Viliv P3 estimated release date and price

[deadohiosky]

yeah, i don't buy it. this comes from guy that bases his assumptions on a guy who posted a youtube video which shows a ui (probably win ce)

what is a "me too OS"? never heard of it. they said that it's dual bootable and i figure this means "with every function being available on android as well" , so it is, unless someone who "really" owns it tells me otherwise.

he has no sources but claims it doesn't work, or android doesn't support, how would he know?

[CrowdAds]

[dfkt]

Unfortunately it seems to be true. According to official specs, the piece of crap OS that is Windows CE gets much better media capabilities than Android on the P3. It's ridiculous that even free and/or open source formats like FLAC, OGM, and APE are only supported under CE, not Android. I really hope they fix those annoyances. Source: http://www.myviliv.com/v4/product/p3/p3.asp?PKIND=SPEC

[Haven]

Thanks again everyone for the quick replies!

After sending an email to export prive here are the 2 responses:

The 8GB version doesn't come with WiFi and the menu display of the P3 is only in Korean language. However you can always install an English Android. As for the price, we only accept the Euro and the USD currencies. The 16GB costs around 242 GBP. The custom taxes are upon the customer's request. If you wish to avoid these, we can send the parcel as a gift with a low value.

Regards

--
Export Privé LTD
Service Clientèle - Customer Service

Hi,

For all versions the display is in English, but not the menu. Android isn't installed as well, so you must do it yourself. If we send it as a low value gift, it doesn't mean that there will be great chances the parcel will be stolen or lost. However, if it gets lost or stolen, it will affect the amount you can get refunded from insurance.

Regards

Dont know if this is of any help to anyone, but according to the responses it is 240 pounds for 16gb and significantly less for the 8gb non wifi version.

[deadohiosky]

thanks dfkt, that's really unfortunate.

is this android specific? if so, that would be very fucked up. no ape support, well i could live with that but not playing flac is a mystery to me.

... oh wait... i just found out that 2.1 supposedly supports flac, and the p3 will most likely have version 1.5 or 1.6. .
i'd think that those restrictions are either artificial or limited by the android version. android is very much able to view photos, it has e-reader capability and all the other stuff it can do as well. another thing they might restrict is android market access.
so what's fuss about android anyway, if you can't really use it freely?

@haven

first of all: as i predicted, they have rather good customer service: replying within one day is not common for such online stores.

but, i don't understand the "the display is in english, but not the menu"? what's that supposed to mean?
what bothers me most is that they state that android isn't even installed but they claim it dual boots win ce/ and android. to me, this reads, win ce is standard but you could install any other linux derivative (mobile OS) on it as well. otherwise this doesn't make much sense.

[Javier78]

Originally Posted by deadohiosky

thanks dfkt, that's really unfortunate.

is this android specific? if so, that would be very fucked up. no ape support, well i could live with that but not playing flac is a mystery to me.

... oh wait... i just found out that 2.1 supposedly supports flac, and the p3 will most likely have version 1.5 or 1.6. .
i'd think that those restrictions are either artificial or limited by the android version. android is very much able to view photos, it has e-reader capability and all the other stuff it can do as well. another thing they might restrict is android market access.
so what's fuss about android anyway, if you can't really use it freely?

@haven

first of all: as i predicted, they have rather good customer service: replying within one day is not common for such online stores.

but, i don't understand the "the display is in english, but not the menu"? what's that supposed to mean?
what bothers me most is that they state that android isn't even installed but they claim it dual boots win ce/ and android. to me, this reads, win ce is standard but you could install any other linux derivative (mobile OS) on it as well. otherwise this doesn't make much sense.

No, 2.1 doesn't play FLAC, and I think it has already been mentioned that this will come with 2.1. Either way, since Android is so open, I wouldn't be surprised if this was rooted, and custom ROMS would support many more codecs.

[deadohiosky]

stock android 2.1 may not be able to handle, BUT android devs have already included flac support, so it's possible. viliv doesn't state if there is a restriction on which version you can use, so i think it's safe to say( for now, as we dont have much info at all), you could install about any rom/custom OS, with flac support.

if that is the case, the p3 might an even more interesting device after all.

[kobashi]

Does the Memory card memory combine with internal. If so then the 8GB non wifi is possibly an option.

Dunno whu Viliv don not release a non wifi, non dmb 16GB version.

[rickysio]

Originally Posted by kobashi

Does the Memory card memory combine with internal. If so then the 8GB non wifi is possibly an option.

Dunno whu Viliv don not release a non wifi, non dmb 16GB version.

Probably because it's uneconomical to have a production run for non wifi non DMB 16gb version. The 8gb is non wifi non DMB IIRC, and should integrate well, at least in Android.

[Bonetwizt]

The more variants they produce, the more production costs them. Right now they can keep purchase price competitive by keeping variation down. If this hits euro/ America, the only difference may be that they remove DMB without lowering the price thus increasing profits (which may lead to quicker price drops for late adopters). Personally i had high hopes for this till i heard the android may not be full fledged, guess its down to the Samsung Galaxy Player for me to save my meager money for.

[deadohiosky]

Originally Posted by Bonetwizt

The more variants they produce, the more production costs them. Right now they can keep purchase price competitive by keeping variation down. If this hits euro/ America, the only difference may be that they remove DMB without lowering the price thus increasing profits (which may lead to quicker price drops for late adopters). Personally i had high hopes for this till i heard the android may not be full fledged, guess its down to the Samsung Galaxy Player for me to save my meager money for.

i don't think so. the only thing that changes, is the flash chip. they already got versions with no wifi no dmb, only dmb and wifi+ dmb.
as i said, the one thing that would change is flash memory capacity.

one thing that might add some costs: changing the numbers and descriptions on the packaging.

[rickysio]

Originally Posted by deadohiosky

i don't think so. the only thing that changes, is the flash chip. they already got versions with no wifi no dmb, only dmb and wifi+ dmb.
as i said, the one thing that would change is flash memory capacity.

one thing that might add some costs: changing the numbers and descriptions on the packaging.

Not really. If they used an SoC which integrates almost everything, they'd have a hard time justifying a separate run for people who can't be arsed to pay the full amount.

[deadohiosky]

Originally Posted by rickysio

Not really. If they used an SoC which integrates almost everything, they'd have a hard time justifying a separate run for people who can't be arsed to pay the full amount.

why should they pack the flash memory on the soc? and most of all can they?

afaik, a soc consists of a processor a rom for the OS/FW, a bit of ram and controllers for interfaces like usb and stuff.
the flash memory is extra and to my knowledge even bigger than the soc (depending on capacity ofc)

edit: after having a quick look at an iphone 4 teardown, even they have a dedicated flash memory and it's huge, bigger than the a4 processor. apple tries to incorporate everything into one thing if possible and even they haven't achieved that yet.

until proven otherwise i say everything has its own chip, even wifi and dmb(well maybe not dmb, don't know how that's implemented).


on another note... i don't know what phone it was, but i remember that a guy successfully transformed a non wifi phone from one carrier to wifi capable with the wifi chip of the same phone from another carrier. all he had to do was open the phones remove and reinsert the chip in the other phone.

todays "motherboard" designers are quite clever as they make them to be modular they make a universal mobo layout and just leave the chip sockets empty if they don't need it for a certain version/configuration.

that's only speculation for the viliv p3, but it's common practice.

[rickysio]

Apparently you don't understand what I mean well enough. If you look at the Snapdragon SoC, they even pack the 3G intepreters INSIDE the main chip itself.


Edit : I'm not going to argue about this point any more. You can go bang tables with Viliv, I don't care.

[deadohiosky]

Originally Posted by rickysio

Apparently you don't understand what I mean well enough. If you look at the Snapdragon SoC, they even pack the 3G intepreters INSIDE the main chip itself.

obviously you didn't read my comment thoroughly, yes they integrate most of the controllers into the soc but flash memory is huge, they won't integrate that.

one mobo layout that fits all is also cheaper than having everything sit in the soc.

taking the iphone 4 as reference, the soc is quite cheap at $10 while the flash memory costs about $27, almost three times higher.

http://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/...hone4.JPG.jpeg


i forgot, the p3 was said to use a the cortex a8.