The Good Parts of Project Ara

[mallenwho]

I feel Linus doesn't fully understand the gravity of how awesome this concept is. This will probably be the last phone you will ever need.

 

These are the reasons why i backed phonebloks and why i back project ara:

 

(reason one is its PRETTY. Customization decals on the phone would look awesome, and with the tile effect, any combo could look awesome. Straight white. Monocolour. Paterns. Anything broken up with aluminium will look sweet. Ok designer fantasies out of the way.)

 

 

- COST - the $50 price is NOT a full phone cost. That is the cost of the metal backbone chassis with wifi antenna. You still have to pay for processor and camera and battery and actual phone antenna. the plan is for google to sell these backbones and have it an open marketplace with industry standards so other companies (nvidia, intel etc) can make their own processors to put in, at different costs. 

That if i want a last gen processor, i can pay $100 for it. If i want a bleeding edge processor. I can pay $400 for it. Exactly the same way the PC market works.

 

- CUSTOMISABILITY - These ports are designed as 2 way data and power ports. Which means you can put a camera on a larger block if you want; it just means you can't put a battery block there and you have to deal with a smaller battery. If you wanted only processor and 15 batteries you could. If you wanted 500gb storage but no battery you could.

 

And so with industry leaders providing different quality and cost blocks, you should be able to get almost whatever you want. Perhaps some overclocking too if they're open standards.

Get a Canon camera on the large block for $500, and then fill up all the medium blocks with batteries

 

Mount it to a quad copter, and put on a gps block, a camera block and an I/O block. Maybe have an entire gopro or quad copter chassis (see below)

 

Each block can have quality and power and you can choose what to focus on like with a desktop. The small DAC might just have a 3.5mm jack, which sticks out a bit or something. The medium one might come out at an angle to fit, have volume rockers and a tinny speaker. The large one has an awesome speaker, volume rockers, and 2 jacks for friends to listen to. You can carry that around with you just in case, then take out your camera temporarily or something.

 

Have 2 camera blocks that are synced HTC 1 m8 style.

 

These are SOME ideas i had off the top of my head. Up to manufacturers to make, not google. they have said they're making the chassis and software. Nothing else.

 

- SWAPABILITY - These blocks are supposed to be designed to be interchangeable between platforms. That when different sized chassis' come out for phablets and full tablets, I can just take my batteries and hard drive and camera from my phone and chuck them on my tablet which is only an extra $150 for the screen and chassis, and use each device when i need it. A tablet isn't always useful, neither is a phone, but having one set of hardware i can use in anything is awesome.

 

What if i put it on a camera chassis with lens mount?

What if i put it on a smartwatch mount which had 2 small slots, with built in processing? so i could choose whether i wanted gps tracking or heartrate monitoring, or battery.

 

- UPGRADEABILITY - saying that there is only one cpu that would fit in it is a bit of a bad statement. This modular system is being approached in exactly the same way as the PC industry is. You can swap out your processor for another one. Except that due to size constraints its going to be a combined CPU/GPU/APU/Motherboard chip. 

 

 

(although with this other concept you might be able to customize within the processing block)

If you look closely there is a locking mechanism on the edge of the slots, so it isn't going to fall out, and with open industry standards it will have as much tinkering potential as any desktop does.

 

- COMPATIABILITY - With the size constraints there is a maximum constraint, but no minimum one. You could put a camera which was 1% larger than the medium slot, but way smaller than a large slot, and if it came with spacer material in the box, then it would fit. That could keep weight down for people who want a 30g phone.

 

Yes you could make it thicker to put more in (see the camera in the background below) and again, that is a size and dimension compromise the consumer is willing to make.

 

 

So yes i think it is aiming for the cheap market, but also the adventurer market, and the fitness nut market, and the tinkerer market, and every single market out there. That is the point of this

 

That is the point of a desktop PC

 

that you can CUSTOMIZE IT depending on whatever you feel like doing at the time.

 

(if someone could link this to linus or luke that would be appreciated. It took a while to write)

((i don't really care if there are typos, but i am interested in discussion =) ))

 

Thank you =)

[Fred Castellum]

The main reason I support project ara because I love the concept of a upgradable phone. Customization comes secondary for me, first and foremost is usability and then upgradability. 

[AMICLG]

The main reason I support project ara because I love the concept of a upgradable phone. Customization comes secondary for me, first and foremost is usability and then upgradability. 

Exactly and with CPUs like the snapdragon 800 and 801 that use the exact same pin out, you can upgrade it without worrying about anything else like upgrade your CPU in a computer.

[JLCitadel]

Well said my friend, I was a little perturbed by their discussion of phonebloks and the misinformation.

[AlwaysFSX]

You give many great points, though I first want to see it working. I want to know that the hardware works and is supported by a lot of companies to see what kind of goodies they can come up with.

[mallenwho]

You give many great points, though I first want to see it working. I want to know that the hardware works and is supported by a lot of companies to see what kind of goodies they can come up with.

 

Yeah. It is identical in what structure it wants to be to the custom PC market. Individual components making a complete system, where each can be upgraded from different options from different manufacturers.

People don't go designing the individual chips on their motherboards.

 

And in this i do imagine due to the nature of the scale of mobile processors that chipsets and chips and entire processing blocks will be complete, maybe with a ram slot, and unchangable. That way you can keep compatability when you upgrade  a processing block.

 

Phones have a LOT of misc. hardware anyway, and a big big part of the modular design for me is choosing WHAT hardware you need. You could choose to scrap the gyroscope and vibrator if you wanted more battery. If you needed all connectivity ever you could get good wifi and 3g and 4g and bluetooth. If you don't ever need to connect and are on prepaid then scrap that module altogether and get a better speaker. If you never take photos ever, ditch the camera. If you use it for pro photography, ditch the speaker and get a giant camera. And then when music playing is crucial you just swap it in and temporarily go without a camera.

 

The hardware would be longer lasting, and mroe versatile, therefore saving materials and cost for users. Cameras and speakers would last many generations of phones like a hard drive or optical drive does in a modern computer. And like i said you can swap out things into tablets or entire cameras, to transfer data instantly and save money for the end user.

 

Everything good about the PC market, which people on the forum should understand, in a phone,

 

rather than buying HP systems all the time, or for the fancy people maybe an alienware or ASUS something, build it yourself.

[Snake]

I dont think many people get that this could be the last phone you may ever need to buy due to the fact a new CPU comes out you can just upgrade.

I personally cant wait this is going to be a game changer from Google once again.