a smartwatch for free.
We have already discussed with Ingenic this topic and they are eager to expose their platform to the US/EU market, considering also that we will be the first company selling MIPS architecture in EU and US I feel confident that the gap about the lack of apps will be covered soon.
On the business plan, we will probably feed the platform for 2015/2016, so a low margin of profit will be generated but again this is not our plan (to generate money) but to make an open platform for smart devices. I think that it's important for us to explain exactly our mission in order to get the right amount of followers. Plus a bit of "viral marketing" would be beneficial too
Hardware talk
On the hardware side, could you have added more sensors if there was a need for them? And are any disadvantages for adding lots of extras sensors, like power consumption, over heating or less space to work on the PCB? Of course for every sensor you need an app for it.
Others might disagree with this view, that sensors make a device comes alive, the watch can sense more about its environment, just like a living thing. Also with the open source OS and SDK devs can make use of more of the sensors, making the watch a multi purpose device. I was hoping for a compass, it's one of those things that many won't use but like the idea of having it, just like a Swiss Army knife.
A barometer with a compass and heart rate monitor, could appeal to the sportsman. The Suunto watch gives nice weather icons to a good degree of accuracy. At least there enough sensors for the development of an app that can detect if the watch is being worn or not to stop certain functions like notifications and maybe even put the watch to sleep to save battery or have it on 'bedtime' mode.
Another advantage of having lots of sensors is that it makes the watch more of a stand-alone device.
If you talk about the Newton2 development kit the short answer is no, the long answer is yes, but with some re-design. We had to re-design the PCB of the Newton2 because we added an extra BlueTooth for iOS, an Heart rate sensor, a vibrating motor, a microphone and 5 speakers. Plus we re-designed the USB charge which is an extra PCB in the Newton2, while on our watch is into the same PCB.
Finally, the biggest and most complicated step is about the display. Newton2 use an MIPI interface specifically designed for their display, so in order to fit a Round and Square display from commercial companies like AMOLED Corp you have two options:
Make two PCB with two different MIPI, one per Display
Modify the displays MIPI to fit the same plug and play mechanism
We did not put a Baromoter because it is not easy to find a good provider and it does not deal well into mini PCB. About the GPS, we had one but we removed because it is absolutely battery drainer. If you run 3-4 hours with your GPS on the watch will end up without battery, while capturing the GPS from your Phone and streaming the amount of mt into the Watch app is way easier in terms of power consumption.
All weather apps that you see on Smartwatches are not using an internal barometer but they simply get weather conditions from a public HTTP API and stream the result into the Watch from your Phone.
What we have in additional is the WiFi so that you can run the watch in autonomous way, for example OXY can detect if you have internet on your watch, if don't then it grabs info from the internet of your Phone.
You can get fancy with sensors, we would to introduce in the future V2 more health sensors but it is early right now and you still have to deal with minimal space, each mm count.
Yes, yes, it's possible to love a phone. Heck, you sleep next to it, don't you? Rate this thread to indicate your love for the Huawei P40 Pro, all things considered. A higher rating indicates that the Huawei P40 Pro is an incredible phone that you enjoy tremendously. You love it.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!
Very happy with my P40 Pro so far. I'll try to keep this short & honest.
First of all, one of the most important things: battery life. It's very good IMO. I keep my phone on FHD+ with 90hz refresh rate. Honestly I expected sub-par battery life from this device with 90hz, and I thought I was gonna switch to 60hz for sure, but I was pleasantly surprised. Like I said, battery life is not an issue on this phone. Not insanely great, but still, very solid. :good:
The camera? Oh, boy. Just look at the samples posted on the internet, or watch camera reviews on Youtube. It's just phenomenal. Low light is also incredibly good, although from my testing, some shots come out better in "photo mode" than they do in "night mode". Sometimes the opposite.
The display is also great. No QHD resolution, but FHD+ is more than enough for me. I think QHD on phones is a gimmick, but that's just my opinion.
The only thing I don't really like that comes to mind is the weight of this phone - it's kinda heavy, especially compared to my previous phone.
About the Google services issue... To me it's not really an issue. I don't NEED GMS on my phone. I can live without them. Yes I installed them, but it was more out of the urge to tinker with my phone, than the necessity of having them. Here's what I have to say about my personal usage.
My banking app is in the Huawei App Gallery. Google Calendar, I don't really use. Maps? The "Maps.me" app and Here WeGo seem like good alternatives to Google Maps. As for gmail, you can easily use AquaMail or Bluemail and add your gmail account there. The interface is a bit different though. I kinda miss Google Photos as I did have some photos saved there, but it's not that big of a deal. Out of curiosity, I just installed the Google Photos app moments ago and it seems to work fine on my P40 Pro. It detected the photos on my device and I can see everything that I backed up in the past.
I still would not recommend the P40/P40 Pro to people who are very dependent on Google apps, as I can't guarantee whether Huawei will patch this GMS installation method, or not. There's just no way of knowing that.
So, in summary, if you heavily depend on Google apps and services - DON'T buy it. If you think you can live without them, then you can give it a try. In my country Huawei lets you "try" the device for 15 days, so if you don't like it you can send it back and get a refund.
Huawei P40 Pro gets a solid 4.5/5 from me.
Review based on a European living in UK, other regions might be completely different.
You don't use any apps that use GMS:
If majority of the apps you use on a daily basis are available in Huawei store, then this phone is for you and you can stop reading, this review assumes you use GMS (Google Mobile Sevices) in some direct or indirect form.
For the rest:
Amazing piece of hardware but the third party software at this moment in time (constantly progressing) is pretty useless. Don't buy this phone if:
You want everything to just work
You are not tech savvy enough to know what adb is and have enough experience to figure out which sideloaded apps are clearly unsafe
You need an actual smartphone and rely on it for critical tasks that cannot fail using third party apps that might rely on GMS
If you are a tinkerer like myself and like messing with devices and fixing issues the manufacturer wont, don't buy this phone (locked bootloader).
Google Situation
Think of how many times a day you use third party apps on your phone. Majority of those apps (in Europe atleast) use Google Mobile Services in some form. If you are one these people, I would recommend you buy yourself a cheaper smartphone with a separate point and shoot camera, honestly you would get a more reliable and possibly pleasant experience that way. Unfortunately I rely on other, non-google apps way too much such as Slack, Delivero, Uber, DJI Pilot app, Blizzard Authenticator, Unified Remote Control etc... If you decide to side load the apps missing from its store (using Petal Search or Aurora store), be prepared that those apps will probably be broken in some shape or form. Most apps rely on Google services such as Firebase for notifications, Google location services for location and etc.
You might be able to get the side-loaded app installed and mostly functioning, but something, somewhere might be broken and you wont know until it bites you. For example Slack is installable and definitely usable, but you wont get any notifications. Apps that use google location all seem to be half broken even if you install Google services; you will open Delivero/Uber once and everything will work, and next time you open it there will be no location. You order from Delivero one day and you will get the notification that the driver is outside so you think sweet, the app fully works, but the next time you order the driver would have tried contacting you 4 times before he drives away with you undelivered food. Apparently this is fixable with an always on display and tuning the power saving of the phone. I did contact a few app developers asking if they plan to support HMS, and got mixed replies.
Other than the Google situation, here are some points:
Build quality and materials are generally amazing
Centre of gravity is slightly offset from centre, its towards the top left corner of the phone. Also the phone is PHAT, its definitely bigger than my S8 and thicker, but its the weight that's most noticeable. Not a huge deal but was a minor annoyance.
Face-ID and fingerprint scanner both work flawlessly and super fast.
Camera is superb
"Wide" camera is an insult to the term. The sensor is great but the wideness is just a smidge more than normal lens. Honestly I would call it misleading advertising and it should be called "Not-So-Wide" camera
General performance is great, no complaints. Also compared to my S8, the phone stays colder for much longer
Battery life seemed great, spent a whole day on it installing google and only drained like 60%.
The stock experience is OK, apart from any AI features. AI is in pre-alpha phase. For example the voice assistant cannot set a timer, it can only open the timer app. Oh and if you don't speak the exact accent Huawei expects you to, good luck getting it to recognise anything. You could side-load Alexa, but you cannot change the default assistant, so the 1sec press of power button will always bring Celia.
There is some weirdness in apps, for example the default keyboard (SwiftKey) gives you the option to login using your google account even though its definitely broken in stock.
The gestures work really well in most cases. The same gestures do get very annoying in some apps where you keep accidentally pressing back instead of bringing up side menus or switch drawer.
Banking is mostly broken for stock Huawei. Managed to get Natwest banking app working after a lot of work though. Contactless payment is 100% broken and will be for a long time!
Permissions: Pretty much every single Huawei app wants to have access to your calls and messaging history. Maybe nothing malicious but certainly makes you question why they need it
NM cards are more than double the price of MicroSD
Comes with loads of bloatware, but most is easily removed
The pill cutout is not bad, just wish they shoved it more in the corner of the phone more
Uncertainty if your phone will break after an update if you have google services installed
Installing Google services is not easy and seems to be a constantly evolving battle where methods change frequently
Internet forums/ youtube is filled with post from either bots or one can only assume are Huawei influencers. Also the phone is so talked about online that trying to use search to find answers to your problems usually just brings up a Forbes news story.
Locked bootloader
I admit, I made a mistake of not checking the news before buying the phone (saw a dirt cheap one on eBay). Fully expected to unlock the bootloader and install some custom ROM with GApps, but since 2018 Huawei locked their bootloaders for "security". Even so, I tried the phone for couple of days, spend a day installing google services, aurora store, icebox and the whole lot and honestly was super disappointed. Sold the phone couple days later and if you check eBay you can see dozens of people doing the same thing every day.
I stopped reading at "Software at this moment in time is pretty useless".
ZedeN said:
Review based on a European living in UK, other regions might be completely different.
Amazing piece of hardware but that's it! Software at this moment in time is pretty useless. Don't buy this phone if you need an actual smartphone. I would recommend you buy yourself a cheapo smartphone with a separate point and shoot camera, honestly you would get way better experience that way. If you are a tinkerer like myself and like messing with devices and fixing issues the manufacturer wont, don't buy this phone (locked bootloader).
If you stick with the pure Huawei experience and don't need any apps that are not in Huawei store, I am sure you would have a great time, unfortunately I rely on other, non-google apps way too much such as Slack, Delivero, Uber, DJI Pilot app, Blizzard Authenticator, Unified Remote Control etc... If you decide to side load the apps missing from it's store (using Petal Search or Aurora store), be prepared that those apps will probably be broken in some shape or form. Most apps rely on Google services such as Firebase for notifications, Google location services for location and etc.
You might be able to get the side-loaded app installed and mostly functioning, but something some where might be broken and you wont know until it bites you. For example Slack is installable and definitely usable, but you wont get any notifications. Apps that use google location all seem to be half broken even if you install Google services; you will open Delivero/Uber once and everything will work, and next time you open it there will be no location. You order from Delivero one day and you will get the notification that the driver is outside so you think sweet, the app fully works, but the next time you order the driver would have tried contacting you 4 times before he drives away with you undelivered food. Apparently this is fixable with an always on display and tuning the power saving of the phone. I did contact a few app developers asking if they plan to support HMS, and got mixed replies.
Other than the Google situation, here are some points:
Build quality and materials are generally amazing
Centre of gravity is slightly offset from centre, its towards the top left corner of the phone. Also the phone is PHAT, its definitely bigger than my S8 and thicker, but its the weight that's most noticeable. Not a huge deal but was a minor annoyance.
Face-ID and fingerprint scanner both work flawlessly and super fast.
Camera is superb
"Wide" camera is an insult to the term. The sensor is great but the wideness is just a smidge more than normal lens. Honestly I would call it misleading advertising and it should be called "Not-So-Wide" camera
General performance is great, no complaints. Also compared to my S8, the phone stays colder for much longer
Battery life seemed great, spent a whole day on it installing google and only drained like 60%.
The stock experience is OK, apart from any AI features. AI is in pre-alpha phase. For example the voice assistant cannot set a timer, it can only open the timer app. Oh and if you don't speak the exact accent Huawei expects you to, good luck getting it to recognise anything. You could side-load Alexa, but you cannot change the default assistant, so the 1sec press of power button will always bring Celia
The gestures work really well in most cases. The same gestures do get very annoying in some apps where you keep accidentally pressing back instead of bringing up side menus or switch drawer.
Banking is mostly broken for stock Huawei. Managed to get Natwest banking app working after a lot of work though. Contactless payment is 100% broken and will be for a long time!
Permisions: Pretty much every single Huawei app wants to have access to your calls and messaging history. Maybe nothing malicious but certainly makes you question why they need it
NM cards are more than double the price of MicroSD
Comes with loads of bloatware, but most is easily removed
The pill cutout is not bad, just wish they shoved it more in the corner of the phone more
Uncertainty if your phone will break after an update if you have google services installed
Installing Google services is not easy and seems to be a constantly evolving battle where methods change frequently
Internet forums/ youtube is filled with post from either bots or one can only assume are Huawei influencers. Also the phone is so talked about online that trying to use search to find answers to your problems usually just brings up a Forbes news story.
Locked bootloader
I admit, I made a mistake of not checking the news before buying the phone (saw a dirt cheap one on eBay). Fully expected to unlock the bootloader and install some custom ROM with GApps, but since 2018 Huawei locked their bootloaders for "security". Even so, I tried the phone for couple of days, spend a day installing google services, aurora store, icebox and the whole lot and honestly was super disappointed. Sold the phone couple days later and if you check eBay you can see dozens of people doing the same thing every day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really? I'm using my phone as the way it was intended to be used with no Google services side-loaded and this phone does everything that my other Android phones does besides have a dedicated YouTube app. Perhaps you just don't know how to use a phone properly
ushoda said:
I stopped reading at "Software at this moment in time is pretty useless".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fair point, I changed the phrasing of the review.
Khonsu_ said:
Really? I'm using my phone as the way it was intended to be used with no Google services side-loaded and this phone does everything that my other Android phones does besides have a dedicated YouTube app. Perhaps you just don't know how to use a phone properly
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe you live in another region where app developers don't use GMS as default, for example China? But clearly your use case doesn't depend on GMS, in that case, this phone is perfect for you. Also YouTube is the least of my problems, I have been using YouTube Vanced for years and even it is a pain to install on P40 Pro. You first have to either download "dirty" micro-g or modify the micro-g settings to stop it from using GMS otherwise you get stuck in login loop.
And thank you, I will go ahead and start learning to use my phone straight away sir, maybe Huawei should include that on the packaging as well.
Quite an emotional topic, hmm?
My 2,5 cents: I used my smartphones primarily for audio books, photos, WhatsApp, mobile navigation, YouTube and common internet applications.
The P40 Pro does all that just perfectly, better than all smartphones I owned before. With just one single exception.
I like Google Maps, I like the Play Store, I like YouTube. Sure, there are alternative applications, but I still prefer the "originals".
So I spent about half an hour and went through installing the Google services according to instructions I got from a YouTube video. Some effort, but it paid.
I now got the perfect smartphone, running all and everything I need - and doing that better than ever before. With just one exception, no, with two exceptions.
1) Still not possible to use "Hey Google" or "Okay Google" on the lock screen.
2) Fixed battery, the usual *****iness all smartphone manufacturers abuse for forcing you to discard your smartphone after about two years, or earlier if you charged your battery often to 100 % or let the battery get too warm (easy in summer in a car).
And that's it. I instantly fell in love with the P40 Pro after installing the "missing" Google services.
Two things I don't understand at all:
1) Why the heck doesn't Huawei provide unlock codes for the bootloader? Would solve that Google problem immediately. I just don't understand why they ignore that simple but effective move.
2) Why does all the world blame the Google problem on the USA, especially on Trump? It's not the USA, it's not Trump - it's Apple. Huawei sent Apple back to the lower places on the podium. The pride of the capitalism got declassified by the communists. So the rotting fruit applied pressure on the government - and there we are. It's not because of espionage (if there was any proof, they would have presented it with utmost happiness), it's to "make Apple great again" using all impure means available.
Klosterbruder said:
I like Google Maps,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google Maps works for me without login.
Waze is actually better.
HereWeGo is not bad either.
Klosterbruder said:
.
Two things I don't understand at all:
1) Why the heck doesn't Huawei provide unlock codes for the bootloader? Would solve that Google problem immediately. I just don't understand why they ignore that simple but effective move.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe they do send data to Chinese government. ?
ZedeN said:
Fair point, I changed the phrasing of the review.
Maybe you live in another region where app developers don't use GMS as default, for example China? But clearly your use case doesn't depend on GMS, in that case, this phone is perfect for you. Also YouTube is the least of my problems, I have been using YouTube Vanced for years and even it is a pain to install on P40 Pro. You first have to either download "dirty" micro-g or modify the micro-g settings to stop it from using GMS otherwise you get stuck in login loop.
And thank you, I will go ahead and start learning to use my phone straight away sir, maybe Huawei should include that on the packaging as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey how to modify micro g settings as mine is getting stuck in Google registration too (I already have gms loaded)