Can a Pandora replace MY smartphone+gaming handheld?

[skeezix]

N900 is great hacking hardware, but its not a great phone imho. They never quite got pollished in the firmware so it always feels clunky to me (surprising given the amount of muscle Nokia threw at it.) ie: just trying to figure out how to use the camera to take a pic.. took a buddy of mine a day or two, since its so unintuitive. So if you want to hack on your phone, there is _nothing better_ .. but if you want it to just work, so you can hack on a pandora or something, get a streamlined phone


Also consider if you want to tether device to it; iphone os crappy to tether to for instance, while other phones tether easily. (bt, wired, whatever.)


Caanoo is good kit; low end processing (same a gp2x so many years ago, more or less), but stylish and feels good int he hands, an da good screen; good selection of emus. Its not great for video imho (small screen, lower resolution, limited codecs), but is passable; decent enough for mp3. Great for emualtion and homebrew.


I actually really like the Caanoo (aside from the volume 'slider' which is just annoying), but as I'm so involved with Pandora I don't bust out the Caanoo much. My kid loves it though


jeff


edit; btw, Panplayer is a recent build of mplayer wioth good codec support; the previous mplayer (in CodecPack) is older and much slower.. PanPlayer runs great. I'm not sure how well the vlc does, but not as solid as Panplayer right now.

 

[Granitehead]

The Pandora is for you; but first give your definition of productivity.

Basically some documents for schoolwork (Word and Excel apps - there is Abiword and Gnumeric available), could use a Powerpoint alternative, haven't crossed across any. Then there is Geany for my programming needs.


I assume that there is a pdf reader bundled in Pandora software, is there a GCC as well?

Yes to all but power point alternative. I think there was some success with running OpenOffice on the Pandora, but it was very, very slow. I think I saw one project a while ago that attempted to create a lightweigth power point alternative, dunno if it has matured yet.

gcc isn't preinstalled, is it?


As far as I know it's a pain to get it working.

 

[slaeshjag]

The Pandora is for you; but first give your definition of productivity.

Basically some documents for schoolwork (Word and Excel apps - there is Abiword and Gnumeric available), could use a Powerpoint alternative, haven't crossed across any. Then there is Geany for my programming needs.


I assume that there is a pdf reader bundled in Pandora software, is there a GCC as well?

Yes to all but power point alternative. I think there was some success with running OpenOffice on the Pandora, but it was very, very slow. I think I saw one project a while ago that attempted to create a lightweigth power point alternative, dunno if it has matured yet.

gcc isn't preinstalled, is it?


As far as I know it's a pain to get it working.

Stuckie's dev extend works fine on my pandora.

 

[skeezix]

Used to be easy to just 'opkg install gcc' (more or less) to install it from Angstrom repo, but Angstrom is a moving target and our current firmware hasnt' kept up, so they're different enough now where you can't always do that. (The next major firmware bump in pandora will catch up and hopefulyl stay caught up, however.)


For now, using a Debian extend, or Debian bootable firmware on nand or SD, or other distro, you can get gcc and friends piece of cake (apt-get and away you go.)


For current firmware myself, I keep an old stuckie debian extend (where 'extend' just means aufs filesystem overlay and chroot out the arse so can run normal pandora firmware, then boot up a debian chroot from within it, and run gcc in there


jeff

 

[chole]

I forgot to ask about video: up to which resolutions is Pandora able to play seamlessly? VGA/DVD? I suppose that the specs aren't up to HD...


N900 + Caanoo (Wiz doesn't appeal to me) is a fair combination probably, is cheaper as well (I've found used N900 for 200E and I can buy a Caanoo from gp2x.de for 150E). Anyone's thoughts on this?

Its native resolution is 800x480, and the TV out is SD-only, so no matter the resolution of the video, that's the upper limit what it will be displayed at. As for the actual files themselves, I'd guess that bitrate and codec type play more of a role in whether it's smooth or choppy. I imagine that it can do xvids and divxes and so forth generally decently, but mkv files will probably be hell on it. If you've played video on a soft-modded Wii, that's the general ballpark. Technically, though, it has a dedicated DSP which could take over some of the work for heavier files, but that'd have to be actually taken advantage of in explicit code.

 

[Jey123456]

I forgot to ask about video: up to which resolutions is Pandora able to play seamlessly? VGA/DVD? I suppose that the specs aren't up to HD...


N900 + Caanoo (Wiz doesn't appeal to me) is a fair combination probably, is cheaper as well (I've found used N900 for 200E and I can buy a Caanoo from gp2x.de for 150E). Anyone's thoughts on this?

Its native resolution is 800x480, and the TV out is SD-only, so no matter the resolution of the video, that's the upper limit what it will be displayed at. As for the actual files themselves, I'd guess that bitrate and codec type play more of a role in whether it's smooth or choppy. I imagine that it can do xvids and divxes and so forth generally decently, but mkv files will probably be hell on it. If you've played video on a soft-modded Wii, that's the general ballpark. Technically, though, it has a dedicated DSP which could take over some of the work for heavier files, but that'd have to be actually taken advantage of in explicit code.

you can play higher than that in panplayer (depend mostly on the encoding since some are much more cpu intensive than others), as a rule of thumb 480p work pretty much flawlessly at 900mhz (most likely at lower mhz too, i just always overclock mine ). i watched some 720p on my pandy at 1ghz but those were animes and even then, only a few will play fine without being reencoded.


Offcourse, if you do reencode your vids for the pandora, no use in going 720p since the screenresolution is much closer to 480p, but if your like me, and like just listening vids directly from the web (see midori 0.3.3 for streaming with panplayer), or download the vids to your sd, then play it in panplayer. On the other hand, for streaming, i doubt the built-in wifi would be able to keep with most 720p, even 480p for that matter. but it depend on a lot of factors, mine was so unstable on my wireless that it was pretty much unusable.


i usually have no issues with 480p mkv tho.


I use a 802.11N adapter so downloading even 1080p in stream isnt exactly a problem (my internet can also keep up).

 

[delicator]

from your priority list, Pandora is definitely for you, buy a cheap smartphone like myself (C6 proud owner,voip,skype, also can tether to pandora)

I'm asking the same for me, and, when I have one, I'll try everything to do maximum with pandora and minimum with phone.


I think Alerino solution is, for now, the best.


I read compatibility list from wammu to figure out the best phone.

 

[Nognir]

Used to be easy to just 'opkg install gcc' (more or less) to install it from Angstrom repo, but Angstrom is a moving target and our current firmware hasnt' kept up, so they're different enough now where you can't always do that. (The next major firmware bump in pandora will catch up and hopefulyl stay caught up, however.)


For now, using a Debian extend, or Debian bootable firmware on nand or SD, or other distro, you can get gcc and friends piece of cake (apt-get and away you go.)


For current firmware myself, I keep an old stuckie debian extend (where 'extend' just means aufs filesystem overlay and chroot out the arse so can run normal pandora firmware, then boot up a debian chroot from within it, and run gcc in there


jeff

So, should I hold my breath for the next firmware release? I don't mind running a debian chroot but last time I used one for an assignment I had issues with the scheduler of the program I was coding so I'm a bit cautious.


Also, which is the cheapest GSM smartphone with a secondary camera which can do tethering? I checked the C6 but you have to get the paid version to have a secure AP (I'm only asking this because of current lack of Skype on the Pandora, I use Skype a lot but I need to make video calls and conference calls on Skype, currently on my ZTE Blade neither is possible)

 

[Jey123456]

opkg install gcc still work just fine (did it a day or so ago after reflashing)


tho i would recommend getting extendutils and doing a rootoverlay before messing with opkg, so if things goes wrong, you dont need to reflash .


i just made a root overlay for when i dev on the pandy, and it work great (except if i reboot, it say the pandora crashed and reset my overclock, but i guess its because it try to write/rm the file that tell him it shutdowned correctly, before unmounting XD).

 

[Nognir]

I'm getting a N900 with a broken LCD dirt cheap and I'm going to fix it for a cost that's roughly under 100E. Should I still gather money for a Pandora while waiting for iControlPad to mature and get its desired compatibility with N900, and then choose again? I don't mind ending up with both, since Pandora is what the N900 should be (save for the cameras, Skype and phone/messaging functions).

 

[Nognir]

I'll not be getting a N900 after all, I'm heading straight for an OpenPandora. I'll keep the old trusty Motorola V9 as a cellphone (a friend bought the ZTE Blade) and I'll replace that one probably with some workhorse that can do tethering, like the Nokia E72.


Thank you all for your advice. I'll report back when I've got an OP in my hands.

 

[Nintendo]

You're welcome and very good decision there in the end.

 

[Nognir]

You're welcome and very good decision there in the end.

Which one? About the E72? :lol:

 

[Nintendo]

You're welcome and very good decision there in the end.

Which one? About the E72? :lol:

Lol, for heading straight for a Pandora...


...And the E72

 

[Nognir]

I've been reading the openpandora vs xperia play comparison thread, and there's one thing that's bothered me. Are there really any big stability/bug issues in the OP software? Nevermind the standby problem, buggy behavior in the OS frustrates me kinda easily...

 

[Prometheus]

Are there really any big stability/bug issues in the OP software? Nevermind the standby problem, buggy behavior in the OS frustrates me kinda easily...

What sort of issues do you mean?


In the OS, I've come across nothing (although I gather that a bad flash of the OS, which requires a reflash, can cause bizarre behaviour), but naturally in some emulators you may occasionally bump into something (although personally, I haven't).

 

[Blue Protoman]

It's pretty stable. There are more absences of features than there are bugs.

 

[slaeshjag]

Well, there is the PND_run bug, but that one will be fixed in HF6.

 

[Prometheus]

^ If you mean the one I think you mean, there's also already a fix for it for Hotfix 5, if you install it manually.

 

[slaeshjag]

I heard it did other nasty things, so I never tried it.