Do you think handheld PCs will ever be a thing again?

[Tairetsu]

2 minutes ago, Fgtfv567 said:

2006 called. It wants its netbook back.

I know it looks silly as fuck, but if you've hold a 3DS you'll know it's probably not that bad at all. 

 

1 minute ago, obsidian1200 said:

I'd say it has a great chance of coming to be, since it did have a product generation behind it called OpenPandora that also had units in the wild. Unfortunately, most places are out of stock of the older ones. 

That's what I noticed, it's a second generation product, which is kind of amazing, and it seems to have a far more lively community than the Smach Z ever had. 

[Fgtfv567]

Just now, Tairetsu said:

I know it looks silly as fuck, but if you've hold a 3DS you'll know it's probably not that bad at all. 

 

That's what I noticed, it's a second generation product, which is kind of amazing, and it seems to have a far more lively community than the Smach Z ever had. 

I have a 3ds, but it looks big and thick, not to mention that button placement is horrid. I mean they put a keyboard at the bottom and the gamepad controls are off center and away from the edge!

[Tairetsu]

1 minute ago, Fgtfv567 said:

I have a 3ds, but it looks big and thick, not to mention that button placement is horrid. I mean they put a keyboard at the bottom and the gamepad controls are off center and away from the edge!

The keyboard is kind of ridiculous, buuut the controls on top don't look so bad, I find that the analog being so close to the edge on the 3DS always makes my fingers hurt, and having them on the position where the touch screen would normally be alleviates that a bit. 

[Fgtfv567]

1 minute ago, Tairetsu said:

The keyboard is kind of ridiculous, buuut the controls on top don't look so bad, I find that the analog being so close to the edge on the 3DS always makes my fingers hurt, and having them on the position where the touch screen would normally be alleviates that a bit. 

I think it'd be wayy too easy to accidentally hit another button like Del, Ctrl, or Alt

[Tairetsu]

Just now, Fgtfv567 said:

I think it'd be wayy too easy to accidentally hit another button like Del, Ctrl, or Alt

Yes, it does seem to have buttons on places where my hands usually rest, but we'll have to see how much force they'll require to press, and how they actually look on a real life model. 

[Fgtfv567]

Just now, Tairetsu said:

Yes, it does seem to have buttons on places where my hands usually rest, but we'll have to see how much force they'll require to press, and how they actually look on a real life model. 

Is there any news on release date, progress, redesign, price? I'm afraid it might be vaporware

[Tairetsu]

I don't understand how it can run desktop applications if it's an ARM device tho. 

[Fgtfv567]

Just now, Tairetsu said:

I don't understand how it can run desktop applications if it's an ARM device tho. 

(I'm going to assume the Pyra)

Yeah, that's a big problem if you're trying to play steam games

[royalcrown]

So what do you want, an intel compute stick with a screen, a phone that runs X86 OSes ?

 

The whole point of the Compute Stick is to use an already dumb device with a large screen as a low end computer. What's the point of putting a small screen on it ?

 

If you do a phone that runs any OS you want, such as Linux, Windows, OSX, then you need to up the horsepower and the power density becomes more of an issue than it is now. If you don't make it powerful it runs like crap, if you do and keep it small then you need to keep it plugged in. 

 

This is exactly what a Surface is, how is it not a computer when it has a full set of hardware ?  

 

Were at the end of easy speed gains with CPUs, so things like games which need singe thread performance and not more cores are going to need a lot of power to run decently. 

 

I don't see any reason why a company would even try when the easier solution is to stream from the more traditional pc and use the phone/tablet/ whatever as a display. Even IPads how have something like steams in home streaming. you can also hook wireless controllers to all the devices now, so I don't see why they'd even do a handheld PC.

 

There has to be  more than a few people that want one and that's also not happening, current devices satisfy the needs of most users and having a phoneless phone with a built in controller isn't going to make enough money for it to catch on.

 

Just my 2 cents not trying to start a flame war.

 

 

[Tairetsu]

5 minutes ago, Fgtfv567 said:

(I'm going to assume the Pyra)

Yeah, that's a big problem if you're trying to play steam games

It's an odd device, but it looks rather neat.

 

 

 

4 minutes ago, royalcrown said:

all that

 

 

I seat on the opossite end, I don't see how it makes any sense to be tied to a desktop using a low-end PC when you can just use it on the go, especially if what you want is gaming, i'm realistic, of course I don't expect Crysis 3 ultra graphics or anything, but for low-end games that don't have android ports, which is a ton of them, or for just running your already existing copies of them instead of having to buy them again, same applies for any other software really, a different shell for a device you already own on it's full form that can do some, if not most of the things that you can do on your desktop already. 

 

Streaming is popular, but it needs a strong internet connection, and there aren't many devices that can do it on the go, maybe the 3G model Vita, and maybe the Nvidia Shield, which is, btw, still not a pocket device, but like I said, you need a very strong internet connection in your house, and in your device and it can't become choppy or everything goes to hell, having local hardware capable of running games natively is a lot more, estable, and personally I find that it makes more sense, and yes, there are small portable PCs right now, the surface pro, the expensier model, the one that comes with Windows 10 (not Windows 10 RT) does have all the capabilities of a normal desktop, and earlier in the thread there were mentions of devices like this as small as 7", which is still a bit big. 

 

I think that if anything, that proves that a certain market does exists, and that maybe making one of these with real controller built in is not that stupid, after all, the 3DS is the best selling console in the market right now, even more than the PS4, and mobile devices are the most popular gadgets in the entire world, if you could cram full PCs in them I think people would like that, they just kinda don't care right now (and talking exclusively about your average joe here) because their phones already do what they want: they let them browse the internet. But more heavy power users probably would find the convinience in being able to do more, hell, you don't have to exclude the phone from the device, but do keep in mind that right now, a lot of people already use hangouts, or whatsapp, or skype, to do most of their messaging and voice calls, 2 of which you can do from your normal PC. 

 

And shit, that was a long autistic wall of text, sorry'bout that. 

[Fgtfv567]

16 minutes ago, royalcrown said:

So what do you want, an intel compute stick with a screen, a phone that runs X86 OSes ?

 

The whole point of the Compute Stick is to use an already dumb device with a large screen as a low end computer. What's the point of putting a small screen on it ?

 

If you do a phone that runs any OS you want, such as Linux, Windows, OSX, then you need to up the horsepower and the power density becomes more of an issue than it is now. If you don't make it powerful it runs like crap, if you do and keep it small then you need to keep it plugged in. 

 

This is exactly what a Surface is, how is it not a computer when it has a full set of hardware ?  

 

Were at the end of easy speed gains with CPUs, so things like games which need singe thread performance and not more cores are going to need a lot of power to run decently. 

 

I don't see any reason why a company would even try when the easier solution is to stream from the more traditional pc and use the phone/tablet/ whatever as a display. Even IPads how have something like steams in home streaming. you can also hook wireless controllers to all the devices now, so I don't see why they'd even do a handheld PC.

 

There has to be  more than a few people that want one and that's also not happening, current devices satisfy the needs of most users and having a phoneless phone with a built in controller isn't going to make enough money for it to catch on.

 

Just my 2 cents not trying to start a flame war.

 

 

What we want is a 5 inch handheld x86 based machine that can play PC games with controller functionality on the sides.

 

Ok yes, the more powerful the hardware is, the more power it's going to suck, can't argue with that. BUT. What if it had a 720p screen. Remember, raw resolution isn't as important as pixel density. 720p on a 5 in screen might look nice if the display is nice too. Running games at 720p would also require less horsepower than running at 1080p, not to mention that it'd draw less power. The point of having the small screen would be a PSVita or 3DS replacement that would be portable and storable in my pocket.

 

Alright yeah, I could get a surface, but it's a tablet, and I need to put it on my lap, when I want to play it while I'm waiting in a line standing up. Not to mention the resolution is higher and would require more power, second paragraph.

 

Streaming games over the internet doesn't work for some people and one of those people is me. My home internet connection is 3-4MB down, 0.4-0.7MB up, so I cannot stream games over internet from my gaming PC WHATSOEVER. Finding a mobile hotspot at a local starbucks or the local laundromat won't give me good results, as there are other people there using the internet, not to mention the speed and router they have is probably going to be crap. Using my phone to play games isn't great as I have to DIY a mount to my controller, not to mention it thermal throttles during gamestream and provides a poor experience, even compared to my Steam Link. Buying a Shield portable and tethering to my phone doesn't work as even though I have unlimited data on my phone, other people are not as lucky and tethering other devices is limited at 5GB a month.

[Tairetsu]

Also, looking around in the Pyra forum, Steam games are definitely out of the question. 

 

Edit: Also, AMD has a ton of low-power consumption APUs and CPUs that could be used to power a mobile x86 machine, if you have a low resolution screen, 720p max, and a big battery, and are ready to accept 30FPS at medium-low details in modern games, I think it's definitely reasonable. 

[royalcrown]

Okay but wouldn't that pretty much be a phone with a controller ? A 5 inch pc that can play games and do computer stuff ? Why not just port windows to ARM vs reinventing the blackberry and putting on a controller. There are already some neat kickstarter bluetooth controllers.

[Tairetsu]

3 minutes ago, royalcrown said:

Okay but wouldn't that pretty much be a phone with a controller ? A 5 inch pc that can play games and do computer stuff ? Why not just port windows to ARM vs reinventing the blackberry and putting on a controller. There are already some neat kickstarter bluetooth controllers.

Even if you ported Windows to ARM you would need to port every single Windows program that has ever existed to it as well. 

 

It's actually exactly what that Python handheld thing did, ported a Linux version to ARM but it can't run the same programs normal Linux can because they need to be adapted or patched to run on an ARM device. 

[royalcrown]

Not if you ported actual windows , it'd just run badly. Ms would have to have the base code and the HAL but at the higher level it'd be able to recognize windows programs.

[Tairetsu]

1 minute ago, royalcrown said:

Not if you ported actual windows , it'd just run badly. Ms would have to have the base code and the HAL but at the higher level it'd be able to recognize windows programs.

I don't know, ARM is specifically used because it's lighter than x86, it only uses power when it needs to, I don't know how you would adapt that backwards, I can see how you would get a x86 device running ARM programs, and i'm not an expert, or an engineer or anything, but I don't see how you could do that backwards. 

[royalcrown]

.I imagine everything except the top layer of windows would have to be re written. That's what the HAL is for, it's basically the part that lets windows run on all the different hardware.

 

[Tairetsu]

7 minutes ago, royalcrown said:

.I imagine everything except the top layer of windows would have to be re written. That's what the HAL is for, it's basically the part that lets windows run on all the different hardware.

 

Isn't that what Windows 10 mobile basically is, tho? and it still can't make things like Steam run on continoum? 

[Josephdalepi]

20 hours ago, Tairetsu said:

I know! it also has a 960m inside of it right? which is danm impressive for something that size. Kinda envy you, I always wanted one, but they ran out everywhere before they even had time to drop on price, and the few places you can still find them they still go for about the same price.

 

Which I mean, is reasonable, because for a tablet that thing is ultra powerful to this day, I don't think there's any other tablet in the market so powerful. but I do gotta imagine that if they never continued with the series is because it didn't sold as well as it should of have, and personally I do think it had something to do with the price tag, maybe having lower end versions with less powerful hardware would of helped.  

 

Also the stealth is kind of interesting, the idea of notebooks that plug into desktops seems like it would have a bigger audience, somehow, and that's cool, tho I personally do want to have juice on the go, since my main reason for wanting portable computers is that I often find myself in the situation where I need to have all the power with me outside of my house, and carrying a tower, even a mini-ITX one with me just kinda, I mean, guess it could work, but if I could avoid it I would definitely do it haha. 

860m is laptop

tablet is actually a 640m le

either way

you interested in buying?

[Tairetsu]

7 minutes ago, Josephdalepi said:

860m is laptop

tablet is actually a 640m le

either way

you interested in buying?

Can't really afford it tbh, not at this moment at any rate, sorry. 

[Josephdalepi]

1 minute ago, Tairetsu said:

Can't really afford it tbh, not at this moment at any rate, sorry. 

damn

oh well

its a damn good tablet, but i dont really have much use for it

also, i recommend the windows tablets these days anyways

the surface is damn nice

[Tairetsu]

3 minutes ago, Josephdalepi said:

damn

oh well

its a damn good tablet, but i dont really have much use for it

also, i recommend the windows tablets these days anyways

the surface is damn nice

 

The ones mentioned early in the thread did seemed rather nice for light use and for playing light weight games. 

 

Really asking for more than that right now is more day dreaming than anything. 

[Fgtfv567]

40 minutes ago, royalcrown said:

Okay but wouldn't that pretty much be a phone with a controller ? A 5 inch pc that can play games and do computer stuff ? Why not just port windows to ARM vs reinventing the blackberry and putting on a controller. There are already some neat kickstarter bluetooth controllers.

Using x86 architecture would mean that more windows programs would be usable

[Josephdalepi]

23 minutes ago, Tairetsu said:

 

The ones mentioned early in the thread did seemed rather nice for light use and for playing light weight games. 

 

Really asking for more than that right now is more day dreaming than anything. 

the new tegra k1 and x1 processors are promising though

[Tairetsu]

4 minutes ago, Josephdalepi said:

the new tegra k1 and x1 processors are promising though

I don't know much about the mobile GPUs from Nvidia, I imagine they are also incompatible with desktop applications.