Saw this interesting handheld PC pop up, Ryzen embedded with Vega 8 Doesn't look awful, I wonder how well it will perform? https://www.smachz.com/ Low PC settings probably look quite good on such a small screen.
Calling it now: it'll never see the light of day. Pre-orders opened back in March, but only after it had raked in nearly half a mill on Kickstarter in October 2016 and the same again on Indiegogo with an April 2017 launch date. The October 2016 crowdfunding push wasn't even its first outing: it was originally known as the SteamBoy until Valve said "err, don't think so, guys" - and that was announced in 2014 with completely different specs and a promised 2015 release date! Not only did said dates whiz past with no sign of a device, they hadn't even finalised the hardware: the original SteamBoy design was an unnamed quad-core with 4GB RAM and 32GB storage behind a 5" screen, then the Kickstarter/Indiegogo Smach Z was an AMD Merlin Falcon RX-421BD with 4GB/8GB and 64GB/128GB storage behind a 6" screen, and now it's suddenly turned into a Ryzen Embedded V1605B with up to 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Oh, and the pre-orders it opened in March? "Oh, we'll ship in May!" Guess what didn't ship in May? Yeah, the Smach Z. They're now saying September, and I'm taking all bets on whether when September rolls around they say "oh, whoops, we meant May 2019..."
Didn't realize it had such a history, first I'd heard of it, clearly missed the news that day Apart from its chunkyness it looks good.
Awful advert, awful name, awful design. Looks like some cheap, generic Chinese gaming tablet thing. Happy to be proven wrong, but I reckon (if it ever launches) it'll be end up being heavy, poorly made, prone to throttling and have terrible battery life.
It's always going to be hard to package something like this, look at the switch it is awful and it only has a mobile processor never mind a fully fledge PC, still I don't mind this, perhaps as I've come from the age of very clunky handhelds and owned most of them I am a bit more chill on it As to whether it'll come out, it was a friend working at AMD who shared this that piqued my interest, he seemed to think it was real but then he does have a vested interest in selling the chips.
THE SWITCH IS LOVELY YOU GOD DAMN HEATHEN. Seriously, it's the only console I actually find time to use these days. Shame about the plastic screen, though: for want of twenty pee in materials it could have been so much better. Stuck a glass screen protector on mine, 'cos I've seen how easily that thing scratches.
Screen is fine though I mainly use it docked so perhaps have not noticed its the controllers that let the whole package down.
Even if we ignore the dodgy and long history of the Smach, the supposed specs immediately reveal a big concern: Taking what is essentially a "gaming" smartphone, swapping in a 12 - 25W chip, installing full fat Windows and promising up to 5 hours of gaming. Dear Smach: Pull the other one because you'll be lucky to get near those supposed 5 hours in Solitaire...
It does say 2-7 hrs, its like Lynx all over again , or like Switch where the tegra TDP is 15w, same as the chip in the Z which has a default TDP of 15w. Good luck to them, i'm still interested, it can go in the cupboard with my other tech junk .
In the spec list it says 2 - 7 hours, on the main page it says up to 5 hours gaming, so they haven't made up their mind as to how much they want to lie. Yeah, TDP of the chip in the Swtich is similar to this but the Switch doesn't have to deal with full fat Windows, the screen is lower res plus the controllers of the Switch have their own dedicated battery reducing the load on the main battery. The logical conclusion being that battery life must be orders of magnitude worse than the ~3 hours of the Switch.
No not logical at all, it has ~2.5x the battery capacity of the Switch at 46Wh in those big arse grips vs the switch at 16Wh +1.9 per controller, this thing is going to be a weighty beast, sure it will waste power as it is not fully embedded due to being upgradeable with plug in Dimms and M2 drive etc, I think even the CPU is a plug in module, still scope for a bit of life. It also doesn't have to run windows.
Try using an android / windows dual boot tablet and you'll find that battery consumption is orders of magnitude worse when running windows, 2.5x doesn't come close to be enough. While it is merely an assumption that Switch OS (for the lack of a better term) is as kind to the battery as Android I don't see any indication of the opposite being true. Sure it doesn't have to run windows, but if you actually wanted to play the games they advertise as compatible then that choice quickly evaporates, they even promise uplay compatibility and trying to run that through Wine is at best a nightmare: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=16459
I use android emulation on my 4k Toshiba laptop (so 4x pixels and massive backlight on a 12.5") with an i7 and it goes over 4hrs no problem, it has 43Wh battery, so don't know why you think its an issue? My Radius also has a 15w chip. Concerns with it seeing the light of day I understand, a battery issue with that size battery, I don't.
With the fake prototype and all the drama from the company it's probably not even worth discussing until it's on store shelves and we have actual specs.
