Entries tagged 'cat:Hardware'

Entry created on 2024-12-28 Authors: steeph (338) Categories: Computers (15) Hardware (13) Mouse (1) incomplete (32)

I use the mouse a lot when I'm on a PC. And I have very specific expectations to a good mouse that I haven't seen met in any product. I know that my expectations must be high, considering that others don't seem to have them. But I also think that the differences between a 20 Euro mouse and a 150 Euro mouse are very small. I believe that others would like a mouse with the features that I desire in a good computer mouse. They may not realise it because it doesn't exist. But I would be surprised if I woudl be alone with these preferences. I'd like to describe those features here for that reason, but also with a little bit of hope that somebody might have a tip for me for a product to try out.

Form Factor

Most ergonomic mice are restricting because they prevent switching the position of the hand from time to time. Therefore I'd profer a simple shape with no unnecessary folds and pertrusions. There are some not so default mouse designs though that I don't mind, like those that hold the hand in a 90 degree rotated position, as if you're going to shake somebody's hand. That form factor likely prevents issues with your wrist. I'm not considering non-mouse pointing devices, like joysticks or trackballs. Althought I like the idea of a pointing device that only sends out positional information relative to a screen's center and physically snap back to their center position when untouched. I'd try one of those if it would be supported by an OS that I'm using.

Buttons

I don't really need more than three button. with less than three, I definitely miss the missing ones. But I never got used to additional buttons enough that I'd use them regularly. The same goes for additional wheels. Three keys and one wheel are enough to to many things on its own. For more there are enough additional keys on the keyboard to press and hold down. So I'd prefer there to not be any additional buttons that could be pressed accidently and cause unexpected/unintended behaviour. The three usual buttons should be hard to press compared to most mice. I would like to have to use some force so that it is impossible for me to ever accidently press one by sliding across the surface with a finger, by slipping off the scroll wheel or from random finger spasms. I don't need to be able to click repeadedly very quickly. I don't want the buttons to bounce back to support additional clicks. I want an anti-gamer mouse in this regard. Touch fields that aren't disabled by default also are unacceptable to me. I don't think I'd mind a bit of travel as long as there is a clear clicking point.

Caseing, Size and Weight

I wouldn't mind a rugged case that doesn't mind being handled roughly. Or a sealed one that doesn't mind being under water and can be cleaned easily. A metal case isn't so nice because it can feel uncomfortably cold. But metal parts would be good because they add weight. I haven't had a mouse yet that's as heavy as I would deem ideal, even after adding steel weights. But most mice can be brought to a comfortable weight by filling most of their free space inside with steel parts. The other things where I'd like my ideal mouse to go above what's considered reasonable is its size. I don't want my hand to hover over the mouse like a spide with long legs. I want my hand to completely lay on the mouse. The wrist on its back, leaving the forearm lifted from the table; the fingers resting on their respective buttons without bending up much. My hands are surely larger than average (although I've seen people with much larger hands.) So a mouse for me should also be that large. Some ergonomic office mice come close to such a comfortanle hand position. But they seem to be made for average-sized hands. I haven't seen a really large mouse like that yet. Maybe what I feel that I want would look rediculous. Maybe it would be so. But so did 5 inch phones when they first came out. And I argue they also fill hands more comfortably.

Scroll Wheel

I have very specific ideas of how the scroll wheel of the perfect computer mouse should be. There should be exactly one. I should be between the left and the right button (because that's what I'm used to and it works very well that way, not because I believe there have been enough expreriments for the perfect position), pertrude above the left and the right button about 3 or 4 millimeters and be about two cenrtimeters in diameter (or a bit smaller). It should serve as the middle/third mouse button. (That one isn't necessary, but very useful sometimes.) So far so usual. It should not be tiltable to use it for additional buttons/functions unless this feature is deactivated by default. The wheel should have haptically clear steps or clicks that reliably corrospond to scroll steps. It should never come to rest between two steps. Some force should be necessary to turn the wheel so what brushing it on one side accidentally (as an example) won't turn it a click in either direction. The surface of the wheel should have a rough and deep rubber profile. Only very few gamer mice ever had scroll wheels with a profile as rough as I want one. And of those most have been changed for mass profuction. And of the one remaining mouse with a scroll wheel nearly as rough as I would deem minimal, only the first shipment had it. Even in mice with changable wheels or surfaces I've never seen one with a grip nearly good enough to call it acceptable. Basically, what I want it a scroll wheel that never turns unintentionally, always turns 100% reliably when turned intentionally, even with greacy as fuck fingers because I'm eating chicken wings in between very important scrolling action and I don't have time to wipe my fingers. There should be little rubber spikes or canyons that aren't reduced to a millimeter after a few years of scrolling (or the wheel needs to be replacable).

Battery, Wireless, Cable

Of course a wireless mouse is nicer than a wired one. Battery powered devices should have standardised replacable batteries. But I see the problems with that in mice. Nowadays I would actually be OK with a non-replacable battery in a mouse (I am already). But I'd also like one that takes Canon LP-E6 batteries or similar small camera batteries. If it is a wireless mouse it should use little currents to make it work. With a battery with 1.5 Ah or more charging shouldn't be necessary more than once a year. But a wired mouse is OK, too, if it has a good silicone cable.

(tbc)

I may be like Homer Simpsen when he designed his dream car here. But I expect that I will only be convinced of that by giving me my supposed dream mouse to use.

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Blank Keyboard

Entry created on 2024-11-23 (edited 2024-11-24) Authors: steeph (338) Categories: #100DaysToOffload (41) Computer (75) Hardware (13) Keyboards (5) Typing (1) Languages used: en (189)

Some 10 years ago, I picked up a simple USB keyboard from the scrap box of a hackerspace before to see whether it really was broken. It was missing one key, which made me think maybe that's all that's wrong with it. Turns out I can do without the Numlock key and all other keys work perfectly. When I have to press the Numlock key I use a pen. I never had to move another keycap onto it.

My idea when I took this keyboard was to same working tech from being dumped and destroyed and to have a random spare in case I needed a USB keyboard because I only had spare PS/2 and one very cheap and bad 2.4 GHz USB keyboard (if not 800 MHz). But there's something special about it. It's a BLANK keyboard, which seems to be a brand solely marketing keyboards without any markings or labeling on any key. I had heard of them before and thought it's an interesting idea. But I wouldn't have chosen to buy one. At some point I needed a USB keyboard and tried the blank one for a while. Since then I use this keyboard for my desktop PC intentionally, not because I don't have another one. I thought I'd write down my experience in getting used to it and what it did to my typing.

It appears a bit surprising to me now but at my first experience with the Blank keyboard was what I expected at the time. I was using it at an opened laptop with a broken keyboard. And I was very glad to have a labeled reference in front of me. Typing a word or two took ten or twenty times as long because I didn't know what most of the keys were. Well, some are obvious (Return, Escape, Space, etc.). I must have cought a particularly patient time in my life. Because I kept trying to hit the right keys when typing. I also didn't really type long texts on that machine at that time. So it wasn't too much of a dive into label-less typing. There must have been enough moments where I hit the right key first try to motivate me to keep trying and maybe learn to type blindly. When the laptop keyboard had dried sufficiently I was very glad about being able to switch back again. Such a relief. But I chose to go back to the blank one for a while every now and then. There were so many times where I started to type one or half a key to the left or to the right, so I started to produce gibberish, deleted the last few characters, adjusted my hand's alignment a few millimeters and try again. Sometimes (actually still pretty often) it took five or more attempts to hit the right keys. That was how I typed for a long time. When I wanted to type "Foo Bar Baz" I typed something like "Gpp<<<Doo<<<Foo Nar<<ar<<<Nae<<<Nar<<<Bae<<ar Bau<u<u<u<t<t<z", sometimes much longer. That was the period where I was surprised to bring up enough patience to continue. There was pretty much no progress for months.

I'll leave it at that one example. But it was a long time during which I accepted that I often had to type things three or four times. I eventually stopped because I hardly noticed any progress. But when I again needed a USB keyboard and the blank one was the nearest one, I gave it another try. And I was glad about how quickly I got back into it. Now I did notice progress after a few weeks. Maybe the fact that I was off and on that keyboard every other day played a roll in that. That was a couple of months ago. And I am happy to be able to say that I am typing blindly now. Still not without errors. I probably hit a wrong key about a dozon times in this paragraph already. But it's bearable. And I'm not sure how many such mistakes I made before on a labeled keyboard because I never payed that much attention to that. Typing blindly always was something that I always thought of a very nice skill to have but one infinitely far away. Now I look once at the keyboard before I start typing and that's enough. Maybe I wouldn't need to do that on a keyboard with very clear J and F markings. But I doubt it. When I look at the keyboard before starting to type I look for the first key that I want to press, not F or J.

Now that I got that far I will probably continue to get better at hitting the right key at first try more often. Because I noticed that I stopped lookign at other keyboards as well, even with nice large labels or glowing keys. That should give me the necessary training over the next couple of years. Although right now I don't feel like I'm making any progress again.

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F(x)tec Pro¹ X

Entry created on 2024-10-05 (edited 2024-10-19) Authors: steeph (338) Categories: #100DaysToOffload (41) -e-OS (1) Android (4) Batteries (3) Battery (4) Computers (15) Crowdfunding (4) Hands-On (3) Hardware (13) Keyboard (4) LineageOS (1) Phones (3) Smartphones (4) Languages used: en (189)

So, I've hand this device with the weirdly complicated name spelling for a while now. But I haven't used it as my main phone since recently because I first wanted to flash a different OS onto it. I didn't have the capacity/time to take care of that among other reasons because it's something that I've rarely done, and never before successfully. After several failed attempts to get /e/OS to run on it, I've now settled fore LineageOS. Since I want to use it as my main phone from now on I don't think I'll experiment with any other systems on it for now, even though it would be the perfect phone to get some experience with Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish or some other Linux Distro.

Battery

The last time I've written about this device it looked like the battery was affected too much by having been empty for years, notz even allowing the phone to charge its own battery. Android suddenly shut down seemingly randomly and had 3 to 20 % battery when turning it back on minutes later evewn though it displayed 30 to 50 % when it turned off. Sometimes it displayed a higher battery charge after turning back on than when it turned itself off. Sometimes it would last less than five hours usage before it went down. This became better over time. It seems that Android became better at guessing the current battery charge. Now on LineageOS the battery doesn't last a whole day when it's used a lot, but so far it didn't do any surprise jumps or shutdowns. Technically, it lasts a bit over 24 hours with moderate usage. But that is with the last couple of hours under a warning LED (if I hadn't turned that off). According to the LineageOS settings, the battery is healthy and has 100% of its original capacity of 3313 mAh. That would be 113 mAh more than advertised. Maybe I'm just too spoiled by my previous 4000+ mAh devices with smaller and low-rews displays. I didn't do any independent measurement yet. (Edit: More on that in the last part of this entry.)

Keyboard

Probably the most important thing of this phone is the keyboard that makes it unique on today's marked. It is very similar to those of the later Nokia smartphones that still had keyboards. I sort of see it as an N900 with more room for a larger keyboard. It is crammed, but none of the keys are too hard too reach. Not even the number row, that has smaller keys very close to the screen. And every key on this board has a good reason to be there. As somebody coming from a Unihertz Titan Pocket with a Blackberry-style keyboard with a very reduced layout, I'm glad not only punctuatioin and number keys but also for proper arrow keys and four modifier keys of which the ones that are used as lot appear twice. I chose a German keyboard layourt because I'm used to it and can find every symbol I need on it, and it's useful to have the extra letters when I write in German. The Android it came with had only one German QUERTZ layout to select and it didn't match the labeling exactly. Some special characters were switched or missing, and it couldn't produce an apostrophe (') by any means. With LineageOS there is a 'F(x)tec QUERTZ' and that works perfectly now. After the first getting used to they keyboard is a delight to type on compared to any other phone I held in my hands in the last 5 years. I think I still like the Nokia N9300 and N9500 keyboard better. But the more layout closer to PCs does make more sense with a phone where apps aren't developed for that keyboard specifically. And I am enjoying the extra keys, especially on the command line. The backlight also works as one would expect, which is not a given in keyboard smartphones.

Camera

Let's not get into it too much. The camera isn't good. 48 MP doesn't mean anything when every picture that it produces is automatically heavily mushed by noise reductin. It's better than my last phone camera. It's able to produce photos with room light that aren't blurred to the point where you can't read anything. That's enough for me right now. It does have the bug where the camera app gets rotated when you open the phone (which forces all apps into landscape mode), but the image isn't rotated, but its dimensions are. The viewfinder isn't really usable with the keyboard open. But it's not as bad as it is with the Planet Computer phones/PDAs.

Display

Once a smartphone display has reached a certain quality, I don't have much to say about it. And that quality point has been matched even in cheap phones for years. It's bright enough, resolution is high enough, I don't know or care about the maximum frame rate, colours seem fine, viewing angle isn't an issue (very good actually), touch resolution is fine enough that it isn't a problem. It does have black spots in some corners. Apparently that is something that can happen when you bend a panel that maybe isn't advanced enough to be bent that much. The rounded edges are nice though and I don't mind the black spots as long as they aren't growing. I've never accidentally activaterd the touch screen while typing.

Fingerprint Sensor

It's located below the power button on the right. I haven't found a comfortable way of using it to unlock the phone, yet. Maybe I won't use it. It's irritating how often it thinks it's been used when I handle the phone and vibrated he phone. Sometimes it's locked for too many failed attempts once I actually want to use it.

Exterior

As for ports, there are two: USB-C and a headset jack. No more or less than necessary. There's one fingerprint sensor. There are four buttons: Power, volume up, volume down and camera. And then there's a SIM and SD card tray.

Sound

It has stereo speakers, which are actually placed on opposite sides, facing left and right when in landscape mode. They are loud enough and sound like phone speakers sound nowadays: clear, without any surprises and enough bass to not miss it during any sort of speech recording. The position of the speakers could be worse. They arent covered when the phone rests on somthing and they can't be accidentally covered both at the same time. But they aren't facing you directly and can't possibly both face you at the same time. So the sound will always be roomy if both speakers are on. Their distance also creates a problem that I've rarely heard in a phone: If both ar producing the same or almost the same sound waves, parts of them will cancel each other out before the reach your ears, especially if the phone isn't exactly in the middle between your ears and exactly horizontal and straight. At 50 cm distance, if you want to watch a video with sound, in order to understand ecerything, you have to turn up the volume so much that others in the room are wondering why you're watching at that volume. At least I have to and I would wonder. My solution is to turn one of the speakers off almost completely. One is still loud enough usually. In Google's Android the audio settings are hidden in advanced accessibility settings. On LineageOS audio adjustments are directly on the accessibility settings screen. Set to mono you'll still hear everything. The setting does not influence bluetooth earphones.

Practical Usage

Whether the screen is activated by opening the keyboard or by pressing the power button, it takes a second until the screen comes on. That's annoying, but I'm going to get used to it. It's the case with both stock Android and LineageOS.

For daily usage so far it has been great, except for the battery life. Once I've stopped downloading and installing lots of stuff every day and trying things out it has become better. Also I think the battery charge indication has been caribrated. Because it doens't turn off with two digits of battery charge left. I'be decided to go with the battery enabled all the time. This way it lasts well over one day, even when I use it a bit more than usual. According to both the phones own and my measurement the capacity is almost exactly as advertised. (4 to 13 mAh more. I didn't factor in the voltage.) But the fact that it's runtime is at least a third shorter than that of by previous phone (with a smaller battery) makes me think it that the screen and other parts are probably not as energy efficient. I glady charge it more often for the experience with the better keyboard.

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F(x)tex Pro¹ X

Entry created on 2024-08-03 Authors: steeph (338) Categories: #100DaysToOffload (41) Android (4) Batteries (3) Computer (75) Crowdfunding (4) Hands-On (3) Hardware (13) Keyboard (4) Phones (3) Smartphones (4) Languages used: en (189)

First of all: Look at the title. That's how the name of this device is spelled. I've never, and probably will never, be able to spell that correctly without looking it up.

I've contributed to the crowdfunding campagne in 2020. Various pandamic-related issues, a partly re-design, Chinese lock-down delays, devious shipping-issues and, during the last few years, suspected additional, unexplaned issues caused the delivery date to be postponed uncounted times. More than three years later, I've received my Pro¹ X arrived. That means that I guessed right about the makers not being the worst scum of the earth because the ran off with the money without sendind out the devices that we knew had already been produced. I don't know how this scam should have worked unless they sold the devices again to other people. But that was the general tone to which the comments on Indiegogo had goaded each other over the years.

I wanted a keyboard phone for years. I've had My experience with the Planet Computers devices, which some see as the competition. I've had more hopes for the Pro¹ X being the device I was whishing, searching and waiting for becasue it's keyboard is closer to those of the later slide-out qwerty smartphones, like Nokias N900 and because the Pro¹ X's predecessor, the Pro 1, has been reviewd positively by people with the same preferences as me.

So, the phone finally arrived. And, it didn't work. The battery hasn't been charged in years. It didn't charge. It did nothing electronic. But luckily some other campagne contributor has figured out a way to persuade the phone to charge. Interesting that they decided to send out the devices without knowing how the receipients could use them. Of course, the battery's capacity isn't what it was advertised as. In airplane mode with the display turned off and no app running the battery lasts for just over 24 hours. When used, the battery gets drained respectively quickly. But it works. Enough for a few sentences about my first experience.

The keyboard is not the theoretical ideal my brain has developed in the last 10 years. But I don't think that ideal exists. There probably are keys with a nicer preassure point and a click that feels nicer and is even more reliable. There have been in 2O02. But I didn't honestly expect that in a sub-1000-€ phone. The slide-lout mechanism is as snappy and firm as I've seen it described by users od the previous F(x)tec phone. I hope it lasts at least a few hundret times as long as the one on the Astro Slide.

The camera is fine. Much better than the alibi camera of the Titan Pocket that I'm currently using as my main phone. As it happens, I the week after I received the phone I stayed in the same hotel I was in when I tried out the Astro Slide. So I was able to make the same pointless test photos that I've posted in the Anstro Slide entry back then. (See below.) Okay resolution, mediocre sensore, unreliable auto white balance, usable but not enjoyable under artificial light (of normal brightness).

The screen is nice, which is the absolute minimum one expects in the cheapest of phones nowadays. It's bright enough, has a higher resolution than I need, has noticable colour-shift when viewed at an extreme angle. One edge is rounded, which is a first in my personal phone, but not really something I'll expect to use. It's more than fine. I don't need a display as great as what's common nowadays.

It's the best phone I had in my hands in years. The best for my preferences. If only the battery hadn't been killed by it's years-long storage period, the software would be the only thing I'd have to concern myself with in order to make this my primary phone. The pre-installed Android is very very Google-y. Not to my taste anymore. It works well, as one would expect. Not as buggy as with the Astro Slide and previous Planet Computers' Mediathek-based PDAs. Once I've installed LineageOS and replaced the battery, this may become my favourite smartphone ever. It might finally be the one to beat the Nokia 9300 for practical reasons.

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My Further Experience With (Trying To) Use Astro Slide As My Main Phone

Entry created on 2023-02-25 Authors: steeph (338) Categories: Android (4) Battery (4) Camera (2) Computer (75) Crowdfunding (4) Displays (5) Hardware (13) Opinion (7) PDAs (2) Planet Computers (2) Languages used: en (189)

This entry is referencing the entry 'Planet Computers' Astro Slide'.

After having owened and used both previous PDAs by Planet Computers (the Gemini PDA and the Cosmo Communicator), I partly knew what to expect from their new modal, the Astro Slide. I knew it wouldn't be a robust, top-notch state-of-the-art smartphone. Planet Computers makes devices for a pretty small niche and needs to sell these devices for a reasonable price despite their low quantity. After having used it as my main phone, I've come to the comclusion that there are reasosn to be disappointed by the outcome of the device anyway.

I've written about my initial impressions of the device. This entry just adds what further experiences I made while using the device as my main phone for ~42 days. tl;dr: I'm still disappointed.

The build quality is relatively low. But I underestimated and/or misremembered how annoying those buttons with no pressure point whatsoever are. Thy aren't even protuding, nor do they have a different color or texture from their surrounding. That means every times I want to turn on the screen of the phone without opening it, I have to either stumble around the edge of the device with my finger for a while, or I need to have a close-up look at the side of the device to locate the button, then fumble around with my finger for just a little while. That turns of the touch-screen. But unlocking it by using the touch-screen doesn't always work. Sometimes the touch-screen just doesn't seem to be in the mood to respiond to being touched in certain places. I also forgot how annoying it is to have a phone without working adaptive sc reen brightness. I have to turn of the brightness way up, above a sensible poiunt, to make sure it's readable in sun-light. Sometimes, adaptive screen brightness just turns it to 0 for a while, which effectively means it turns off the screen. I guess there's a reason why automatic screen brightness is turned off by default.

The screen is okay, but not very bright, hardly readable in direct sunlight. Colors aren't very accurate. And sometimes contrast and colors shift as if some filtwer was applied, for no reason. The speakers are small and not very loud, lack low frequencies completely (no bass). The headphone output is prone to CPU noise while the screen is turned on. The fingerprint reader is so unreliable it's best treated as if it didn't exist. It's useless. The sliding mechanism feels surprisingly sturdy. I didn't break it yet. But I'm sure something will break or come apart soon, as it was the case with my previous Planet Computer PDAs. The software isn't much better. Ecven though there are security updates available and a notification makes sure to permanently inform me of that fact, no updates can be loaded. The OTA update is fundamentally broken. Apparently Planet Computers didn't think it would be a necessary feature to be able to update Android!

I don't know if it's the Mediatek chipset that the device uses (Maybe Android support for that chipset really is that bad.) but using Android on the Astro Slide is just as buggy on the Astro Slide as it was on previous Planet Computers PDAs. Some apps aren't available for the platform. After every time Android boots some internal app whose function isn't clear to me crashes. Sometimes notifications disappear for no reason. Sometimes a notification sound plays for no reason. Sometimes the screen turns off and locks for no reason. Sometimes the device reboots for no apparent reason. It can be said that Android does run on it. But it's not the experience one expects from a system that is supposed to be native to and ships with a device.

The camera quality is just beyond embarassing. The sensor was obviously chosen by number of megapixels and price only. It's been a long time since I've seen such smushy and noisy pictures even from a <100€ phone. Battery life isn't as good as you might expect from a clunky devoce like this. My Google Pixel 4a with not even half of the battery capacity, despite being over four years old and in daily use, lasts longer than the Astro Slide with (very roghty and estimated) similar use.

When backing the Indiegogo project, my intention was to use the Astro Slide as a small Debian laptop for my packet. A mobile machine for SSH, FTP, some web stuff and for texting. It would have replaced its predecessor, the Cosmo Communicator, in that role. But Planet Computers stopped supporting any OS other than Google Android. Not only is there no official buld of any Linux distribution, the package mirror that used to provide DEBs for the Cosmo Communicator also quietly diasppeared. There doesn't seem enough interest in the device in the Sailfish community. Maybe some Linux support will come from users at some point. But I don't see any on the horizon.

With the previous Planet Computers PDA, the Cosmo Communicator, I had a fallback use case: an occasional PDA for SSH stuff while travelling, sometimes a tiny fileserver at events. But lacking availability of any non-googley OS, I feel compelled to ask: What is the Astro Slide for? I, personally, don't seem to have a suitable use case for it.

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Planet Computers' Astro Slide

Entry created on 2023-01-02 (edited 2023-01-16) Authors: steeph (338) Categories: Android (4) Battery (4) Buggy (1) Computer (75) Crowdfunding (4) Debian (1) Displays (5) Hands-On (3) Hardware (13) Keyboard (4) PDAs (2) Planet Computers (2) Psion (1) Smartphones (4) Software Update (1) Languages used: en (189)

I've finally received my Astro Slide. A smartphone with a physical keyboard that came out of a crowdfunding campaign that I've backed a few years ago. This entry contains my first impressions of the device, in the context of having used and having been disappointed by both its predecessors.

Specifications

Display	6.53 inches, 2340 x 1080 pixels
Processor	MediaTek Dimensity 800 (4 x Cortex-A76 + 4 X Cortex-A55)
GPU	ARM Mali-G57 MC4
RAM	8 GB LPDDR4x
Storage	128 GB
Cameras	48 MP rear, 13 MP front
Speakers	Stereo
Ports	2 x USB-C, 3.5 mm audio, microSD card slot
Wireless	5G, WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5.1, NFC, FM radio, GPS, GLONASS
Battery	3.500 mAh
Charging	10W Wireless + wired fast charging
Biometrics	Fingerprint sensor in power button
Keyboard	53 keys, slide-out, backlit
Dimensions	164 mm x 76.6 mm x 15 mm
Weight	300 g

Planet Computers

Planet Computers has created/produced and is selling three PDAs/smartphones with keyboards (Gemini PDA, Cosmo Communicator, Astro Slide). That's their legacy - smartphones of the clamshell kind (or slide-out in case of the new model, the Astro Slide) similar to the Psion Series 5. The form factor and keyboard of all three those devices is remarkably similar to this 1997 PDA. The opening mechanisms aren't. But enough about previous devices. Maybe I'll write about those two, since they are relatively unique devices.

Crowdfunding period

You can skip this and the next paragraph if you just want to know about the device and not my experience of getting it and my opinion on the crowdfunding process. The Indiegogo campaign ended in May 2020. Mass shipping of the produced devices was delayed until the end of December 2022 for various reasons. There was an availability/alleged scamming issue with important parts, forcing a redesign of the board including a switch to a different SoC. There were the usual discrepancies between time planned and actual time needed to finish steps. And there was a long series of problems caused directly or indirectly by the COVID19 pandemic. There was (and continues to be) a fucking huge pile of negativity and hostility towards the maker of the device. Maybe you know the sort of comments delayed crowdfunding campaigns tend to get. My impression is that people regret giving their money to a company as an investment with no security, lose hope to receive the device as expected, and then start to badmouth everything about the project and insult people who continue to support the company behind the project. I don't read much of the comments on campaigns that I'm not supporting. But I've never seen so much hate and unnecessary negativity for a fucking tech gadget. I'll refrain from repeating any details or telling any stories that don't have a point. But I wanted to mention it.

My personal take on the long waiting period: The stated delivery date at the time of backing was never realistic. Even the date to which it was later changed, or the one after that weren't to be expected to be the actual dates at which any devices would be delivered. Every tech gadget crowdfunding I've ever seen missed their delivery target date. But of course people will expect or pretend to expect to receive it before the stated date because that is precisely the purpose of stating that date. Anyway, most of the announced delays were sort of understandable in the current situation; even though Planet Computers surely didn't tell the (whole) truth all the time and their often denounced lack of communication skills is undeniable although not as big as purported by some. Instead of checking and filling the comments page weekly for two years, myself and other people who also didn't channel all their hatred into that page just didn't complain in the comments and still received the same device at the same time as the others. Although one good thing came of the complaining of some on the comments page: When a picture of a prototype or render or something (I don't remember) was shown in an update and people complained about the space between the feet not being filled with battery, Planet Computers made a poll that ended up showing that most backers want an even thicker device than it would have already become, and the design was changed to fill the last gaps with a bigger battery. Communication as a customer with them never feels great. They try to evade warranty claims, ignore questions and arguably lie if they feel that the response sounds better that way. My contribution through Indiegogo was locked for many weeks without an update. I moved house before shipping actually started. So I couldn't update my address on my own but had to send Planet Computers a message instead. They claimed to have updated it (ignoring other questions), but over a week later it was sent to the old address. Gladly UPS really tries to fulfil their task to the utmost satisfaction of the recipient.

Unpacking

At first I wasn't sure whether I even wanted to open the package. Because by I'm already waiting for another device that I discovered after backing the Astro Slide campaign but expect to like better than the Astro Slide. I shortly considered selling it unopened. But whatever, I wanted a treat now, not wait a few weeks for a better one. The packaging is of the sort that we have to come to expect from electronics gear that's not of the lowest price and quality. Nice, thick cardboard and not the simplest box design imaginable. I don't really appreciate this packaging the way others do. When getting everything out of the box, the bottom tray came out too. It obviously used to be glued in but ripped out with force. Also the holder for the SIM tray opening tool was damaged. If the box hadn't been sealed by a thick round transparent sticker, I'd say this box was opened before. Anyway, the device looked fine. When I turned it on I was surprised to find that it was already set up and the language was set to Japanese. Not the most obvious choice for a device with a EU charger and a German keyboard. It really seems to me like somebody else has received and tried out this device before.

Hands-On, Keyboard

My first impression is: It's thick and heavy, as we wished for in the poll. I don't mind that. It's supposed to be a tool, a PDA, not competition for the iPhone or not something to impress people with. The sliding mechanism is new. Both folding mechanisms of Planet Computers' previous devices didn't last long in my hands (or pocket). So I'm curious to find out whether this new approach works better. In the videos it looked more awkward to open than it really it. It's hardly possible to open with only one hand, but it's possible if you absolutely have to. And I think it would become even quite easy and less awkward as long as your hands are at least of average size. It's less fumbly to close with one hand though. After only a few tries of opening it with two hands I got the hang of it and I can do it quickly, without the edge getting stuck in the keys and looking really cool. Maybe that success is due to me using it too violently. But it doesn't feel like I'm straining or pressing anything in a way I shouldn't. So before I've actually used it for a while I'd say the new mechanism feels better than the old one. The keyboard layout is the same as with their previous devices: very much inspired by the Psion Series 5 PDAs from 1997 (and other similar PDAs from that time). For some unapparent reason they've changed the size of some keys though (Left Shift, Left Ctrl, Up, Down). The keys feel more firm than on my Cosmo Communicator, except those on the edges of the keyboard. During my first few tries typing text on it this feels better than with the Cosmo or the Gemini. But my main issue persists: Keys often to very often get stuck. Not in their pressed-down state. Rather they refuse to move down if hit in the wrong angle. When touch-typing on a too small keyboard, one hits the keys in all sorts of angles though. But beyond that I don't want to judge the typing experience. I find it too small for two-handed typing and it's too big and not made for thumb-typing. It takes quite some getting used to or training to type fast and reliably on it. But that's not the fault of the device. I'm sure it must have been the same with the Psion 5. Compared to most high-quality laptop keyboards the Astro's feels a bit cheap in that the keys don't travel consistently straight downwards depending on the angle from which they are pressed. When typing quickly and carelessly, keys sometimes can feel like the got stuck on their way down. But the key press usually gets registered, so that might not matter after getting used to typing on this keyboard. The experience is very similar, if not the same, to typing on a brand new Cosmo Communicator. The space key for some reason feels like it has hardly any travel. But it works well when actually typing text. The bugs that were there in the previous devices haven't been addressed. There's still ghosting when pressing more than two keys, caps lock still sometimes gets enabled accidentally and the caps lock light still sometimes is off when caps lock is on and vice versa.

First few minutestimes trying it out

A certain standard for features, form factor and quality has became standard for smartphones. The form factor of the Astro Slide is obviously different. The technical features can be looked up in the table above. For the perceived quality and experience I'll just list things that I found noteworthy during the first few times using the device. When the device is close, the screen flashes to maximum brightness every time it turns on. The display can not be turned off while the device is opened. It turns off after the set time of inactivity. There is now automatic screen rotation based on the device orientation, like in any other smart phone since the iPhone. But more prominently placed, there is also a setting in the pull-down menu that lets the user switch between landscape and portrait mode as long as the device is closed. When it is opened, the setting is ignored and the screen is set to landscape mode. When the device is closed again, the setting gets changed to portrait mode regardless of what it was before opening or while open. The lock screen is always in portrait mode when closed and always in landscape mode when opened. That mess needs to get sorted out. But, as long as you only ever want to use the Astro Slide in portrait mode when closed and only ever use it in landscape mode when opened, it should be fine. Except when booting the device while it's opened. Then the screen is in portrait mode and can only be changed by closing and opening it again. This could be done properly. But since it's not, having two separate automatic screen rotations (based on opening/closing the device and based on orientation) plus a manual setting may have been the wrong choice.

There is a notification from "System Update" with the title "System Update" and the message "System Update" that's almost always present. Sometimes it disappears for a short while, then it comes back. It can't be dismissed, opened, turned off or blocked. I bet there are system updates because the OS is pretty old by now and I've never done an update. But I also don't see a way to do an over-the-air update. The check in the settings says there is no update even though the security check says there has been a security patches available for over a year. Too bad those update problems weren't fixed after causing me so much frustration with the Cosmo Communicator. I'll have to research doing the update manually if I want to keep using Android. (I probably won't though.)

The keyboard backlight still doesn't turn off automatically even though there is an "Auto Keyboard Backlight" setting that seems to affect nothing. Same as with the predecessor. Maybe the setting does something less obvious. But since questions like this are almost never answered and have been ignored for years, it feels pointless to try and find out. While browsing the settings I came across an empty sub-menu. No idea what I'm missing out on and why it's empty/there.

I got the Astro with only Android pre-installed. That option was supposed to become available sooner than the others. I don't intend to use it with Android. But since that's what it has right now, I'm only writing about Android in this entry. There is a Debian variant available from Planet Computers and probably also some mobile OS other than Android, but not officially supported by Planet Computers this time. The Android comes with Planet Computers' own apps and with the Vivaldi browser pre-installed. It's also heavily bloated with Google apps. I assume Google requires this to allow Google Play Store access. Very many permissions are already given to Google apps. As with other Google Androids using Google apps and sending Google all your data feels optional but isn't. The setup after a factory reset was quick and easy. I was basically just asked for a language, that's all. The user is not forced or even asked to sign in to or create a Google account unless one of their apps is opened.

I like the display. It has no high frame rate, no resolution beyond what can be detected with perfect eyesight but also not less. It doesn't have extremely thin borders. The viewing angle is as good as it gets (better than with my recent Google Pixel). Nothing noteworthy about colours. It's a very good display. The pictures that the cameras produce are very bad though. I didn't test it in bright sunlight. I'm sure there's no major problem there. But in normally lit rooms and on a cloudy winter day outside the picture quality is really crappy. Pictures are almost always blurred unless you try really hard not to move at all. And even then all pictures are a collection of blobs created by a noise removal algorithm. Every picture makes it obvious how cheap the camera sensor is. That's what happens when you put 48 megapixels in an area where 8 megapixels could have done a very good job. The front camera actually seems to make better pictures, but not by much. I had to take a picture of the lightbulb in a lamp in order to get a picture that's not a blobby mess. The speakers aren't quite as bad. But they absolutely lack bass. It's like cheap phone speakers from 10 years ago. Not nice for listening to music. But at least you understand what people say if you're in a small and quiet room.

There is a finger print sensor integrated in the power button. But it fails more often than it works and it is delayed. I've regretted trying to use it almost every time I did. It's much less annoying to completely ignore it. That may be the fault of my fingers though. I've trained several of them. But I also have had difficulties with the finger print sensor on my Google Pixel recently. (It says to clean it, but cleaning it doesn't help much/long.) All hardware buttons aside from the keyboard are very soft, leaving the user wondering whether the button press has been recognised when the device's reaction is delayed. It's unpleasant to turn it on with a button press. But I can imagine getting used to the button positioning and feeling.

Buggedibug

There there quite a few things that I noticed that don't work smoothly. Things that might be attributed to the apps that I'm using. But I found it conspicuous how many of bugs I noticed in the first few days of using the device. My guess is that the MediaTek chipset in the Astro Slide is just not supported as well and tested as much as more widely used chipsets. Here are a few things that keep annoying me: Sometimes while playing media, the entire system becomes incredibly slow, reacting very delayed, playing video with less than 1 fps, until rebooted. Sometimes (often) it's just slow, not being able to play an H264 video in 1080p. Sometimes part of the touchscreen isn't working. Sometimes the PIN touch keyboard isn't displayed on the lock screen. Sometimes the notification light lights up or blinks shortly without any reason. F-Droid crashed several times when trying to install some apps. Overall one should expect hiccups like that, sometimes having to use workarounds like rotating the screen when the area of the touchscreen that you want to use isn't working.

This text was not written on the Astro Slide. The keyboard is just too small for long texts for my opinion. But the more I use the device the more I get used to and over its shortcomings. I'll probably try Debian on it and possibly write about that too. Debian worked pretty well on its predecessor.

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Fred - Part 3 - Power Supplies

Entry created on 2021-04-18 (edited 2022-09-14) Authors: steeph (338) Categories: Case Modding (11) Computer (75) DIY (15) Fred (3) Hardware (13) Hoarding (5) Projects (40) Languages used: en (189) Topics: Projects → Case Modding → Fred (3)

This entry is a reply to or continuation of the entry 'Fred - Part 2 - The Case Lid And Cooling'.

After getting rid of the fan wall, the power supply was the main source of noise. The original PSU was a 3U redundant (2+1) server power supply. Noise does not matter with machines like that. I wanted to be able to have it running in my living room though, so the noise had to drop a fucking lot. Seriously, that's said so many times for people who don't work with servers like this. But people are still surprised when they hear a server fan for the first time. One of original 60 mm fans in the back is louder than my vaccum cleaner. And there were two of those, four 80 mm fans and five 40 mm fans. Three of the latter in the power supplies. Because I have no means to control the fans in software and don't need all the power the power supply can supply, I tried how much I can lower the noise by adding resistors in series to the fans. That did reduce noise a lot. But not only aren't these fans optimated for quiet operation, they are 40 mm fans. They will nver be quiet enough.

So I looked online for a power supply that

fits in the case (it's not completely an ATX case)
can supply enough current for everything and
is trustworthy/doesn't appear to be too cheaply built

I found a Newton Power Model NPS-300AB B, which doesn't meat points 2 and 3 but fits so perfectly into the case that it was a weird feeling to accept that it is mostly coincidence. I got it for a couple of euros on ebay. Most sellers seem to think it's some piece of premium equipment because it's used in some Fujitsu servers or something. But it's really just a cheap ATX power supply in a non-standard case. But because of that non-standard case fitted so well into my non-standard server case, I got it anyway. I only had to drill the screw holes and that was it. It's hardly enough for 14 HDDs and the internet says it's really cheap and not trustworthy. But I went with it anyway in order to pay tribute to r/thingsfittinginthings.

Not a year later the PSU died. Probably overstressed it for too long. I replaced it with a better SFX unit. I had a nice and thick plate of stainless steel lying around, from which I cut an adapter plate.

I'll attach some photos below. Maybe I'll continue this series of entries on Fred some other day with experiences of dust and heat and such over time.

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The old power supply after it died. (The unplugged fan and the missing screws do not resemble how it looked while it was in use.)

Maybe it would have lived longer if I had cooled it better. It wasn't efficient. It would have been too loud.

The new power supply. Fits well in height and leaves more than enough room for its modular cables (even for the ones that aren't used) and airflow.

I'm happy with the adapter plate and how it turned out, even though I originally made it for a different SFX unit and the fan cutout now seems redundant. But it actually looks kind of professional. That's rare enough with me. I bet you can't tell which part I made myself. (Or is this because the photo is so bad?)

I made my own modular cables with old molex connectors for the HDD backplane. The unused cables in the plastic bag has its place at the back of the PSU.

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Fred - Part 2 - The Case Lid And Cooling

Entry created on 2021-05-01 (edited 2022-08-21) Authors: steeph (338) Categories: CPUs (5) Case Modding (11) Computer (75) DIY (15) Fred (3) Hardware (13) Hoarding (5) Projects (40) Languages used: en (189) Topics: Projects → Case Modding → Fred (3)

This entry is a reply to or continuation of the entry 'Fred - Part 1 - Modding The Quiet Into A Server Rack Case'.

In this entry I'll describe how Fred's components are air cooled.

So, after removing the fan wall and unplugging the two fans in the back of the case there was no active cooling left. That's good for reducing noise, but not enough cooling for the hard drives, the CPU and the SAS controller cards. Since the case is not mounted in a rack and nothing is placed on top of it, I decided to use the space in the case lid to place larger fans.

The CPU

My idea was to replace the CPU cooler with a larger one that just fits into the case and have a fan above it suck out its hot air (also pulling in ait from the RAM modules next to the CPU socket). I fount a heat sink from Scythe called Iori (SCIOR-1000). Mounted on the socket there would be just enough space for a 15 mm fan above it. As it turns out though, the heat sink is large enough to cool the CPU passively and the RAM doesn't need any additional cooling, too. So the fan above it is not even plugged in.

The Extension Cards

Since the HBA and the RAID card that I'm using are designed for servers with a proper airflow, they need at least some additional cooling. Their heat sinks are quite small for the amount of heat they produce. But there was enough room above them to place a fan that sucks the hot ait directly from the extension card area out of the case. I was told these cards usually don't have any problems getting extremely hot. But I rather don't want to have them do their things for hours or days streight without any active cooling. Replacing their heat sinks with larger ones would only be a sufficiant option if there was room for much much larger heat sinks.

The Hard Drives

I don't want to have have hard drives run continuesly without any active cooling, especially when they are sitting in enclosures that don't allow for any aitflow without some amount of pressure. There is just no-where for the heat to go on its own in these tight drawers. I decided for three 140 mm fans that would neatly in a row behind the hard drive compartment and backplane. Since the motherboard isn't that large, there was nothing but a few cables in that area of the case. I've mounted an aluminium bar that I had lying around and tucked two pieces of flat plastic between this bar and the bar that originally held the fan wall at the bottom. That way, the air that is pressed in from above gets directed only into the hard drive compartment where it has no way to escape without passing the hard drives.

Unfortunately the room around the hard drives is so small that quite a lot of air preassure is needed to cool them as much as I wanted to. Running the fans at full speed all the time is hardly enough to keep them at a temperature that I deem acceptable. I tried to increase the cooling effect by sealing all the edges and other tiny spaces where some air could escape without cooling the hard drives. But this didn't lead to a measurable difference. I ended up taking out two of the 16 hard drives to increase the size of the duct. I chose two drives in the centre so that there now is a large surface where the air cools the remaining drives. That lowered the temperatures of the surrounding drives a lot. The temperature of the drives at the edges was of course hardly effected. But those weren't the problem anyway.

I'll probably continue about the rest of the case mod in a followup entry.

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