Hi,
This post took longer time since the launch of another disruptive product from THE APPLE needs far more introspection that otherwise required.
It’s something we dwelled on while finalizing the specifications for the upcoming Adam. The option we had was 1920×1200 in 10 inch for the same thickness. Only thing which was to be handled was to move the LCD driving circuit to the main mother board, which was also in favor of what we wanted to do since we have a very special VEE (Visual Enhancement Engine) for controlling the display. But, there were 2 problems, power requirement and availability of the apps to run on such a resolution.
Our specs want the second to be charged in under 2.5 hours. With 25Whr battery, that would mean 2A on 5V. 3 important observations here. First, it can be charged with a normal laptop drawing around 500mA (using a micro USB cable). Second, any mobile charger with mirco-USB charger can charge it (unlike proprietary charger everyone needs to carry for most of the tablets, including 1). And third, leads to reduction in number of components. Micro-USB charging is much closer to EU’s charging specifications.
Bumping up the resolution would need 45Whr battery. The new iPad has it. Some hard decisions made were, heavier devices (more battery = more weight), more heat and worse more charging time. A 10W charger will charge it in ideally 4.5 hours. If you connect it with Mac it will take more than 18-20 hours! (5V and 500mA). All of this was a BIG no for us, but doens’t seem to be so for new iPad’s users.
Other was the availability of the applications. If you don’t have applications to make use of it, looking only at a beautiful homescreen won’t make sense. Just to give you an idea, even 1080p movie on this screen needs to be scaled up!
Higher-resolution screen is there on our roadmap, but not yet. Android eco-system is not ready, and instead of bumping up the battery to support higher res screen, we’d rather focus on how to cut the battery even further to support a higher resolution screen.
In the next blog I will introduce the VEE and a DPO (Display Power Optimizer) technologies which are the part of our next product. If implemented correctly it can result an improvement in between 20-40% on LCD power consumption.
Regards
Rohan Shravan
Designing Adam 2 
Well, I think it might make sense to actually think again about the screen size. A 10 inch seems slightly big. How about 8.9 inches or 8 inches ?
What would you achieve by doing that ?
1) Smaller screen is easy to carry.
2) Lesser load on Graphics drive if pixels are lesser. For the same pixel density, it would be easy to drive an 8 inch screen compared to a 10 inch screen.
3) Lesser power consumption. Resulting in smaller battery and lesser weight.
Yes, this was one very important consideration. We opted for a solution in between.
Go for a 10 inch screen and get the overall dimensions lesser that or equal to the one with 8.9 inch.
ID is actually very small and thin this time!
Also, note that you can’t always say that the power consumed is simply porportional to the pixels and pixel density. It is also heavily dependent what is being used to drive these pixels. A completely hardware driven mechanism, like the AMD’s multi core graphics units will substantially reduce power required to drive the pixels. A move in this direction should get you close to what Apple has achieved. Also keep in mind that you guys screwed up on Adam by making it a big fat guy with a heavy glass on the top. And a matt screen which made the screen look more pixelated. Pay attention to every single detail, do not compromise on quality.
No it’s not, its the LEDs you need to drive to spread more light. High res LCDs are around 4.5Watt minus the driving circuit. Over all ecosystem needs around 5W, compared to 2.5-3 for 1280×800.
Will you still be using Pixel Qi screens? Also will you do something about the reflectiveness of the screen?
Hi, Rohan! I have a question. Adam 2 doesn’t have the Pixel Qi version? If so, it going to be cons for me.
Nice!
I think trying to compete head to head with the iPad is a bad idea, so you’ve made the right choice. Your product needs to scratch a different itch, or else Apple will just roll right over you. I’m liking the things I’ve been hearing so far about the choices you’ve made. I don’t know if the market for a device like that is larger than just me, but I suspect it is.
Looking forward to hearing more!
What about the touchscreen ? Multitouch? How many touches ? Atmel or Cypress or who else ?
Will the battery be easily replaceable this time? I know the Adam 1’s battery basically requires the user to take the entire tablet apart.
🙂
Rohan: Does this mean that the Pixel Qi screen is out? This would be very disappointing to many of us.
+1 Pixel Qi is a must!
Best Buy or Amazon.com purchase is a must if you want to sell any volume.
Also much thinner, much lighter weight, much battery life eps standby mode, keep the heat down.
1280×800 is good for me. The heat of the iPad would be a big negative for me. Higher res is not worth the power and heat.
Android is great right out of the box. Eden should be optional.
Rohan one cool idea. How about having a hover screen instead of a touch screen?
🙂
I like some of what is being said here but I also would like to know if pixel qi will remain option. The size and weight of adam II is very important factor as well.
My posts have gone into moderation I believe. Can you help with that Rohan?
Just a note: 5V *500mA = 2.5W, 45WHrs/ 2.5W = 18Hrs to fully charge off of a laptop supply.
Rohan, are there any design choices to which we can still contribute? How is Notion Ink doing from a strategic business perspective?
Hi Rohan,
I am a fan of notion ink, and I really like pixel qi display on first adam tablet. (Although i dont own one yet 😦 ) Thanx a lot for bringing such technology to us.
Is pixel qi going to be on this one too. My wishful thinking says “it will be so good if next adam comes with ‘Mirasol display’ option as well. ”
And being a jugadu indian 😛 , accustomed at using assembled PC’s and democratic functioning of users, i would like to see a tablet in which users can hand pic components they want. i know, it is very difficult but being able to add and subtract features sounds great, and i can see only notion ink has capabilities to do such a thing…
This is my first post and i am not a techie, but i hope i am not making myself laughing stock.
Best regards
Avadhoot Velankar
Hi,
just had this on my mind for a long time …
How about making a tablet with a flip flop display design. One side could be a high resolution color display with video capability and the other one something like an e-ink display for reading long text like scientific publications or e-books and so on.
As I said, just a thought.