Comments Locked

33 Comments

Back to Article

  • NXTwoThou - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link

    I'm interested in the resolution and accuracy. The marketing speak all seems to be about large scale scanning. Would be nice if it was flipable into small scale.
  • JeffFlanagan - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link

    At $500, I'd probably get one just to play around with, but you'd have to be pretty serious about using the device to pay over $1k. It'll be interesting to see how many they sell.
  • UpSpin - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link

    And just as with Google Glass or Oculus Rift or ... this is not a device for consumers, but for developers. Google doesn't care how many they sell, they just want developers to find a usage for this technology. That's the reason this tablet has such high specs. Google doesn't know exactly what to do with the technology, they have ideas and are interested in it and allow others to experiment with it, to make this technolgy worth some money.
  • JeffFlanagan - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link

    They don't care how many they sell, but I'm sure they care about getting them into the hands of developers, and this developer isn't going to spend over $500 on something that has unproven potential to help me earn my living. I expect that plenty of other people will though, so I'm no loss to Google.
  • mayankleoboy1 - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link

    I wanted an AMD APU instead of teh K1 in a google device. AMD needs google to survive, and I'm sick of Nvidias crappy SoC's.
  • HisDivineOrder - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link

    AMD APU's wouldn't have the battery life of an nVidia Tegra K1.
  • fteoath64 - Friday, June 6, 2014 - link

    Neither would the APU have enough horsepower to drive the tablet and needed internal fans likes the latest Broadwell superslim Win-tablets, so K1 is the ONLY choice within the required time line. QC is NOT going to rush a special S805 just to win this "small" deal of Google.
    Besides the gpu feature set of K1 is proven with lots of software compatibility in Tesla workstations. So advanced developers of vision based apps will drool over this developer kit.
  • CiccioB - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link

    Crappy SoCs are still better than no SoCs.
    How many AMD ARM based SoC do you know? Or even a x86 SoC that enters nvidia K1 power envelop?

    AMD needs to release adequate products to survive, no count on others. If others do something, good or not depend on your point of view but the products do exist for AMD competitors, while AMD performs long sleeps it is only their fault.
    They have missed all new markets in latest years. Starting from GPGPU by constantly developing that useless (for GPGPU) VLIW architecture and lastly presenting a GPU capable architecture with zero SW support, to netbooks by releasing an Atom like crap chip 4 years later when the nebooks hype were already ended, to the mobile market where they have no ARM based products not low power x86 based ones.

    AMD needs products, and good ones if they want to survive with all these new competitors that are reducing x86 market. Counting on others just means they won't survive as others do their own interests, not AMD's ones.
  • Death666Angel - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link

    "Crappy SoCs are still better than no SoCs.
    How many AMD ARM based SoC do you know? Or even a x86 SoC that enters nvidia K1 power envelop?"
    Tegra K1 uses 11W when at full tilt and typically between 5 and 8W as with most performance SoCs these days. AMDs Kabini can reach that low (9W) with the E1-2100 and Temash are all between 3.9W and 8W. They are all also SoCs with not need for an FCH.
  • CiccioB - Friday, June 6, 2014 - link

    Idle consumption is the most important carachteristics for mobile SoCs, as you usually do not leave yor tablet running hours doing some work. How low are AMD Soc going in power consumption? What's the perfomance of a 5W x86 SoC vs a 5W ARM SoC? How big (and costly is) a x86 SoC that can deliver K1 performances?
    And you know, an ARM SoC is not only a CPU+GPU. There are many other components that allow to save power in many cases, like for example listening to MP3, watching video, doing light weight work, things that a x86 SoC is (still) not able to do.

    You see, you look at raw numbers from the wrong point of view of someone like me that doesn't really know anything about how those SoCs works and perform. Look at them from the other side of the wall: if AMD (and Intel as well) produced good SoCs they would be used in place of Qualcomm/Mediatek/nvidia ones, don't you believe?
  • TheJian - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link

    K1 just won the coveted GOLDEN award at computex, and Grid also won an award for it's category. I wouldn't say K1 sucks, or they snowed an entire show. Also the benchmarks are all over and it looks pretty unbeatable for S805 since some of those numbers are in also and it loses. Google isn't stupid, they chose this chip for a reason right?

    AMD needs ARM to survive and they are extremely late to this party. We have no idea if they will even have a good chip when it comes. Meanwhile NV has Denver coming from a very talented group if people in portland. Just google Nvidia Portland Patrick Moorhead and you'll get a good article describing the experience of that team (from Intel, Sun, Transmeta, AMD, HP etc etc). They put together a team with decades of cpu/bus etc experience and they won't put out a piece of junk as shown by the dual core denver benchmarks already out. It matches a quad K1 at 2.3ghz already and is only a dual 2.5! They were both in tablets and it would seem the exact same one so makers should have no problems replacing K1 old with K1 denver for xmas. We should see battery life like Apple's Swift or Qcom's Krait as all are custom and we see the results. The problem for Qcom is they won't be custom with 810. The roles are now reversed for NV/Qcom.

    https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=ca...
    For the lazy...NV's CPU team in detail from a guy who knows his stuff (#1 analyst). EX AMD guy no less (11yrs).
  • fteoath64 - Friday, June 6, 2014 - link

    You made a great point about AMD needing ARM to survive in the long term. Most would readily agree. However, if you look at AMD's team that addresses their "mobile strategy and products", you see really desktop and HPC type people there. Not in NV's case as they have dedicated mobile team that could really cut the giant Kepler core into the K1 without sacrificing compatibility and features, just dropping in performance due to the power constraints imposed on mobile.
    It will AMD years to match that (if ever). Of course, we wish AMD would as the competition would bring great products and tech to the mobile space.
  • Dribble - Friday, June 6, 2014 - link

    AMD currently enjoy living in x86's walled garden - just them, and Intel who demand huge margins giving AMD plenty of chance to undercut them. ARM is cut-throat with lots of very aggressive players and tiny margins. AMD is very late to that market and have no money. I can't see them having much chance selling ARM tablet of phone soc's. Something specialist maybe but not in the general scrum that NV is in with the K1.
  • extide - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link

    Wow this could be really awesome. Imagine mapping out your house, work, etc, that could be kinda fun/interesting.
  • SleepyFE - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link

    You see?!?!?! This is how you sell big brother to people. Wow look at what you can do!! I'm gonna map my house and upload to Google maps! Awesome!

    They know too much about you as is. Thank god it is too expensive for most people.
  • mwildtech - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link

    Did God come up with the price?

    Also, nobody cares about most peoples mundane life. Why would someone or an organization spy on you, just to see you are watching Game of thrones or wanking off.....
  • SleepyFE - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link

    I'm not saying they would, i'm saying they should not have the option.

    Plus once your house is on google maps every terrorist can look at it and study your schedule. Also not a big deal until they kidnap your kids (probably home before you are) and make you blow yourself up on a subway train. Until that happens it just sounds like i'm watching too many movies. But sooner or later they will realize they don't have to kill themselves and our more and more public lifestyle will make that possible.
  • uhuznaa - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link

    So what do you suggest? Hide in the basement?
  • SleepyFE - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link

    No. Just don't do anything revealing online. If you don't want your sex tape to end up online, DON'T MAKE A SEX TAPE (rule #1). First thing that guy thought of was to show of his house.
  • Death666Angel - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link

    What are you smoking dude?
  • JeffFlanagan - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link

    Congrats on not going insane with absurd paranoia like too many of our fellow tech people have, mwildtech. Slashdot and Ars have lost it completely, and it sucked to see the paranoia popping up here as well.
  • SleepyFE - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link

    I'm not going insane. I am warning you. Do you think because you choose to give away your info people won't be interested? They will think:"That guy is just giving it away, probably bad info."
  • JeffFlanagan - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link

    I wasn't talking to you, but read your posts. I don't buy your claim that you're not going insane.
  • SleepyFE - Friday, June 6, 2014 - link

    I'll be watching you.
  • SleepyFE - Friday, June 6, 2014 - link

    Just kidding.
  • SleepyFE - Friday, June 6, 2014 - link

    Or am i?!?!?!?
  • ams23 - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link

    The 128GB iPad Air variant with LTE (with 1GB RAM onboard) sells for $929. Considering that Project Tango is a 128GB Google tablet variant with LTE (with 4GB RAM onboard and with a far more powerful GPU in comparison), the price for this developer-focused tablet with advanced sensors is not out of this world, so to speak.
  • Morawka - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link

    yeah but the ipad air is 10 inches. Google should have priced this at slightly above cost. They are trying to pay for the R&D in one batch it seems. As others have stated, they priced it to high. Bill of Materials is probably $200, google could've charged $600 and got a lot more developers on board, but i dont see many developers picking this up.

    It's like google is targeting the "rich" developer, or more experienced successful developer, instead of letting some of the smaller dev's afford it.
  • fteoath64 - Friday, June 6, 2014 - link

    This is exactly the point. The issue of thousands of "half hearted and mostly Windows addicted" developers will not get a device like this. In fact, they might even think twice about the K1 development kit which is less than $200. The asking price is not outrageous compared to Glass. At least this tablet has real expensive scanning hardware. I was hoping for a laser scanner unit so it can do 3D model scans if properly placed with appropriate software. A multi-functional modern scanner in a 7inch formfactor is a nice thing.
    The concept of creating 3D worlds like great for gaming as well. Think Minecraft. And a host of RPG games that actually use real terrains and possibly those coming from Mars in future!.
  • uhuznaa - Friday, June 6, 2014 - link

    This thing will be manufactured in low numbers, since it wouldn't sell any better even with a lower price. It's a really fugly tablet and there will be no apps using this tech for a while. I really doubt a BOM of $200.

    I think it's a neat idea that fits well in with what Google does. I'm not really sure though if this is something that belongs into a tablet or smartphone. But if they can establish that, wow.
  • CiccioB - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link

    I just would like it could work in caves. That would be a fantastic and undoubtedly useful tool to map tunnels and underground rooms simplifying actual mapping work enormously.
  • Conficio - Friday, June 6, 2014 - link

    <rant>What an aweful article. Do I really need to know who Google wants to interest into this device before I get to hear what the device actually is? And on it goes...</rant>
    Sorry jarred, I enjoy usually reading Anandtech, including your writing, but this needed to be said.
  • ph2000 - Friday, June 6, 2014 - link

    i'm confused with this
    "(Update: Mantis Vision just announced that they will be providing the core 3D engine for Project Mantle)"
    what is project mantle ?

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now