Make A Ranking ?!, Hardware Ranking; what is important ? Options

[Zuse]

Hi all,

just read a bit here and there and noticed, that many people have quite different opinion what a "good" PDA should include. As far as we come to software this is not critical as everyone can change it later over and over again.

As far as the hardware is discussed there should be a ranking to meet the opinion of most people out there.

E.g. I totally need no finger-print reader. IMHO, these devices are useless and it was demonstrated that this devices can be easily entrapped (more easily then a good password). Hence, they give a totally wrong feeling of security.

On the other side, battery-life-time is more important to me than everything else.
What do all these bells and whistles mean if you can only run them for 1.5 hours without recharging? I like to see a device with a more then full working day (10-14 hours) continuous runtime, which should end up in charging the device every third week or every month for normal usage vs. power off periods.

Thus, for sure a web-cam will be fine, but if it will eat up 10 % of my battery life time, I really can live without it.

For me the most critical point to create the perfect PDA would be therefore, the development of the best power-management available on the PDA-market.

Furthermore, try to keep everything as flexible as possible. Instead to integrate a web-cam at the top of the display (as some sonys-laptops did), it might be a good idea to create a hidden USB port there. There are hundereds of very tiny cams on the market already, just stick one at the top of the display if you need one. This will gurantee, that later developements (e.g. more pixels, more fps etc.) can be easily upgraded by everyone. On the other hand, there might be some smart users, which find other devices on the market to be usefull.
In addtion, this will reduce the price to a affordable barebone set-up with a lot of individual add ons.

Just my two cents

Zuse

[Ferret-Simpson]

hehehe, No, it's the 20GB CF Microdrives that are out "Soon" I'm referring to. Gods damn, I don't mind USB connecting or wifi connecting to my camera if I can copy the images to my 20GB internal CF card!!

I have a poodle, and an XDA Exec (Universal) and those are the two designs I'm thinking to hybridise. Obviously, We've looked at all sorts of things neither have: Accelerometers, 5.1 surround sound. . . But essentially, what's most important for me, is a hybrid of the best bits from the XDA, the best from the poodle, and the bugs removed. . . From the XDA: General layout and rough spec. From the Poodle. . . Linux, multifuction bootloader (Altboot), CompactFlash/MD Storage, Irda (If poss) Lanyard loop, and more useful status indicators.

And ironing out bugs? Like having two cameras on the XDA, and no quick-reference screen. Pull that from the Samsung phones. . One camera, two screens. Another bug? The Torch. . WTH? That should be a burst flash! NOT a weedy LED lamp! The XDA is as solid as my old Clie, so a nice aluminium or Mg alloy case is nice. . .

Heh, I'm a typical consumer. What I want, is what I've got. . With just a few tweaks.

[adf]

Heh, I'm a typical consumer. What I want, is what I've got. . With just a few tweaks.

I guess that about sums up my position too... a better linux clamshell than my 3100 and one for which software doesn't have to be reverse engineered, or simply guessed at.

[nevarrie]

Heh, I'm a typical consumer. What I want, is what I've got. . With just a few tweaks.

I guess that about sums up my position too... a better linux clamshell than my 3100 and one for which software doesn't have to be reverse engineered, or simply guessed at.

I many ways I have to agree that I like the current options if they just had those few tweaks(SL-C3200 with wifi, bluetooth and GSM/EGPRS). That is what I need right now, and with the fact I go through phones and PDAs every year to 2 years that maybe what I need now.

Since I just bought a motorola ming, to me I see the PocketPenguin project as what I will want to get and uses a year or two from now, so my opinions and views may be a little different. Also when I got my sl6k 2 years ago it became my primary computer for almost a year(my ibook replaced it). I do have to say I miss having something as small as my 6k as my primary computer, so I guess I am not a typical consumer either.

Though I really can not say if I would need a device that has 5.1 surrond sound but if I say this as my primary machine what I could hook up to my 42in display using the hdmi and uses my frogpad or other bluetooth keyboard it might be nice to be able to have the 5.1, video on lan is where I see that useful. But I think that option might be more of something out of a dock maybe.

I guess most of it goes back to how people plan to uses the device(s) that are created. In may ways the ranking does make since since it lets us know what feature people plan to uses. If we are basing the device off of what the masses want then this would be the way to go. If we are basing the device off of what would be nice to have then we need to see what can be include and see if it is even practical.

Just my thoughts durning my first cup of coffee this morning.