A trip to Pandora tower
January 14, 2010
For the second time, a fellow pre-orderer has been allowed to examine and use the (almost) final Pandora. This time “x68000″ is the reviewer.
Check out his entire review as well as some comparison shots after the break.
First Impressions
I was unsure what to expect when i first clapped eyes on the Pandora, half of me anticipating it being a heavy, bloated and unpocketable device. There was no need to worry though as it is smaller in the flesh (plastic) than it looks in the pics. Very compact and very pocketable.
The Controls
The biggest worry for me would have been dodgy controls, ala GP2X – Spongy Action buttons and naff D-Pad. The good news is that the D-Pad feels excellent, very Sega Saturn/Megadrive like, this is better than could have ever been expected from a homebrew device. The action buttons are also in a different league to the GP2X, have a good level of travel and no spongy response either, they also feel well spaced from one another. Analogue nubs have been a big talking point round here and after forking out 100k to develop and manufacture them from the ground up, I can see why Craig is so pleased with them. They feel well weighted and balanced with excellent feedback and a good level of travel from their centres. A huge improvement over what Sony managed on the PSP.
The Keyboard
I didn’t expect much usability here, but was astonished at how usable it actually is despite the small form factor. The keys sit well above the handheld, allowing plenty of travel, excellent for such a small device. I managed to type a few sentences whilst holding the Pandora and typing with my thumbs – Totally painless.Screen
I tried some early builds of N64 , MAME and Megadrive emulators, basically the same as you have seen in the videos so won’t comment on that, but i will mention that the screen coped brilliantly with the fast moving scrolling of Sonic & Knuckles with no noticable motion blur – A wholesale improvment over the PSP.
Summary
Whilst taking the elevator back down to the Ground Floor in Pandora Towers HQ, i felt a mighty sense of relief, ecstatic that nothing has been botched up or just plainly swept under the carpet. I understand how frustrating the wait has been for all concerned but can assure everyone that it will be worth the wait when you get the finished product in your hands.
In my eyes, the Pandora is everything the GP2X should have been and a whole lot more.
atomicthumbs
BackAssward
Butterman
gruso
tom
What's this?
Just like the first public reviewer proclaimed “it will be worth the wait” It is nice to hear it again since the wait is KILLING ME!!!!!!!!!!! lol
I know the d-pad had one of the pickiest people ever help develop it so I was already certain it would be great but another praising of the nubs was nice to hear as well!
The keyboard praise is sounding better all the time as well, many of us plan to go out and use these for other tasks.
‘I tried some early builds of N64 , MAME and Megadrive emulators’
So jealous! Happy about the no motion blur part and a good review in general.
Wow! sounds great, can’t wait to touch my nubs the day the pandora arrives.
Damn the pandora looks good.
I wanna kill x68000
Thank you for making the trip and sharing.
Those DSI XLs are HUGE…I’m glad to know the Pandora is smaller than one of them. I bet both are kickass for web browsing, though.
Actually, the Pandora is almost comparable to the DSI XL, except for the physical keyboard, higher resolution, and better hardware specs.
Made it real please… the sooner the better
Does anyone else get the feeling Craigix & Co are on PR damage control here?
I don’t think anyone who has paid and is still around is worried that the unit, as designed and implemented in the prototype, is going to be a dud. They are worried though that their $400 is not going to see anything until June this year… and that’s not terribly conservative given previous deadlines offered and missed.
No, it just looks like they want to show people the device. It has to be rought having the thing all to themselves right now and not being able to get into the meat of a community experience yet because of a slow chinese factory.
On the forums x68000 said he lives like 3 minutes away so he could have checked it out at least a couple weeks ago… I am surprised x68000 took so long to get around to going, NO I AM SHOCKED.
If I lived 3 minutes away I would just take up residence at OP
No, not really.
Tolputt, yes I feel the same thing. And if the Pandora is good enough for a general user such as x68000, then it’s good enough for me. Let’s start the final production and get these things shipped out. Hear me, I _DONT_ want to wait until June to have my unit in hand. I want it before then. But let’s look at the calendar and figure out what’s what:
Can the factory in China do anything between now and Chinese New Year? I don’t know. I suspect there is still case acceptance testing going on so I’m going to say no.
Jan 15-28 –> case acceptance QA & testing
Jan 29-Feb 14 –> Chinese New Year celebrations, no work done
Feb 15-28 –> assume two weeks to square away final case moulds
March 1-15 –> assume two weeks to manufacture case
March 15-Apr 7 –> assume three weeks to ship cases from China to Texas (realistically that should take three weeks)
Apr 7 – 31 –> assume three weeks to run 4000 board and assemble all Pandoras in Texas
May 1-31 –> Rigorous burn in and testing procedure
June 1 –> start shipping first units
Yeah June looks like the earliest we could get the Pandora
I’m willing to help assemble these things if shipped the parts and the test procedures since I live here in the USA (Chicago) where they’ll be assembled. Unless someone takes me up on that offer, I’m powerless to do anything other than bitch about it, so, I’m going to continue bitching until I’m happy
Let’s put things into a fun perspective: I’ve spent 2.58% of my life waiting for the Pandora to ship. I’d be interested to see the numbers for any of the younger members of the list…
Gruic
No you haven’t… 2.58% of your life may have passed bye, but you didn’t spend it waiting unless you stopped doing other living during that time. Have some perspective.
How much time of your life was actually lost? All the time you lost, you chose to lose by reading the forums, makings posts, etc.
Hell, if I want to be as melodramatic as you, I could say I lost half my life waiting for Duke Nukem Forever.
Being 18 in May, and waiting since the very beginning, around 7.8%. It’s been sodding long, and its going to be even damn longer now too since I decided to quit in December and wait for the second batch. Most people would(my age at least), if not loosing interest in the project altogether.
And no, BackAssward, he has been waiting for the Pandora. You can’t tell anyone he _hasn’t been waiting_ for that period of time.
To many, living with their “brand new device just around the corner” has left then deviceless for over a year. Funds are limited.
On the pictures of the case showing the Pandora logo, is that line across the lid(and change in color that I’m assuming is due to light hitting both halves differently) one of those defects from being a prototype unit, or is it a design element and a partially see-through case?
The line on the lid isnt two halves, that part is one piece but there’s a slightly thicker line of plastic there that I think is meant to make it more sturdy and protect the screen(either that or it’s there as a mount for the screen). This is likely one of those things that seems to be taking time to fix like deformities from plastic cooling, getting an attractive smoothness to the final units that makes them look like professionally made consumer products. I dont think most of us would mind if it’s there but some people might find it something to complain about. (especially if people can complain about Craig having meetings to show the Pandora to people.)
thats the screen you wanted, not a widescreen! pah those emulators will stretch!
No matter how I look at it, the Pandora’s screen still looks quite widescreen to me. It was 16:10 yes, unlike the PSP which had 16:9, but still: 99% of the games played on it will still be 4:3 (12:9). I don’t know what aspect ratio the DS has, but it looks far less widescreen on that picture.
I can understand that OpenPandora can’t have any displays custom made for them and that available 4:3 displays probably suck these days (my gosh, even mobile phones need widescreen these days).
Emulators will only stretch if you set them to view that way. Craig showed videos of games already with letterbox bars on the left and right. Videos are also mostly widescreen these days so a 4:3 screen would have forced letter boxing on those. And computer apps like browsers, youtube, original games/homebrew will benefit far more by having a wide screen.
next time someone enters the dragons lair: bring a real camera. with flash.
Almost looks like pictures of a mythical figure, like the loch ness monster. “It exists, see these pictures!”
Yeah, if someone invited me into the belly of the beast I’d at least bring a freakin’ decent camera with me…
But, all in all a good review.
Can I have mine now please?
Thanks for the review x68000, great to hear that the controls are of the required standard, makes you wonder how Sony managed to screw up the PSP nub so badly.
Tremendous credit to the Pandora team.
The PSP isnt a clam shell. the Nub was designed to be small and out of the way so that you could fit the thing in a pocket. It may not be the most comfortable control in the world but it’s far from “screwed up”.
Great we need more reviews!!
No. We need our own Pandoras.
It is time for a review on the pressure sensitive screen. How is it to paint with? A portable mini-wacom is one of the main things I would use the Pandora for (just as I’ve done with my Nindendo DS and the excellent homebrew Colors).
Don’t expect a precise Wacom-like feeling. Wacom tablets use an inductive technique (pen needed), its wonderful to write on my TabletPC.
Painting on a resistive screen should be quite doable but of course without the precise pressure sensitivity. At least: Painting will be far more better than on DS.
I could imagine a Plugin-Pen (perhaps USB) that measures pressure. Anyone here to homebrew such a pen AND write a driver for that thing?
awsome idea,pitty im crappy at electonics and coding lol
Of course, Wacom will beat the Pandora by miles, but still – as it’ll probably be better than DS, which is actually a rather good substitute when you’re on the go (google the “Colors!” DS app and you can find an online gallery of really crazy good art that people make with the DS), it’ll probably still rock. Especially since the Pandora will have enough power for different sorts of brushes, layers, and undo!
I just want to know HOW much it’ll rock.
Nice to read another review from an ‘outsider’.
Hope to get my hands on a Pandora very soon, so I can write my own review for everyone out there! =)
hope to see more videos with 3d stuff
this is the color that i want on http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/6089/pandoraclosed.jpg
Dang, I am SO doing that to my Pandora
I’m liking it too.
Still nothing concrete about the release date ??
I hope I will get this stuff before june because I’m leaving the country for Australia. Would be nice to have that little machine (missing GPS unfortunatly, easy to add ?) on the go.
Never will become anything concrete until the mould factory is starting to stamp cases I think.
could probably get a bluetooth gps reciver, i got one layin round here somewere, will have to try it when i get my pandora
When you think about it and compare to others new powerful handled, the lack of true standard OS support (because of the ARM processor) and the fact that only 4000 Pandora (x2 in 2 years) could really kill the potential of such device.
We always compare the Pandora to iPhone and things alike but they were first on this market and arrive at the good moment quite long time ago now.
Now it’s clear for me that I will always had to wait for a developer to port or develop my “dream” application to the Pandora while nowadays handled support x86 software out of the box.
Most developer that didn’t own a Pandora and don’t give sources of their software won’t feel the need to port anything on ARM Machine since netbook and others handy tiny machine will run XP, Win 7 or Ubuntu(x86).
Also, my programming language (while relaying on GCC) doesn’t support ARM yet and probably never will !
Yeah the Pandora is cool, yes it’s a powerful device but what about the long term ? And what will happen to this machine if the “Pandora 2″ is ever created ? It’s like many things I already own : no more support, no new programs?
While obsolete, my old AMD K6/2 can still run nowadays programs without any conversion/port or whatever. My pocket Gear 2033 in the other end (running on a Xscale ARM processor) is useless, like old NDS Linker or old Divx Player.
I want to use my Pandora as long as possible but regarding to this fact, it’s probably not the best handled for that.
All this waiting make me change my mind (and no I don’t care about the built in joypad, sorry it’s a nice feature but I’m more on the software part).
hmm always thought of craig’s hq as the Pandora Pit not the Pandora Towers…