They did, but as I said you cannot compare a home purpose device with a automotive grade device.
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Micromax (or whoever the supplier was) didn’t have a higher specced automotive tablet available at the time the 450X design was finalized? You reckon cost cutting has absolutely nothing to do with the decision to go for a gimped out tablet?
FYI, the updated tablets cost less than half of what the tablets in the 450 cost.
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Yeah, obviously. Why else would they struggle to give a lag-free, sufficiently cooled dashboard. Poor Ather had to build-up the dashboard from the ground up. Also, so they can exclude Bluetooth hardware for 450 plus models, or so they say.
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For the features loaded on dashboard, If one can optimize in one GB RAM, well and good. If that’s going to be a bottleneck no other option than higher memory.
Right now, it’s a bottleneck.
Google maintained that 1 GB ram is sufficient for Google one phones, 4 gb is enough for pixel phones.
But, things change. They realised regardless of how optimised your OS is: increased RAM is going to give better performance and experience. Now budget series comes with 6 GB and normal ones comes in with 8 GB.
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Off the top of my head, here are all the things that are competing for that sliver of RAM as of now:
- The OS itself that was last built in 2018
- A CAN bus subroutine with a high refrsh rate
- The display subroutine, also with a high refresh rate, and high graphics load
- Navigation, also with a high refresh rate and a high graphics load
- A Bluetooth listener
- An entire phone … and a whole bunch of other stuff that I haven’t paid attention to
You think things can be magically “optimized” to nicely share 1GB and leave room to spare for future addons?
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Well, you can respond to the questioning people that nothing has been proven on-road yet.
You can take a lot of stuff on your leg space with Ather, even a kid, but Ola is a different story.
Firstly not true as of now features are just restricted via software between 450+ & 450X. They already mentioned this in a meet. Untill they see viability in making seperate manufacturing lineups both vehicles hold same hardware. We have proof from some owners regarding this too.
It was a bottleneck created by themselves by restricting many things and automotive softwares are not new it is just that they have to workout how to implement. Anyways even though if we agree it is done everything from scratch. They cannot just keep on holding back in fixing bugs even after 5 years of inception, 3years of first product & 1.5 years of the current product launch to fix this and mark all this 3 years consumers are paying for connect services. Value for money is expected.
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However, they clearly saw viability in having two separate branches of software for two bike variants that they artificially and unnecessarily created. What kind of sense does that make?
I’m no match for the galaxy level IIx brains over there, but my limited mind tells me that a single software version on a single hardware platform is easier to maintain and eliminates the potential for bad optics like is happening now.
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I agree completely. Even without the detailed list, one can understand how 1 GB RAM is going to be penalizing.
We have live examples in our home.
Ather 450 having low specs is kind of understandable for a first Gen product. For 450X launched in 2020, it was a surprise to go for low RAM.
By the way, is it really 1 GB RAM on 450X or higher?
Correct me if wrong.
Isn’t it the same software platform with restricted features between 450X and 450+. I think that was the case.
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This is with the scooter standing still and key on. No Navigation or Bluetooth running yet. Half the available memory is eaten by Android, which is a black box for @ather . That leaves 500MB for them to cram everything into. LMFAO.
Everything is the same, but with an extra step added for 450+ to disable some features that have already been developed for the 450X. My point is that the path of least nonsense is to make all the already developed features available to everybody capable of running them, instead of creating fictitious boundaries and attempting to justify them.
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This part I am not sure if I agree, Venkat. Having only one version of full-blown software, but with restrictions on usability embedded depending on how much you pay for it, is a standard practice used in the tech world since Day 1, and now also seen in all modern automobiles that have end-user software features in them. This accounts for two simultaneous things - give buyers only the features they paid for, and allow users to pay less to avoid features they don’t need. There is no other way to do this.
End of the day, any company that is NOT an NGO will look for ways to make money proportionate to the benefits provided for their sheer survival (of course, no point going down the already trodden path of “But Ather doesn’t give us polished features yet”; I am talking of this business model in general 
)
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We can agree to disagre here. In my memory, everybody who tried to pull stunts like these got rightly lampooned. BMW’s decision to charge a subscription fee to use Apple CarPlay comes immediately to mind. If the company has enough of a risk appetite to weather the negativity that this will generate, more power to them. If you build a wall, better make sure it’s a solid wall.
What isn’t right at any level is having representatives lie to people about 450+ being “hardware incapable” of these features. Yes, I know that somebody in some open house said that both models ran the same hardware, but that isn’t what some dealers and CS employees are telling people. Ultimately, they represent the company and trying to brush these lies away doesn’t really fly.
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I believe in the open house they said they ARE different (only talking of the hardware here)? Originally the plan was to have the exact same scooter behaving differently using software restrictions and allowing riders to unlock features (warp, etc.) by upgrading from within the app, but I think they finally went with slightly lower spec hardware to ensure a bigger price gap between 450X and Plus. Originally the price gap wasn’t supposed to be this much between the two models, but with this mod, they actually brought the price of Plus down a bit further.
Again, talking of only the hardware and not the software restrictions. As far as the latter is concerned, I guess I am too used to the world of trial, basic and premium versions of software to agree that all users should get the same usability irrespective of the amount paid
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Yup agree to diagree since their actual aim is to have a seperate lineup. If they open up features to everyone that doesn’t make sense then 450x costomers ask for compensation.
They for their own reasons took the decision to hold same hardware for time being (as they say) (fell in their own soup though).
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Warp is understandable, since it would require heavier gauge wiring and electronics capable of handling higher current. The display tablet, however, is identical, and as I said, protected by a flimsy veil of lies that has bricks painted on it to look like a wall. All it manages to achieve is show / hide Bluetooth, which I’m not even sure is worth all the effort.
Also, I’m not kidding when I say that my cat can bypass their “security” and access the Android OS on the tablet. Maybe I’ll post a video of the same some day.
Woah, just 180MB free? Caching the map of Urban Bangalore requires close to 300MB, right?
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Once you’re in Android, do this: https://mobileinternist.com/ram-usage-android-oreo
Then check memory usage in different situations and post the results her, if you are sufficiently inclined to do so.
Ok slightly off the topic…but HOW on Earth do you access this??
I’ll let everyone know… eventually. What is holding me back is the possibility that the loophole will be closed if I make it public. I need it to be open for a while longer to I can log data etc. that will inform my experiments on the scooter.
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