QVGA V/s VGA for GTA03 (was something about yummy CPU-GPU combos!)

[Lally Singh]

On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 6:44 AM, The Rasterman Carsten Haitzler
<raster at openmoko.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:10:20 +0000 (GMT) David Samblas Martinez
> <dsamblas at yahoo.es> babbled:
>
>> Hi Carsten
>>
>> I suppose you passion to be in favor of qvga has to have an strong reason.
>>
>> You have asked to us why be prefer vga vs qvga and I thing this long long
>> thread can be resumed as "because is better" (isolating it to resolution
>> question only)
>>
>> I propose you to the answer the reverse question and please be as truefull as
>> you can. You considerer than downgrade the resolution will improve so much
>> the perfomance of the hole system to justify it? if so, as long as  this
>> decision is only concern to GTA03 (the camera version of GTA02 to simplify) I
>> will change my mind and advocate for a qvga version, and in the marketing
>> view it well still make sense, one version to professional use with no camera
>> and more res to console/spectrometer/and other remote control funny  stuff
>> and other more phone like with camera able to do all the above but not so
>> clean so more for hobbyist than profesionals, of for other needs, mean while
>> booth can coexist and costumer is able to choose it will be more than pretty.
>
> it is an option for gta03 - if there is enough push to go to it, but it is
> unlikely. gta04 and beyond is an unwritten book at this stage and i want to
> know what happens when we go to differing resolutions. at the end of the day
> many phones still are produced to this very day at qvga resolution. it is not
> unusual. but i suspect we may need to go to qvga or wqvga at some point out of
> necessity (eg we make a miniature phone that is 1/2 the size of the freerunner
> - qvga is very very likely - or even less as vga just wont be available at
> that size). it all depends on many factors.
>
> i am beating the qvga drum because i seriously think that vga - at the physical
> size we have (2.8") while looking gorgeous for stills and text, for most people
> is a blurr and overkill in cost and drags down performance.
>
> maybe i am focusing on the more average joe who doesn't want an 80x24 terminal
> - the average person who wants just to make calls, read and write sms's and
> take some photos... for the most common uses of a phone qvga is more than
> enough. vga is only "necessary" for some very specialised uses. other than that
> it's just bragging rights on "my phone has more pixels than yours" :)
>
>> But if this decision concern GTA04 and beyond ,or gta03 will replace gta02,
>> I will not agree(LOL, I said it like I have some influence in openmoko
>> decisions) because we must go forward and increase specs (and performance),

Let's be honest with ourselves.  The regular joe's going to buy
iPhones (or, *shudder* RAZRs) for quite some time.  You can't just
walk into Verizon to buy it, the software for the device isn't
finished, and it costs twice as much as an iPhone.  It's going to be a
geek phone for some time.

GTA04(5,6?) may be interesting to consumers, but that's a ways off.
In the mean time, ignoring the current primary demographic -- geeks --
will kill off the phone before it has a chance to become usable for
the demographic you want: consumers.


-- 
H. Lally Singh
Ph.D. Candidate, Computer Science
Virginia Tech