The market for this is probably as a kids gaming system where there's no older iPhone for parents to hand down, but...Not even TouchID? That was out in 2013, what's the amortized cost of a TouchID 1 sensor by now?
199 could be worse, but quickly doubled with NAND.
What an odd idea of SoC performance. I do quite a bit on phone with a much slower, less performant processor (MediaTek MT6580M - 1.3GHz quad core Cortex-A7 and Mali 400 MP2 graphics) and don't feel like my phones "lags at everything." In fact, said phone is pretty much my primary computing device these days since I don't use my laptop much at all anymore. I think maybe your perceptions about performance are skewed into being unreasonable.
88 grams is impressive. Too bad it most likely correlates into sub 2 hour battery life when playing a demanding game with the screen brightness up. But that 6 year old design though...
Does it have a headphone jack port? /s Why would anyone buy this expensive piece of garbage, while you can get a proper smartphone with high audio quality for similar price.
It's amazing that everyone on this forum seems incapable of understanding that various large buyers want a handheld device that doesn't have cellular radios.
Yes, but those large organizations aren't paying $200 per device either. Apple could throw their consumers a bone and either remove the 32GB version for retail and drop the 128GB version down to that price point, or offer the 32GB version for $99. Either way they'd have a lot more retail sales than they stand to now. Hell, I use an iPhone 7 as my daily driver and I'd grab one of these at $99 just to use at work to save my phone's battery.
The base model should have easily been 64GB. At that price, to have access to Apple's eco-system, it might have moved a few units.
The main reason for this is that most of Apple's older iPod Touches are based on very outdated SoCs and are about to loose IOS support. This at least keeps them in that market with a supported device. That being said, there's no point in getting the upgraded storage option against a base model iPad mini unless you absolutely have to have the smaller form factor.
I would love to have a dedicated music player...but there is nothing cost-effective on the market. Apple is no go for me because I cannot upload music like on a hard-drive, I hate iTunes.
Hi Andrei Frumusanu, do you have die size of Adreno 640? I curious how good Adreno 640 when compared with A12 GPU in term of area because A12 GPU is better than Adreno 640 in terms of performance and power on your S10 review.
Overwhelmingly powerful chipset (on par with this year's Android flagships?) with underpowered everything else, indeed a kid's gaming system, and not entirely unsuitable.
32GB base model is a joke. I could see getting this for a child that you don't want having a phone, but at $199 this should have 64GB at minimum. $299 for 128GB is equally a joke.
I would be interested in thermals and sustained perf. This iPod was launched with 32nm version of A5 which had quite low power consumption. Then A8 was more power demanding at peak - it was dowclocked from 1,4GHz in iPhone 6 to 1,1. A10 is huge, is built with pretty much the same density as A8 and it supposedly cannot sustain peak GPU perf in the 2018 iPad.
Clock had to go down, there is literally no heft to dissipate heat and that 4 Wh battery won’t last long under load and possibly as an component as well.
If this device is not dead, the iPad mini which launched with similar setup and got tons of upgrades since is definitely living on too.
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tipoo - Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - link
The market for this is probably as a kids gaming system where there's no older iPhone for parents to hand down, but...Not even TouchID? That was out in 2013, what's the amortized cost of a TouchID 1 sensor by now?199 could be worse, but quickly doubled with NAND.
foobaz - Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - link
If it can't play Opus files, I'm not interested.Wooloomooloo - Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - link
Plenty of apps on the App Store can play this obscure lossy format, or you can convert it.Jhlot - Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - link
32GB for $199 pass, $299 vs tablet, pass.sorten - Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - link
It's insane. What is that, $40 at retail? $25 for Apple?sorten - Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - link
edit : was replying to smilingcrow's comment about the cost of the storage upgrade. Speaking of retro things, this comment system ... LOL.smilingcrow - Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - link
$200 to add 224GB of storage is very retro. Is this a tie in with Stranger Things series 3?Alistair - Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - link
Almost exactly 10x the current price of storage for SSDs. 9 cents per gigabyte, not 90 Apple...s.yu - Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - link
If you're in Shenzhen somebody could get it upgraded for very cheap.Hxx - Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - link
lol 200 for a 32gb media player. This is crazy talk you can get a tablet for this price and a nice one at that.s.yu - Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - link
It won't touch the a10, a $200 tablet will lag at everything you throw at it and end up a screen for watching videos at most.PeachNCream - Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - link
What an odd idea of SoC performance. I do quite a bit on phone with a much slower, less performant processor (MediaTek MT6580M - 1.3GHz quad core Cortex-A7 and Mali 400 MP2 graphics) and don't feel like my phones "lags at everything." In fact, said phone is pretty much my primary computing device these days since I don't use my laptop much at all anymore. I think maybe your perceptions about performance are skewed into being unreasonable.s.yu - Friday, May 31, 2019 - link
My current slowest ARM based device is on the Exynos 7420, I consider that it lags quite a bit at most tasks.SquarePeg - Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - link
88 grams is impressive. Too bad it most likely correlates into sub 2 hour battery life when playing a demanding game with the screen brightness up. But that 6 year old design though...Alistair - Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - link
This looked great, until I saw it didn't come with 128GB storage. Pass. No SD card slot.Xex360 - Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - link
Does it have a headphone jack port? /sWhy would anyone buy this expensive piece of garbage, while you can get a proper smartphone with high audio quality for similar price.
solipsism - Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - link
It's amazing that everyone on this forum seems incapable of understanding that various large buyers want a handheld device that doesn't have cellular radios.• https://www.honeywellaidc.com/products/enterprise-...
kaidenshi - Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - link
Yes, but those large organizations aren't paying $200 per device either. Apple could throw their consumers a bone and either remove the 32GB version for retail and drop the 128GB version down to that price point, or offer the 32GB version for $99. Either way they'd have a lot more retail sales than they stand to now. Hell, I use an iPhone 7 as my daily driver and I'd grab one of these at $99 just to use at work to save my phone's battery.lightningz71 - Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - link
The base model should have easily been 64GB. At that price, to have access to Apple's eco-system, it might have moved a few units.The main reason for this is that most of Apple's older iPod Touches are based on very outdated SoCs and are about to loose IOS support. This at least keeps them in that market with a supported device. That being said, there's no point in getting the upgraded storage option against a base model iPad mini unless you absolutely have to have the smaller form factor.
Peskarik - Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - link
I would love to have a dedicated music player...but there is nothing cost-effective on the market. Apple is no go for me because I cannot upload music like on a hard-drive, I hate iTunes.zodiacfml - Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - link
Would love to have a cheap IOS device but an A10 for $200?! I can get an Android phone with similar performance for $100.mfaisalkemal - Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - link
Please show me your statement proof. At least android device with Snapdragon 712 can compete sustained performance of A10.s.yu - Friday, May 31, 2019 - link
I think a10's actually on 730's level. Single core 40% faster while multicore ~15% slower. Don't know about the graphics though.mfaisalkemal - Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - link
Hi Andrei Frumusanu, do you have die size of Adreno 640? I curious how good Adreno 640 when compared with A12 GPU in term of area because A12 GPU is better than Adreno 640 in terms of performance and power on your S10 review.s.yu - Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - link
Overwhelmingly powerful chipset (on par with this year's Android flagships?) with underpowered everything else, indeed a kid's gaming system, and not entirely unsuitable.mofongo7481 - Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - link
32GB base model is a joke. I could see getting this for a child that you don't want having a phone, but at $199 this should have 64GB at minimum. $299 for 128GB is equally a joke.GC2:CS - Thursday, May 30, 2019 - link
I would be interested in thermals and sustained perf.This iPod was launched with 32nm version of A5 which had quite low power consumption.
Then A8 was more power demanding at peak - it was dowclocked from 1,4GHz in iPhone 6 to 1,1.
A10 is huge, is built with pretty much the same density as A8 and it supposedly cannot sustain peak GPU perf in the 2018 iPad.
Clock had to go down, there is literally no heft to dissipate heat and that 4 Wh battery won’t last long under load and possibly as an component as well.
If this device is not dead, the iPad mini which launched with similar setup and got tons of upgrades since is definitely living on too.