What's with the Wizard?

[Guest ddieter]

Hey, can somebody explain to me the logic behind the Wizard having a Mini-SD slot instead of just a SD slot? You wouldn't think it is a card size thing....so is it a power-management thing? A bit of a piss off given that SD cards have more capacity and are cheaper :)

Also, what's this thing about the processor speed. Although it's clock speed is slower, it is dual core, so does that make it faster overall? Doesn't make sense to have a processor slower than the Magician.

I don't understand...someone please explain....

[Guest Pondrew]

Can't explain the choice of mini-sd. In fact, that had passed me by.

With regard the processor though, all I can say is wait and see. I did some reading on it myself and it is a dual core processor of sorts. Interestingly the Pocket PC Phone community seem to be up in arms over the choice of processor suggesting it COULD majorly handicap the device. They don't seem to hold TI chips in high regard. Having said that, the more informed among them seem to be advocating patience and suggesting it may deliver good performance (not stunning though) with a major increase in battery life.

Watch this space...

[Guest cactusbob]

I've been looking into this today and the results are quite interesting.

The OMAP850 and indeed the OMAP730 (in the C500) both have an on chip DSP. This seems to give them certain advantages over the higher clocked intel chips in the M500, Jam, etc. If I remember correctly the Intel chip isn't particularly good at floating point operations. Which basically means its not that good at maths. The OMAP chips are excellent at this due to the DSP.

Take a look at Java benchmarks to see the difference.

I would wait and see how the Wizard performs before coming to conclusions about the processor.

I'm gonna get one, my Orange contract is up, I just need someone to sell me one !!!

CB

[Guest Pondrew]

Yep, everything Cactusbob says sounds about right to me.

Apparently the TI chips major advantage is better powersaving, i.e. much better battery life. Given the Wizard will be the first HTC Pocket PC Phone with a TI chip I think we can expect big improvements over the battery life of the HTC Blue Angel (SPV M2000) and HTC Magician (SPV M500). BUT... the Wizard has to accomodate wifi so the net gain might be small or non existent.

[Guest cactusbob]

This is a very interesting page if you want to know more about the OMAP 850

[Guest Pondrew]

Cheers. Informative stuff...

Relevant highlights:

...further reduce the size of high-end, next generation smartphone and wireless handsets

...offers the additional benefit of reduced power consumption

...consumes less power than traditional external memory configurations.

...well-suited for space-constrained systems or for even smaller, lighter mobile device designs.

One thing that confuses me though... this all seems to be very much geared towards EDGE technology. Am I mistaken in thinking this isn't something we in the UK can utilise?

[Guest mupwangle]

From stuff I was reading it looks like the wifi was the overriding reason to use the OMAP 850 - lower power use to compensate for the higher usage from wifi. An intel chip and wifi would've killed the battery.

I'm not sure about this one yet. I'll wait to see what the general consensus is when it comes out properly. If its mince I'll get the M500/Jam.

Any ideas when Orange are likely to release it (as M600) or is it going to be a repeat of the M500 fiasco?

[Guest Pondrew]

Hmmm. For some reason I'd got it into my head that it would be called the M3000 (my bro mentioned reading an article referring to it as that).

Also, I know it's not great battery life but feel I should point out my MDA III with Intel processor and wifi has ok battery life (two days with use). Admittedly though this deteriorates with prolonged wifi use and I expect the TI would be able to do it longer...

Topic moved to Pocket PC Phone Main (so everyone can enjoy the discussion :))

[Guest Samsonite]

quick question.. is there a cost advantage of one breed of chip over another?

[Guest Pondrew]

To us, the manufactuer or the client?

To us: Only in so far as the best devices cost the most (i.e. the Universal is going to cost a bomb but that's more due to features like wifi/3g then to the processor employed)

To the manufactuer HTC: Possibly but then they probably arrange their supply of processors long in advance even before a new device hits the drawing board

To the client e.g. Orange: I got the impression HTC have a list of devices available for branding which the providers like Orange just choose from according to whim. I expect each batch of devices is costed according to spec but the whim would probably still win out.

EDIT: Would have been so much quicker to just say I have no idea if TI processors are cheaper then Intel!

[Guest Samsonite]

To us, the manufactuer or the client?

To us: Only in so far as the best devices cost the most (i.e. the Universal is going to cost a bomb but that's more due to features like wifi/3g then to the processor employed)

To the manufactuer HTC: Possibly but then they probably arrange their supply of processors long in advance even before a new device hits the drawing board

To the client e.g. Orange: I got the impression HTC have a list of devices available for branding which the providers like Orange just choose from according to whim. I expect each batch of devices is costed according to spec but the whim would probably still win out.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

kinda all of em really - it was quite a random thought to be honest...

wondered how much the processor cost is compared to say a P4 chip...

[Guest mupwangle]

>>Hmmm. For some reason I'd got it into my head that it would be called the M3000

Originally most stuff on the web said M3000. Then it all changed that since it is the logical successor to the M500 not M2000 then it would be M600. Seems sensible. ;-) Everything I've seen since says M600.

[Guest Pondrew]

Agreed, it is fairly logical.

Time will tell...

[Guest cactusbob]

Both processors are based around the same ARM core (the OMAP is slightly more up to date).

Remember these are RISC processors so clock speed isn't entirely relvant. I think the main thing to be concerned about is what other chips are installed in the package. The OMAP effectively has two processing units, but the main bottleneck with both architectures wil be the slower I/O components.

Most CPUs are constrained by their memory, or in the case of a PC - disk I/O

Clock speed is mostly irrelevant these days - Look at the Intel - AMD stuff. AMD chips can run a slower clock speed than Intel but still be quicker. Its how many ops per clock cycle that count.

It really annoys me when I go to somewhere like msmobiles.com, and I hear that guy ranting on about how a device is too slow to run Skype. Who cares, Skypes codec is inefficient anyway, but I think a wizard would run it quite happily. Besides the sort of people who use Skype aren't the sort of people that generally talk to people on a phone :-)

rant>

CB

Edited August 25, 2005 by cactusbob

[Guest tiger33]

Hey there guys

i really want this product but one thing concerns me

i want to be able to use skype on the phone www.skype.com

do u think this will work with skype?

[Guest bretto]

Hey there guys

i really want this product but one thing concerns me

i want to be able to use skype on the phone www.skype.com

do u think this will work with skype?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

:o :( :lol: