braincell1973
Still Fresh
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2011
- Messages
- 6
dodgy as in - unoptomised - straight vanilla ports.
£375 are you having a laugh????
- Thread starter braincell1973
- Start date
dodgy as in - unoptomised - straight vanilla ports.
gruso
thunderbox
Emu development (and app development in general) has been ongoing, but not publicised well. There are still a few bits and pieces stuck at 'quick port' status, but most things have come a long way and are quite Pandora-optimised now.
(This doesn't take into account a lot of the XFCE/Angstrom stuff, the 'Pandorification' of desktop apps is somewhat slower but will happen).
(This doesn't take into account a lot of the XFCE/Angstrom stuff, the 'Pandorification' of desktop apps is somewhat slower but will happen).
Hahaha. Hahaha. You made a funny.
You can get a lot of things for £375, it doesn't mean that they are equivalent to the Pandora in any way. In reality, the Pandora's competition is exceedingly expensive. So expensive that most people choose to subsidise their smartphone purchases and let themselves get monetarily sodomised by mobile networks for the sake of buying a smartphone which isn't really all that smart.
Portable devices aren't cheap, even handheld consoles, with their comparatively inexpensive upfront prices, are subsidised with expensive games and their manufacturers actively, and viciously pursue anyone who dares try and do anything they don't sanction with those devices.
You know what the Pandora nets you? A device with a manufacturer who wont sue you for doing what the hell you want with it. A pretty good value proposition if you ask me.
(PS: Hahaha £375 for a laptop.)
fraseyboy
Member
In other words when you buy a Sony console you don't really own it, you're just buying a share of it. Sony still controls some of your purchase and what you do with it.
When you buy a Pandora the whole damn thing is yours to do with what you please.
second exodous
Advanced Member
I still don't see how that is 'dodgy', it isn't like the OP team did these ports really fast just to sell their system. The people porting them are the one's you should be calling 'dodgy'. You shouldn't even do that though, give it time, they'll get optimized. I don't even think anyone that is profiting from the Pandora is even doing any of the emulator porting so you can not call anyone 'dodgy' here.
Rome was not built in a day.
So I guess you tried them all?
SNES is optimized, not perfect yet, but more than a straight port. Same for UAE4ALL.
PCSX-ReARMED is a development especially for the Pandora, Mupen is also very well optimized already.
PicoDrive is optimized and even runs 32x.
Most emulators run out-of-the-box fullspeed on the Pandora, what do you need to optimize there except for the menu?
Mostly all of them use proper VSync, have nice controls and do what they should do: Play classic games in fullspeed.
Prometheus
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2008
- Messages
- 9,472
I'm sorry to hear that your Pandora has disappointed you. I use mine every day, and despite being stung by the bad nub problem early on, I've never had any other problems - the software's incredibly good, considering that it's entirely offered by people who do this in their free time for us.
I just looked this up, as the price you note for these two netbooks caught my eye, but Argos says that it's one netbook, and it's £150. It's an MSI Wind U130, with a 10" display and a manufacturer-quoted four hour battery-life. And unfortunately it's pink. Is this one of the ones you mean?
This may be competitive for you, but it isn't for some of us - and I'm not a fan of pink, myself.
I'm happier with the real-world 10 to 15 hours battery life my Pandora gives, and the fact that it fits in my pocket without a need for me to carry around an extra joypad. It's not just about what it costs you - it's about what it does. I cannot consider these devices competitive or practical in any way, for my uses.
Your mileage may vary, as they say - £150 is certainly a nice price if that device suits you, although it's out of stock for home delivery, which tends to mean it's a discontinued product which may be hard to find in many stores at this point. Indeed, I just did a stock check of all of my local ones, of which there are no less than an entire ten, and it's not available at any of them.
It's not greedy. It's covering costs.
I remember learning this stuff when I was a kid - I've never forgotten it, so I can't complain about the price considering what it got me.
It's well-known around here that the Pandora isn't going to be for everyone. You may want to look into something else - I'm sure you could recoup your £330 on eBay, as if my memory serves me correctly, even refurbished units have been sold for more than that.
second exodous
Advanced Member
Although a moped gets you a pocket-able motorcycle.
bradleyb01
Still Fresh
I love my Pandora and am very happy with it's price and performance because of it's portability and I can do just about anything I feel like doing, including my current obsession of experimenting with various OSes booting to a SD card.
i currently am spending countless hours playing Icewind Dale on gemrb which I didn't even know was possible when I ordered it.
There really is nothing like it out there with gaming controls that also work extremely well as mice. I even use it to manage my servers at work via Remmina and the nubs, which is much more fun than the typical keyboard and mouse.
Long story short, I like some others find it worth the money, others won't.
Good luck to you.
i currently am spending countless hours playing Icewind Dale on gemrb which I didn't even know was possible when I ordered it.
There really is nothing like it out there with gaming controls that also work extremely well as mice. I even use it to manage my servers at work via Remmina and the nubs, which is much more fun than the typical keyboard and mouse.
Long story short, I like some others find it worth the money, others won't.
Good luck to you.
Here's my honest scoop of why I like the Pandora:
I travel. A lot. I've taken laptops with joypads into war zones. They're heavy. They're bulky.
The Pandora is not. I have a fully functional miniPC in my pocket, with the ability to play lots and lots of games.
I would have paid $2500 in 2005 for a Pandora. I'm not even kidding, I paid that much for a laptop that got hit by an IED (I still have that laptop, and it still works, by the way.)
And of course, the fact that I haven't paid a dime for programs and have had absolutely awesome customer service has been a great side effect.
The $550 I spent on it was worth it, over and over. You have to play PS1 or N64 on this thing, or type this entire post on it, to understand how cool it is.
Hope this helps to explain.
Also, game systems are sold under cost (xbox, ps3, etc.) and they make their money back on game and software sales. A small group of open source guys building them by hand can't secure the capital to do that, so of course it's more expensive.
I sincerely do not mind paying for quality, especially if the builder cared about it.
I travel. A lot. I've taken laptops with joypads into war zones. They're heavy. They're bulky.
The Pandora is not. I have a fully functional miniPC in my pocket, with the ability to play lots and lots of games.
I would have paid $2500 in 2005 for a Pandora. I'm not even kidding, I paid that much for a laptop that got hit by an IED (I still have that laptop, and it still works, by the way.)
And of course, the fact that I haven't paid a dime for programs and have had absolutely awesome customer service has been a great side effect.
The $550 I spent on it was worth it, over and over. You have to play PS1 or N64 on this thing, or type this entire post on it, to understand how cool it is.
Hope this helps to explain.
Also, game systems are sold under cost (xbox, ps3, etc.) and they make their money back on game and software sales. A small group of open source guys building them by hand can't secure the capital to do that, so of course it's more expensive.
I sincerely do not mind paying for quality, especially if the builder cared about it.
Link
ithic.com
I've been using a Pandora since May of last year luckily. Amazing control in many many emulators and games. "Dodgy"? No way in hell. I don't even know Linux and have had no problems with this thing either in Mini-Menu or XFCE. I had an LCD go bad, but I had one of the first hundred which were most prone to fail in that area, and it eventually did after 3 months of hard use. Repair went well, the unit I received back was much better in build quality than what I had sent in to be fixed, the case was as close to flawless as I needed. This thing made it from Oakland to Philly with a stop over and still had 36% of the battery left. I listened to music, watched some video, and played games most of the time on that flight.
I wound up ordering a Premium Pandora as well to help the team out, that unit needed to be RMA'd immediately due to a faulty case and the shoulder button issue from Dec/Jan CC boards. I was contacted that my new unit would be dispatched within the next 7 days on Wednesday. I'm very curious to see how these shoulder buttons are.
Paying $540 for the Pandora for me was a no brainer just for the pure sake of having a backup for my current unit, which is still rocking hard after 10 months, a chassis overhaul, and a new LCD.
I wound up ordering a Premium Pandora as well to help the team out, that unit needed to be RMA'd immediately due to a faulty case and the shoulder button issue from Dec/Jan CC boards. I was contacted that my new unit would be dispatched within the next 7 days on Wednesday. I'm very curious to see how these shoulder buttons are.
Paying $540 for the Pandora for me was a no brainer just for the pure sake of having a backup for my current unit, which is still rocking hard after 10 months, a chassis overhaul, and a new LCD.
With such shockingly bad writing and idiotic comparisons I can't fathom how your intention was anything other than to post flamebait. How much sympathy did you expect?
Guess I'd better get out the flamethrower:
You have a pretty apt username. Furthermore, If you were born in 1973, are clearly from the Land of Eng and have that tenuous a grasp on the English language then, sir, I dub thee an idiot. But you're bold enough to advertise the fact you have but a solitary remaining braincell, so I've got to respect you for that. Still, I suggest you go away and troll another forum.
Clearly "the market" has spoken, and OpenPandora have certainly not priced themselves out of it. They're not going to drop the price to pander to your unfounded and unfair whining ( calling them greedy is a low, low blow to guys who turned their lives upside-down to make this device a reality ), so either save up and buy one, or shut up and go away. They owe you nothing.
It might sound like I'm mounting a passionate defence, but in reality I'm just intensely bored and enjoy linguistically ejaculating onto forums. It's freakin' 4:46am, and I'm still recovering from eating two curries. I'm not entirely confident that I can sleep yet without dissolving from the inside out. Flamethrower off.
Guess I'd better get out the flamethrower:
You have a pretty apt username. Furthermore, If you were born in 1973, are clearly from the Land of Eng and have that tenuous a grasp on the English language then, sir, I dub thee an idiot. But you're bold enough to advertise the fact you have but a solitary remaining braincell, so I've got to respect you for that. Still, I suggest you go away and troll another forum.
Clearly "the market" has spoken, and OpenPandora have certainly not priced themselves out of it. They're not going to drop the price to pander to your unfounded and unfair whining ( calling them greedy is a low, low blow to guys who turned their lives upside-down to make this device a reality ), so either save up and buy one, or shut up and go away. They owe you nothing.
It might sound like I'm mounting a passionate defence, but in reality I'm just intensely bored and enjoy linguistically ejaculating onto forums. It's freakin' 4:46am, and I'm still recovering from eating two curries. I'm not entirely confident that I can sleep yet without dissolving from the inside out. Flamethrower off.
bradleyb01
Still Fresh
Dude, you gotta watch that curry. It's absolutely delicious, but you do pay for it in the end!
beefcurtains!
Still Fresh
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2007
- Messages
- 24
Having just put down £375 on a premium I have to say that is quite a fair price, in fact I think the original price was probably set too low really. Trying to get out such a unique device made by a few people, and get the price as low as a mass produced item may have been a mistake. I'm sure it has been said before but your £200 netbook is only that price because giant corps use slave labour in the far east to bolt them together.
Prometheus
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2008
- Messages
- 9,472
And because the specific one in question is pink.
craigix
Mega GP Mania
Maybe, rather than a PSP, he should spend £460 on an iPhone4. Millions have. I don't think it's worth it. I didn't start any forum posts about it. Plenty of people are happy with that mainstream machine. But that's not what we are offering.
Thousands of people go to their tailor every year and spend £5k-£10k on a suit, the tailor asks them what they want, then spends months making the suit for them by hand, calling the customer back in for measuring and showing them the progress, people do this because they like the service, the experience and the unique product they get.
The Pandora is similar, it's essentially a bespoke hand made tiny computer. It's never going to be cheap.
You also get to speak directly to us, have input on the product, the design, the software and you can even post things like this very post and we answer you.
For £375 you will get a totally different adventure to the iPhone. It's not for everyone, clearly.
Thousands of people go to their tailor every year and spend £5k-£10k on a suit, the tailor asks them what they want, then spends months making the suit for them by hand, calling the customer back in for measuring and showing them the progress, people do this because they like the service, the experience and the unique product they get.
The Pandora is similar, it's essentially a bespoke hand made tiny computer. It's never going to be cheap.
You also get to speak directly to us, have input on the product, the design, the software and you can even post things like this very post and we answer you.
For £375 you will get a totally different adventure to the iPhone. It's not for everyone, clearly.
Bosbeetle
Terminally lost
Maybe you should introduce paying the pandora by subscription for €30 per month for 2 years!
It's cheap it's only €30 per month and it comes with a free* pandora
*free as in free entrance if you pay for it in advance.
It's cheap it's only €30 per month and it comes with a free* pandora
*free as in free entrance if you pay for it in advance.
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craigix
Mega GP Mania
Maybe you should introduce paying the pandora by subscription for €30 per month for 2 years!
It's cheap it's only €30 per month and it comes with a free* pandora
*free as in free entrance if you pay for it in advance.
Don't give me ideas