When a photo of the latest board revision was posted a few days back, a handful of commenters pondered the possibility of a labelled version. The GP32X trainspotters had actually done this before, on a much older revision. So a new request went out on the forums, and the community got busy once again. And how! Click the image above and you won’t just get a high resolution version, you’ll get a space-age interactive experience with enough hotlinked reading material to sink a brick shiphouse. Thanks go out to all contributors, with special honours to wea0 for digging up the bulk of the part numbers, urjaman for putting together the clicky version, and LeChuck87 for re-hosting it.

Please note that this is 100% unofficial. It has not been endorsed or confirmed correct by OP Ltd. If you’re planning on building your own Pandora from this diagram, you’ll have to figure out what’s on the other seven PCB layers. Ha.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ah, PandoraPanic, you’ve come so far. Since 2008 we’ve watched you grow, and it’s almost time to set you free. It’s a little bit sad, isn’t it? Hell no. It’s brilliant. Thanks to the tireless efforts of PokeParadox, MarkoeZ and a solid crew of contributors, PandoraPanic is ready for release. To mark the occasion, Foxblock has cut together a very tidy release trailer (and yeah, he knows about the typo). If you can’t wait to play PandoraPanic on the hardware you’re waiting for, play it on some you already have.

Just as a child can’t wait to open his presents on Christmas morning, so have most of us been sitting here, trembling with anticipation, waiting to open up our Pandora. Some people have claimed ‘Vapourware’, or that is an outright con. Well, some lucky children have received a late Christmas present, and their excitement is palpable!

For those who follow Craigix’s Twitter, you might has seen the following and wondered what he was talking about:

Craigix via Twitter – Some threads showing up on gp32x of people receiving their Pandora. I can’t stop smiling at them.

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It seems some of our our friendly neighborhood developers have received completed Pandoras with rev3 cases (pre-production run), the good Skeezix and Zodttd. They both have kindly provided photos of what Skeezix calls “…A SEXY BEAST!”.

Skeezix’s enthusiasm is so great, it looks like he forgot to turn off Caps-Lock:

You know, even in rev3 state which is not ‘finished’ in the factory, this is _gorgeous_.

Like Craig said .. soon as you turn it on, THIS IS THE SHIT YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR SINCE THE FIRST TIME YOU SAW STAR TREK AS A KID.

jeff

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More pics from skeezix here.

Zodttd sounds impressed too:

It’s really well built too. I took off the battery lid on the back and saw a Pandora logo and slogan right on the battery facing me. Really nice touches. Michael Weston and Craig have outdone themselves.

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Now, if that wasn’t news enough for a blog post… wait there’s more! After posting about his newly acquired Pandora, Zodttd goes on to talk about his PSX emulator:

I’m getting busy on psx4pandora today. Expect a more open project for psx4all now with the likes of public source with revisioning, bug/feedback reporting, and all in all a much more professional take on how I’ve handled things in the past with regards to the GP2X.

I have some big plans for psx4pandora, starting with an overhaul for the dynarec and reaching towards an OpenGL ES 2.0 accelerated GPU.

Thanks!
ZodTTD

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My plans for psx4pandora is for it to be completely 100% free and open source, just as it should be. I am not looking for donations, although truly appreciated. If I do get donations, I surely hope it would be after the release and use of psx4pandora. I have no intention of profiting off this work in any manner.

I want this to be a project out of love, and not feel like work.

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Introducing the Pandora Angst Coding Competition, an adventure in creativity/distraction devised and funded by the community. Entries are invited for GP32, GP2X, Wiz, and Dingoo (native or Dingux) games & applications, with a current prize pool of around $400AUD on offer. If you’re not a coder but you’d like to get involved, you can donate to the prize pool, offer your services as a judge, contribute splash screen artwork, or hook up with a coder and collaborate!

For full details & entry form, head to the 2010 PACC website!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Cpasjuste has uploaded a video of Android running on the Pandora. Android is an operating system that was originally developed by an independent company and later brought by Google. Android is a popular operating system for smart phones.

This is my first attempt to port android to the pandora, touch screen support in the work.

-cpasjuste

Source

Notaz has thrown together some tasty comparison images for us. Remember, that the screen on this Pandora is B-grade. This is not a final screen!

Source

Click here to view the embedded video.

A long time ago, a guy called MarkoeZ began thowing together a cheeky adaptation of Joust for the PandoraPanic minigame project. As reported in the recent software roundup, Panjoust has now transcended its humble beginnings to become a standalone title, with a second graphic artist on the team and a sublime soundtrack by Nick May (if you like Ennio Morricone, you’ll like Nick May). The above video, though labelled as just a tech demo, is the first to showcase all these talents in the mix together. This is what homebrew collaboration looks like when it all goes right.

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Here we have our third independent look at a Pandora, this time from forum dev notaz. This is believed to be the same Pandora that Craig used to stress test the hinge and is also one of the first cases from China.

Pros:

• The controls. D-pad, buttons and keypad all very responsive and feel nice. I was told the dpad on this unit is “crappy”, but it works fine for me.
• The screen is bright and viewing angles wide (worse than OLED of course but that’s different weight category).
• The weight is ok, not much different than “phat” PSP.
• Hardware volume wheel, can set to exact volume level I want.

Cons:

• Few cracks here and there:- loose hinge, can only have it fully open or fully closed. I think this is the one which suffered Craig’s merciless hinge testing.
• Completely loose battery when it’s cover is open
• L and R buttons don’t sit right (1st revision problem)
• Volume wheel is too deep for my liking (a bit hard to move with a thumb)
• Some light leakage between light pipes
• Screen ghosting.. Yes there is some, and I’m very sensitive to it (as well as tearing on Wiz). I would even say it pretty bad in some situations, but much less intensive than PSP1000 (which I consider unusable for 2d games because of ghosting).

Notaz also noted:

The screen on my unit is different from the final ones though, it acts a bit differently when booting, so this might still change.

notaz

… First revision plastic is brittle and cracks. The LCD is a B grade panel bought at a Chinese market in 2007 so we had something for our first prototypes. Craig beat the crap out of it and cracked it.

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The time has come for another homebrew roundup. Many interesting projects have appeared since the last homebrew feature, including some frequently requested titles and some unexpected gems. Note that a number of entries are marked (WT) for Working Title – if you have naming suggestions for any of these games, get your word heard!

Camp horror sidescroller (WT)

Author: authoreyes

Darkness descends on Pandoria in this frightful festival of 2D ghoul smiting. Set to follow in the footsteps of the classic Castlevania series, we’ve seen a brief but solid demo of the engine in action but the final artwork is yet to be unveiled. Authoreyes has an artist locked in his dungeon and speaks of a hand drawn comic/goth style, a range of melee and projectile weaponry, and a handsome, bulging hero the likes of which we have never seen. Ok, that last part was an embellishment.

Thread | Video

Slitherlink inspired puzzler (WT)

Author: Mia

If you haven’t heard of Slitherlink, brace yourself for a highly dubious comparative description. Take the age old pen-on-paper game of Dots & Squares, put your Go hat on, mix in some Minesweeper and spare a thought for Picross. In the process of stitching these mental images together you’ll probably offend that group of Slitherlink diehards over to your right (duck!) but you’ll be most of of the way there. Be nice to those diehards, by the way. One of them is coding this Slitherlink adaptation just for us.

Thread

Zoom-Enhance-Extrapolate

Author: Gregor Richards

Does your face meet palm whenever a prime time crime investigator identifies someone’s DNA from a satellite photo? If so, you’ve just been outed as a watcher of bad television. For shame! ZEE aims to take the wee out of this embarrassing cliche, with maze-style gameplay that unleashes your inner Caruso as you zoom, enhance and extrapolate your way through each level. Looks like this perp… just lost the game. Yeeaaahhh!

Thread

Pandora Pong (WT)

Author: crysnamtodshire

Someone had to do it! It’s the visceral grand slam simulation that launched an entire industry, and it’s coming to Pandora bearing new and exciting gifts. Crysnamtodshire plans to include a range of tradition-smashing enhancements to the action, along with network gameplay and quite sensibly, a less litigious name. Credit to Asmo for the image above. And no, crysnamtodshire’s Pong will not enhance your Pandora in such a fashion.

Thread

The Lonely Tower

Author: Tempel

Originally put together for a coding competition, this short and charming jaunt dispenses with the fourth wall entirely to become a game within a conversation about the game. If it all sounds a little existential, it’s because it kind of is. Any further description would spoil the fun and potentially take longer to read than the game takes to play. So play it now you should.

Thread

Tudi

Author: Jan-Nik

Another game that started life as a competition entry, Tudi was written for OpenXile.co.uk’s Craptasic Coding competition. There is, however, not one thing crap about this game. Part jump n’ run, part bouncy puzzler, you pilot a rubbery little rectangle through increasingly devious waves of targets. Time your bounces well and you’ll pick up the points on the way through; hit the wrong target and it’s a boxy, boxy death. The visuals may be simple, but it’s about as addictive as it gets.

Thread

Guitars on Fire

Author: Daid, JayFoxRox (port)

Things got crazy the day someone combined rhythm games with plastic guitars. Ageing rock luddites discovered 1s and 0s. Casual gamers turned hardcore. No platform was safe from the frenzy (not even the C64). After endless requests in the forums, now it’s Pandora’s turn to rock and/or roll with Guitars On Fire, complete with official GH guitar compatibility and online leaderboards. For those who can’t wait to rock, you can test drive this title right now on your homebrew-rocking Wii. Note: This is not an Activision product. This is just a tribute.

Thread | Web | Video

Impossible Mission remake (WT)

Author: iprice

Stay a while… stay forever! No, it’s not the preorder queue. It’s that famous underground lair filled with killer robots, and secrets hidden in lounge cushions. Iprice commenced work on this remake after being (understandably) disappointed by the the various official shovelware releases. Unfortunately his artist found the exit early, and a few missing sprites stand in the way of completion. If you can help, speak up.

Thread

Agapito

Author: NamX

Many moons ago, two talented teenage brothers from Spain set about writing the quintessential Amiga platformer. If the footage we have now is any indication, the game they created had all the markings of a jump n’ run classic – but sadly, after several years of work, it never saw the light of day. 14 years on, these two brothers have decided to revive Agapito as a native Pandora title. There is something very, very right about this.

Thread | Video

Grid Wars style shmup (WT)

Author: Torpor, Monk

On the surface, this project might look like little more than a sketch on a napkin. But there are some very talented gents doing the sketching, and there are not actually any napkins, they’re using COMPUTERS. In case you’ve been under a wireframe rock, Grid Wars is a freeware abstract/geometric shmup, allegedly inspired by a commercial title, now the inspiration for a Pandora title.

Thread

Panjoust

Author: Markoez (Panjoust), PokeParadox (Penjin)

Breaking from its orbit as a PandoraPanic minigame, Panjoust is spreading its wings to become a fully featured standalone title. You should know the routine; you fly around on a bird thing taking down other bird things. Ok, so that’s a bit of a cheep description. Joining pixel maestro Dragons_Slayer in the art department is newcomer Amigo Bandito Crujiente, whose work you can see in the menu image above. Yum.

Thread

Eternity 6: The Waterphoenix

Author: darien

The Waterphoenix is, in darien’s words, “the 6th chapter spin-off of a fantasy action series I’ve been working on for nearly 13+ years now.” And those 13 years appear to have brought more than a nice basement tan to the table; it’s set in a world with its own established history and mythology, some integral to the plot, some merley alluded to in fleeting glimpses of backgroud art. Gameplay wise it’s a sidescrolling beat ‘em up taking inspiration from games like Shinobi and Altered Beast, featuring zombies, spells, environmental damage and dashing hairdos.

Thread

Lem… uh, never mind. (WT)

Author: Miner49er

Remember that classic game with the little critters? The one where you had to use various tools to clear a path before they marched en masse to their death? Miner49er has been working hard on his own version of that which we shall not name for now, staying true to the Amiga feel of old with the addition of network play. A demo appeared in the forums for about a minute, before it was shuffled back to the workshop for a legal/creative rework that may involve zombies. Intrigued? Do be.

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Neverball (+ Neverputt)

Author: Lazrhog

Neverball is an earth-tilting, ball-rolling, analogue-nub-loving game of skill that contains no superfluous monkeys. Guide your ball through the gauntlet as you gather coins, race against the clock and silently wonder to yourself if it would be possible to drive to work this way. Neverball also comes packaged with Neverputt, a mini golf game built on the same lively physics engine.

Thread

iPlutoid

Author: Lazrhog

Your name is Lieutenant Starfighter, and you’re the village fisherman. Well, not really. You actually fly a starfighter. A planet or three is being invaded, and you’re the only thing standing between the humble planet folk and certain death. Well, we assume that. The invaders could be visitors with nice gifts for all we know. But it’s your job to shoot them. This polygon proud shooter is a popular title on the iPhone, and the observant ones will notice that it’s being brought to Pandora by the same talent behind Neverball.

Thread

MiZoo

Author: Lazrhog

Another popular iPhone title, making it three in a row for Lazrhog. (You’ll have to excuse the sideways screenshot – it’s way too late in the piece to drop portrait.) MiZoo is a puzzler of the tile matching kind, featuring a wall of furry animal faces waiting to be reunited with their kin – at which point they will explode in delicious point-laden combos. Caring for wildlife is rarely this rewarding.

Thread

As always, you’ll find a more detailed list of projects in development (games and otherwise) on the Pandora Wiki.

..

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.

Source

Click here to view the embedded video.

“I have the need for tools that solve my problem in a very specific way … when I don’t find such tools, I make them myself.”

Such is the philosophy of David Flemström (aka Dflemstr), and a slick new launcher called Panorama is the result. Whipped up in his sleep using C++ and Qt 4.6.1, this powerful alternative to Pmenu is shown above in just one possible incarnation. Other Panorama modes shown off so far include “Pmenu mode“, the magnificent Magma theme, and a special treat for the mega-minimalists out there.

* I don’t put any restrictions on the themes (called UIs) for Panorama. If you want to write an UI, you’ll be using Javascript and a markup language called QML to write the entire user interface (or you just copy someone else’s UI and swap the images ). This means that one theme can have a sliding interface, another theme can be tabbed, another can just have a list of applications to launch while another just displays computer information.

* Themes are made to adapt to you, and not vice versa. You can of course control a Panorama UI using the D-Pad and the action buttons, but if you want to, you can also use the mouse cursor to click your way through the application, or you can use your fingers and the touch screen to drag and slide around things. There are no restrictions there, either.

* I want it to be possible to extend your theme to do exactly what you want. Want to have an analogue clock in your UI? Panorama does that. Want to show the latest XKCD strip in the background? Panorama can do that. Want to show the number of E-Mails you have relative to how long your “/etc/X11/xorg.conf” file is? Panorama can do that, too.

-Dflemstr

This is just a taste of the action of course; many more details can be found via the source link below.

So is it for everyone? Not necessarily. Cpasjuste’s very capable Pmenu will be pre-installed on your Pandora, and it may be all you ever need. But if you prefer your broth with a few hits from the spice weasel, Panorama is the after-market upgrade to keep your eye on. Bam!

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The recent reports on Pandora’s case design and controls have been nothing short of glowing. It’s pretty satisfying information for the most part; there is no doubt that what we’re hearing from the team is genuine delight in what they’ve achieved. But the question has been asked – what would some guy off the street think of it? (What, is the youthful exuberance of a Newcastle upon Tyne rooftop matinee not enough for you? Fair enough then.)

Well, the day has come. Last week, both Craig and EvilDragon invited forum users to their homes (seriously) to see Pandora for themselves. This resulted in two great things. One, the image above. Two, a 500km train journey to ED’s lair undertaken by guy-off-the-street Balzac2m. Sadly, Balzac2m couldn’t bring a Pandora back with him. But he did bring back a detailed 2,300 word report. Are you seated? Let’s begin.

.

Hands-on Pandora preview by Balzac2m

Today I am invited to a birthday party in berlin, so I took the opportunity and invited myself to EvilDragon’s home in Ingolstadt to have a look at his pre-production pandora. While Ingolstadt isn’t exactly on the way between Karlsruhe and Berlin, I figured having a premature look at the pandora is well worth a 3:30h/500km detour. I had quite an early start having to get up at 5:30 in the morning after 4 hours of sleep. The trainride was as beautiful as I hoped the pandora would be, the whole country is covered in fresh white snow, the sun was shining, the weather was sweet (and freaking cold).

As I my train came closer I got somewhat nervous. Would the pandora be as good as she is constantly described by it developers (hello craig). I certainly hoped so, just to rub it in the face of my twatty vapourscreaming friends. To my knowledge, I’m the first “normal” customer (no first or second party developer), to write a preview. So let’s get it on.

NOTES
— I had the pleasure to use a pre-production model with a two different nightly builds of the software. This preview does not rate the device that will be shipped! —
— I am german. I don’t consider my english bad, but I know it isn’t perfect, so please forgive minor mistakes in orthography and style and ask if something isn’t clear —
— There won’t be many (or any) news in this preview. The process of the pandora development is too open for that —
— Everything written here is my opinion, im not affiliated with anything (websites, magazines, open gaming handheld development startups) concerning the pandora —
— NES and SNES are Famicom and Super Famicom. I don’t know which name it has in the US —

First off, EvilDragon is – as well as online – a super nice guy in reality. Thanks again for having me at your home, I had a great time.

Well, what’s to say about the pandora? It’s stunning. Really. ED and craigix are absolutely right when they tell you that this device will rock.

Looks:
It is the pre-production-model, the same that ED took photos and videos of. The silk-screening isn’t done and the finish is not finished . It already looks lovely nonetheless. Some things need the finishing and redo: the shrinking, left side of the battery compartment, translucent LED cover and shoulder buttons. Nothing new here, but I’ll be honest, in normal use, it’s hard to see this stuff (except the shoulder buttons). Shrinking and battery compartment issues can be seen with the naked eye and a close look, but you’ll need a magnifying glass to see the led cover-problem.
Concerning the shoulder buttons: They are okay as they are now, I guess everyone would be grateful if he had them on any other device. I had a look at the translucent case, too, the shoulderbuttons there are better (don’t ask, it’s a chinese thing ) and we will get better ones in the final version. The LEDs look nice and remind me of older Thinkpads where you could see the same LEDs whether the lid was closed or not. With closed lid, the device bulky compared to other modern devices. But well, those devices are mostly smaller than the battery of our sweety, so go figure. The Pandora-Cube on the lid is good to distinguish it from japan-based lid-closing gaming handhelds.

Build Quality:
Very nice. Really. Especially the base part feels rock solid. I pushed but the case didn’t flex. The battery compartment feels very solid too. Me and ED (rhymes galore) opened and closed the thing several times, more often than you would normally do in a month and it feels like you could to it a million times without breaking anything. D-pad, action-buttons and keyboard are very well built, it felt absolutely like a device a big company could sell.

One thing about the lid I didn’t knew (I follow the official and inofficial blog but I don’t read every last thread on the forums): The hinge is not THAT sturdy that you can use the pandora when the lid isn’t snapped to the final position WHILE WALKING OF JUMPING. THIS IS FREAKING IMPORTANT AND I WILL COME TO YOUR HOME AND PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE IF YOU POST SOMETHING ABOUT IT WITHOUT READING WHAT I HAVE TO SAY IN THE NEXT PARAGRAPH TEN TIMES!

Ergonomics and using the pandora:
So here you hopefully are still reading on from the last paragraph. Important: If you use the pandora handheld you WILL snap the lid to the final position. Because it’s by far the most comfortable one. Unless your hands are somewhat crippled, you will. Believe me. If you don’t move, you can use it with the lid in any other position, but it will snap close or fully open if you walk or jump around with it. I can’t think of any situation where you would hold the pandora in this uncomfortable position while moving, so this is no issue. The only reason to use the pandora half-opened is when you put it on a table or something to watch a video or else and this works flawless.

I hope I got this covered now, it is the only thing that really was new to me and it doesn’t concern me one bit, but I thought I let you know. And please remember the last paragraph of “Build quality”.

The keyboard:
Is great. For a handheld device the buttons are really big, so you won’t have any issues with fat thumbs or drunken typing. You will type with your thumbs. I don’t have big hands, I’d say less than average and I can reach everything comfortably. Even stuff like capital s, which is one of the harder letter as you have to press shift with the left thumb and reach over to the s with the right one is easy to do. This is without sticky keys (wasn’t implemented on this build). I even used a little vim (because I work as a linux administrator and plan to use the pandora with ssh) and I think with some training it will even be suitable for that. My typing speed increased while using the pandora (I ony was 2 hours or so at EDs) and I’m confident that with a few days use, you will type very fast on this thing. ED was way faster than me already. It is however no full-size keyboard and you won’t write your next book on it. But for everyday use, IM, surfing, writing on forums, blog, twitter and else it is fine.

The d-pad:
Sad news first: On the builds available and in such a short time there was no game or emulator available to really test it. This would be games I know and play reasonably well, like Contra III, SMB1-3, SMB World, Street Fighter and some more. EvilDragon and the devs have better things to do then making emulators run under XFCE for me to play, so I can’t make a final judgement on the d-pad. I did however play some supertux and DooM and I tell you: the d-pad just feels great. Really. I played a lot of NES and SNES in my days, some xbox360, dreamcast, ps1, ps2 too and I can say it feels freaking comfortable. As Supertux and DooM don’t use diagonals I wasn’t able to check them, but I _felt_ them. I’ll eat some broccoli if this thing won’t let you produce lengthy combos in beat-em-ups.

Action Buttons:
They work. They feel good and they work. You can feel when the button is pressed, this is very defined (omfg, this isn’t proper english, is it?). I don’t have much to say about them, I just can’t imagine how to make them better.

Analogue Controls:
There was no game to play with them but they feel _very_ nice. If they work and the software makes good use of them, you will have the best analogue control on any mobile device (yes, I’m looking at you, PSP). I can’t say anything devinitive about them.

Shoulder buttons:
Well, as you already know, they need some fixing. They are digital buttons, so I assume if the click distance is shortened, they will be nice.

Touchscreen:
I don’t really plan to use the touchscreen a lot as I don’t use the mouse alot on fullsize computers. You can use the touchscreen with your fingers if the buttons aren’t too small. The screen feels nice and is matte, so it isn’t sir smudgealot like certain smartphones and you don’t have to wipe it after every use. The touchscreen works as expected. It was configured that rightclick was pressing long and this worked too. The only thing I can’t see coming (for me) is using the stylus and the basecontrols (keyboard, buttons and pads) and the same time a lot. I think with the d-pad as cursor buttons and the keyboard and perhaps even the analogue control as a mouse you will find that you’ll use the touchscreen mainly for mouse-only or heavy-mouse-use (now there is a word that can’t come up too often) applications. I may be wrong, because as stated above I don’t use mice alot anyway. The screen itself looks very good. High resolution, bright, good viewing angle. Contrast is higher on OLEDs (no shit, sherlock) but good anyway.

Speakers:
Well, they are tiny speakers. They are okay for gaming sound, they aren’t very loud, but lond enough for me. No HiFi, sorry.

Headphone-Out:
Sounds very nice. I just had my Koss Porta Pro to check, but I was satisfied. I put it up to full power and it was too loud for me. Guess that should be enough

TV-Out:
Not tested. But I saw the cable. It has sweet little pandoralogos on it.

SD-Card-Slots:
Work like every other SD-Card-Slot in the world.

Volume Control:
A real, hardware wheel (Rhyme again!). I like it alot, I don’t think it will accidently be rolled (?!?) in your pocket.

Changing the battery:
You don’t really have to do it a lot (unless you need a day of pandora-using without a power outlet, but it works quite nice. The battery isn’t heavy, I expected much more. It looks cool because it has a pandora-logo on it.

Overall:
I considered stealing it.
It fits nice in my trousers front pockets and is way to small for my cargo pants’ side pockets. The rounded edges on the top let it glide in to your pocket. Really, it is absolutely pocketable if you don’t wear tight trousers. I really had to touch it again and again. When I first saw the design (feels a long time ago, I guess it was somewhen in the eighties) I honestly didn’t think it would be so freaking comfortable. The only thing I can imagine is that people with no motoric skills and very fat thumbs will press to action buttons and the same time once a year, as they are a little bit closer together as on the SNES. You will be stunned and surprised.

Software:
As I wrote before, I tested some nightly builds of the OS with XFCE as DE. XFCE is really snappy, I’d say it is as fast as gnome on my thinkpad x200s with a dualcore 1.86Ghz CPU and 2 Gigs of RAM. It reacts instantly. I hadn’t the opportunity to test WiFi because one of the devs (sorry, I forgot your name) is currently working on it so the Nightly Build had a half-done driver on it. Same with PMenu. I saw the .PND-magic and I think it is a very nice way to put software on a device which mainly relies on temp-storage. It is very fast even on the really slow card ED used. The icons appeared on the Desktop instantly. XFCE didn’t really look sexy but when we the people have the device we’ll change that in a minute, I’m sure. I played the first two levels of Doom and even with unoptimized control I loved it. Quake is framebuffer only atm, but the control scheme of Q1 and 2 is somewhat similar. With a little training you’ll be on par with people using a normal keyboard. I know in the youtube videos of FPSs on the pandora the players always suck but it must be because they can’t play FPS or have to use a camera or something. Supertux was okay but I don’t really like the game that much. Using the shell was cool on such a small device. With a nice keyboard-setup using the shell will work superb. Not much more on the software side but it is being worked on hard and if the pandora ships and the devcounter goes from under ten to over hundred there will be a lot to see.

Conclusion
I’ll conclude on the pandora part: OMFG!!!! This is the coolest thing ever. It is worth every cent, every second of waiting, everything. You will jump around full of joy once you received it. You’ll feed it the coolest homebrew and emulators on the planet. You will play cool games from the 80s and 90s on the go WITH CONTROLS AS GOOD OR BETTER as the original. The pandora is still unique and it’s hard to believe you’ll find anything even remotely comparable in the future.
Thanks ED for letting me into your house, sharing this experience, telling me interesting stuff, showing me interesting pictures (they will be released an some point in the future for sure), showing me your office and everything. I hope I’ll come back one day! Thanks to all the other developers for putting so much work in this. As far as I can oversee it, you did everything right.

- Balzac2m

Toned shoulders, bigger slots, shaved something-or-others. These are the case revisions we wait for; this weekend is the time frame we hope for.

The cases will probably arrive with Michael at the weekend if we are lucky. They should be the final ones.

So it looks like units won’t ship to customers in large numbers until (probably) after Christmas.

I’m sure Michael will make up more units, but it’s going to be small numbers before Christmas, probably for devs.

When you get your Pandora and see just how perfected it is you will understand the delays. (craigix)

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For the moment then, we continue to dream of what we’ll get up to with our bundles of joy. While you’re doing this, perhaps you’d like to help out a fellow Pandorian with some research. Forum member Peca is gathering some data for his bachelor dissertation, and wants to know how you’ll be using your Pandora. His questionnaire lists some usage scenarios, and you allocate points to the pertinent stuff. It’s rather like levelling up your warrior (thanks Kag), except nothing happens at the end.

Peca’s thread

Craigix has posted a mock-up AppStore on the forums and he needs your help giving it a fresh look.

I have a version of the appstore working, but it looks awful as I’m no good with graphics.

The site is very minimal right now, at only 11k per page on average (screen shots make that higher though).

Remember it is totally web based, this isn’t an application you run on the Pandora, you just browse to it with firefox.

Anyway, after seeing the great launch skins you did, let’s see some awesomeness for the app store:

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When Cpasjuste put the call out for Pmenu skins three days ago, he might have been expecting a couple of starter themes to accompany his launcher upon release. He got a little more than that. An army of skinners went to work, prodding Cpasjuste for code fixes along the way to produce a respectable first library of skins. Most of these can be considered works in progress, so save your final judgements for unboxing day. Even so, a fine effort from the community so far.

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