Anyone Else Lost Interest?


Yep I've lost a little interest and the delays are testing me. However, I'm still very excited. I check the unofficial blog and the forums a few times daily. SIGH.
 
I haven't really lost interest. Although, initially I wanted it for more of its computing capabilities; after I got my G1, I now am more interested in the gaming aspect. I still think that it's a great device, and the price point is very good for its specs. And considering that there is not a portable gaming device currently on the market that could touch it in terms of power, I think it's safe for now in that area. Even if there were a PSP2 or a new Nintendo handheld that was launched and was as powerful as the Pandora, they will not be as open, and they will end up costing many times what you would pay for the pandora, games are not cheap.

That said, I want the thing in my hands ASAP! :p

Good luck on the next two months guys!
 
I have not lost interest, but I am disappointed and scrambling for alternatives. The end of summer approaches fast and I expected (no, depended on) the Pandora shipping within a year of the pre-order. If I see something that fits my needs just as well (which is not likely, happily and sadly) I will definitely consider canceling my pre-order and buying that.

Gosh, what I wouldn't give to have the Pandora in my hands! :(
 
My only worry is that if a pandora 2 and 3 come out that not much effort will be put into supporting the devices once they have been released as all the effort then goes into the new one.
 
Enverex said:
My only worry is that if a pandora 2 and 3 come out that not much effort will be put into supporting the devices once they have been released as all the effort then goes into the new one.
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Isn't that like worrying about buying a PS3, because a PS4 is probably in the works?
 
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I'm not exactly loosing interest but I am really frustrated by the delays.

I think if there is a Pandora 2 in the future I might well consider getting one. But I'll be wary of getting into a pre-order, I'd wait.

The OP team must have learnt so much about how to project manage, design and build a complex system like the Pandora. What I do hope improves is the communication regarding time-lines, as has been pointed out earlier in this thread (to lazy to find the reference) the times for deadlines etc haven't added up. Don't get me wrong the demos and news has been great and many of the problems explained. But its not good when one OP statement says one month and another seems to say two. It has lead to some unnecessary flame wars, and cause friction in the community. Not sure what the answer is. Do you say less and act a bit more like the big boys? Or do you under promise and over deliver by for example saying 'two months' when you think/hope the real answer it 'one month'. If the project runs on time you look good, if it runs more quickly you look fantastic.
 
Which I do anyway, hah. But there is far more commercial support for those where as dev input on the Pandora will be critical as availability of software will be more scarce.
 
We are quickly approaching the period where I become disappointed with the team. A lot of the delays are caused by acceptable learning curves, but when they go and tell tales about how shipping was delayed because of missing accounts, or other piddly things that should have easily been taken care of, you start to wonder. I'm not saying I could have done better. In fact, I probably would have made similar mistakes myself. But it is the nature of an open project that you tell the good along with the bad. Nintendo and Sony could be making the exact same mistakes, and you'd never hear about it. Of course, you'd never hear about anything.
I had a point in there somewhere. Seems to have taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque.

edit: which is to say, I am not losing interest. I'm still glad to have pre-ordered, and would gladly do so again, I just would have been happier if the preorder had been specified as a year in advance instead of 2 months, if you know what I mean.
On the other hand, if they had said "pre-order now, delivery next year" they probably wouldn't have gotten as many.
 
Nope, I am still waiting anxiously. Don't think I will lose interest for some time to come.
As for other devices turning up, for me there isn't one that is slightly interesting as an alternative.
I would consider buying an other device if it has ALL of the following specs:

About the size of the pandora, maybe slightly smaller.
At least the same processing power as the Pandora.
Wifi
Touch screen (800x480 or higher)
At least 256 MB ram.
SDHC compatible
Dedicated Graphics chip
Dual analogs(yes, two of them. One isn't sufficient) + Dpad
Dedicated gaming buttons(including at least two shoulder buttons)
Running an open source modern OS (preferably Linux)
An active community.

So for me personally I don't think there is a Pandora Killer at the horizon.

As for those who just cant wait any longer and want to buy a Iphone instead(because it has better specs), did you preorder the Pandora because you wanted to use it as a phone, surf the web, listen to music, watch video and play crappy touch based games on it. If you did I don't think the Pandora is the right device for you.

Cause I cannot understand this "I've waited 1½ year, now I can't wait any longer.". Why!? what has suddenly changed? It wont be able to run the newest games?(It never could). Please explain. And please don't take this a some kind of criticism. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. I am just truly curious as to why it suddenly isn't good enough. Why did you preoreder? What did you intend to use it for that it cannot do anymore, or what device can do it better now?

And I understand that you probably didn't have the same reasons to preorder as me(play good old Fps's(Quake, Quake 2, Doom etc), play emulators,play other misc game ports, surf the web occasional and tinker with it). To put it simple: A spiritual successor to the gp2x.

Sorry for the gigantic off topic rant.
 
I think one of the big concerns is that something will be released in the near future that is "better" than the Pandora for what some people wanted it for. I have a feeling what it may be in that regard is a more powerful processor and GPU thus allowing it to run emulators better (for ones that ran but not full speed on current handhelds) and open up the possibility to emulate hardware which is currently too powerful for the current gen of handhelds.

I see the PSP2 being a contender for this as it will have some crazy powerful GPU in it (some 8 core thing) but on the other hand, that isn't going to work for people like me who are looking for something that is not only a handheld console, but a little Linux based tinker device (big appeal, I always hated how locked down embedded devices were normally). I guess I can just wish for more powerful hardware in the meantime, but on the other hand I'm sure there would be other sacrifices made anyway if that were the case; less battery life, far more expensive, etc.

Just a few thoughts.
 
Esslan said:
Cause I cannot understand this "I've waited 1½ year, now I can't wait any longer.". Why!? what has suddenly changed? It wont be able to run the newest games?(It never could). Please explain.
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Some people preordered with specific uses in mind for their Pandora. Maybe a gift, maybe to take on a long trip, maybe they had a project that with requirements that make it a perfect fit.
And then they realize the birthday has come and gone, their vacation is already upon them, or they haven't made any progress on their project because they were waiting for their key component. At which point in time you begin to question if it was really worth it.

There's another class of people who simply look at the length of time they've been waiting and say "enough is enough". If the cable guy said he'd be there between 15:00 and 18:00, and it's now 18:05, do you call the cable company and ask what's up or keep waiting? Maybe you're a patient person, and 5 minutes is acceptable. Maybe if the guy showed up at 18:30 with a story about a major accident, ok great. What if he doesn't show up at 19:00? Or 20:00? Or even the next day? At what point have you waited long enough and now you call the cable company? Some people are applying the similar logic to the Pandora purchase: at some point (a different point for everyone) they just have to call and find out what's going on, and if the answer isn't good enough, they cancel their cable and get satellite.
 
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I'm looking for a pocket-sized device with a good battery life that will give me root access and a keyboard out of the box.

Right now, the only contender is the Pandora, and it has a strong group of supporters as well. My interest will last until I own something at least as good as the Pandora.

^^^ How many threads will I have to post this in? Should I just make this my signature or something?
 
i kind of lost interest after having upgraded my eeepc with a 128GB runcore ssd. but you know, that's a good thing! i don't have this damned itch to check the board every hour anymore and once the pandora will be delivered i'll still enjoy it. i'm sure.
 
As someone who ordered later and took someone elses cancelled order i have been waiting quite as long as some of the other members who have posted here. I am of course looking forward to getting mine.
 
WizardStan said:
Some people preordered with specific uses in mind for their Pandora. Maybe a gift, maybe to take on a long trip, maybe they had a project that with requirements that make it a perfect fit.
And then they realize the birthday has come and gone, their vacation is already upon them, or they haven't made any progress on their project because they were waiting for their key component. At which point in time you begin to question if it was really worth it.

There's another class of people who simply look at the length of time they've been waiting and say "enough is enough". If the cable guy said he'd be there between 15:00 and 18:00, and it's now 18:05, do you call the cable company and ask what's up or keep waiting? Maybe you're a patient person, and 5 minutes is acceptable. Maybe if the guy showed up at 18:30 with a story about a major accident, ok great. What if he doesn't show up at 19:00? Or 20:00? Or even the next day? At what point have you waited long enough and now you call the cable company? Some people are applying the similar logic to the Pandora purchase: at some point (a different point for everyone) they just have to call and find out what's going on, and if the answer isn't good enough, they cancel their cable and get satellite.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the insight. Two very valid and good reasons.
In the second case I do think there is some difference though:

The cable company is already a established service so they should be able to be in time. And if you call and ask where the h*ll the cable guy is they will probably do something about it. As they can do something about it.
If you cancel your cable you can always get it from another provider(or satellite as you say ).

But in the case of the pandora they haven't actually got a product ready. So if you call them or post in the forum they cant do anything about it because they are already doing all they can to get it out there

And as for cancelling, what can you buy instead of the pandora? nothing that I am aware of. So it should be compared to cancelling the cable and get nothing instead because it took to long.

But I can totally understand people who are getting tired these "two month" release dates passing by though and cancelling because you didn't really care that much about it anyway. But if you are thinking that way you shouldn't have preorder anyway.

When I preorderd the Pandora I wasn't actually counting on to be finished by the time they said they would(hoped for it though) as I understood it was a very complex device being made by "noobs"(no offence guys!) in their spare time and it would probably go as smooth as hoped.

I guess they marketed it the wrong way really.
 
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Esslan said:
Thanks for the insight. Two very valid and good reasons.
In the second case I do think there is some difference though:

The cable company is already a established service so they should be able to be in time. And if you call and ask where the h*ll the cable guy is they will probably do something about it. As they can do something about it.
If you cancel your cable you can always get it from another provider(or satellite as you say ).

But in the case of the pandora they haven't actually got a product ready. So if you call them or post in the forum they cant do anything about it because they are already doing all they can to get it out there

And as for cancelling, what can you buy instead of the pandora? nothing that I am aware of. So it should be compared to cancelling the cable and get nothing instead because it took to long.

But I can totally understand people who are getting tired these "two month" release dates passing by though and cancelling because you didn't really care that much about it anyway. But if you are thinking that way you shouldn't have preorder anyway.

When I preorderd the Pandora I wasn't actually counting on to be finished by the time they said they would(hoped for it though) as I understood it was a very complex device being made by "noobs"(no offence guys!) in their spare time and it would probably go as smooth as hoped.

I guess they marketed it the wrong way really.
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Not the greatest analogy, I know, but it was all I could think of and got the point across. Regarding the cable company being able to do something, you've obviously not had some of the problems I've had (it was technically DSL that I had the problem with, not cable, but that's besides the point, and it was eventually cleared up, several days later, but I digress)
The reason I said cable vs satellite (as opposed to just switching to another provider) is because they both do similar things in different ways, with different feature sets. Eventually these people realize they've been waiting for the Pandora for so long with no end in sight, cancel that order and get an EeePC instead. Or iPhone. Or Treo. Or whatever secondary system most closely matches as many features as they can get.
You know they're "noobs" and I know they're "noobs" and 300 people on this forum could know they're "noobs" and be perfectly fine with that and willing to wait for the complete feature set, but that still leaves 3500 users unaccounted for. It's these 3500 that I'm afraid of.
 
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Yeah you're right about those 3500. That's what I meant by say that they marketed it the wrong way.
Maybe they should have gone with some kind of To Honest™ marketing and stated on the site that they were new at this and that they really didn't knew what they were getting them self into...or maybe not :p
 
Since I have an OMAP 3530 Device (Samsung i8910, I believe the wiki is incorrect in labeling it with 3430, because in the maintenance mode you can adjust volume for DSP) I will tell you the one reason I am very, VERY, excited and eagerly awaiting the Pandora. Software.

Right now, I can play 720p videos on my phone quite well. The DSP on my i8910 is very capable at handling video and many different formats. Not only that but I only have a 1500 mAh battery and coupled with the OLED screen running at half brightness with bluetooth headphones, I've been able to squeeze out about 6 hours of video.

But that's it. My phone has a beautiful CPU+GPU that is hardly getting used. The only "games" I can play are java based and I have an older JVM installed on my device that can't be updated unless it comes packaged in a firmware.

So, while I've seen the Pandora running PSX, Quake 3 and a DreamCast emu running at 12FPS, I am playing JAVA!! games on my phone.

Basically, it feels like I have a Ferrari that I can only go 30 MPH in.

So, no. I haven't lost interest. More, because I already own an OMAP3530 device (Which takes some of the sting away waiting for as long as we have.), it makes me appreciate THAT MUCH MORE what this community and OP will bring when the Pandora arrives.

Also, to anyone thinking they will get an OMAP3530 device cheaper then the Pandora with roughly the same capability will be in for a rude awakening.
 
I for one have not lost interest. As a matter of fact despite critically needing the money I put down back right now I refuse to cancel my order. It took faith for me to spend the money up front and being the trusting kind of person I am I am impatiently waiting for the device. Once it's in my hands and my faith is rewarded I will be so happy to see my dream of this device realized (I came up with this idea (minus the PC aspect) around 2000 while discussing gaming and emulation with a coworker when I explained to him someday someone would try to make a handheld emulation device that was not just a gameboy type device. When I found the Pandora project I was hooked the minute I saw someone was actually finally doing it. And to have it be more powerful and functional then my original concept, well, I was just hooked and finally was able to get the preorder money for one and jumped at the chance. And I had to jump through hoops to get it sent! So my interest has actually improved as I may now be doing something I have never done before, which is helping with Pleng's Dizzy game graphics. So if that works out just waiting for the Pandora will have given me more things to be active with. The wait does drive one nuts, but let's face it. It will be beyond cool when it finally gets here. As with everyone else I am hoping sooner rather than later!
 
Some form of competition would be good. Free market. Encourage a speedier delivery than the up-to-now-failure. So many uses that I didn't plan on not having for a year. Note taking, web, music (hours on trains are boring as hell), games, netbook-like productivity, bluetooth, programming on the move...

I paid my £200 long ago. At least be honest. We're a dedicated community, news of 4-5 months or so would've hardly scared anybody off. I'm waiting no longer than the last day of September. It's gone on long enough.
 
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