Comments on a pandora from the non-nerd crowd

[Binky]

With all the talk of faster, better, smaller, I though it might be interesting to post the comments I have received about my pandora from friends and acquaintances looking over my shoulder:

• Whats that?!
  
• that looks like a DS
  
• the case look really solid
  
• its like a mini computer
  
• thats really cool
  
• <price> - you could buy a laptop for that much
  
• Wow! you can program it! (from a nerdier friend: surprise at the huge variety of programming languages available)
  
• what does it do?
  
• its like a Raspberry Pi in a nice box
  
• USB host <expression of mild awe>
  
• its got everything you could want in a handheld
  
• 20 hours battery life !?!
  
• hey! a stylus! is that a touchscreen?
  
• is it good?
  
• <when prompted about size/shape> It would be just get annoying & fiddly if it were any smaller
  
• does it have a phone built-in? That would be pretty cool for mobile internet.
  

The things I have picked up overall were:

• people like the concept of a versatile pocket computer
  
• the size is fine as it is
  
• no complaints about sleekness
  
• people are put off by the price (although this particular group was quite well-off)
  
• no grumbling about full-size SD being old-fashioned
  
• very few questions about numerical specs
  

I can see the mods standing by with fire extinguishers and glancing towards the 'lock' button right now, but from the comments and brief discussions about it I've had over the last few days, I'd say the best strategy would be to cram as much functionality and IO hardware as possible into a 15 cm by 8.5cm box. People are more wowed by a pocket laptop, than by a smartphone with a keyboard.


Do other people's experiences correspond to mine in this area?

 

[Linux-SWAT]

Almost everyone complains about mouse buttons not being ABXY.

 

[Binky]

It's not hard to set-up nubs as mouse/scroll and use the 'ABmouse' pnd.

 

[Linux-SWAT]

We're talking about non-nerds. Everything is hard for them.

 

[bismuthdrummer]

Many of those yes, including the DS likeness, craziness of the concept, incredulity at it being a full desktop in your hand, how the plastic looks a bit homemade, and most relevantly to the Pandora 2, no comments on the size.

 

[Wally]

Agreed.. Everyone has said "I thought it was a DS" when I talk to them.. Others just give me weird looks like i'm from outer space or something.

 

[FaeMinx]

I'm with you on this Binky.


Most capable Pocket Computer > Smartphone + Keyboard / gaming controls (but no modem).

 

[klapse]

I've had non-nerds say to me, "That is the future!" Not bad for a deviced designed 2008-2009.


Most are impressed by the laptop-like features and the 128GB storage. A lot are impressed when I ask about their favorite retro game and then launch it.


Agree with binky and bismuthdrummer.

 

[_wb_]

In my experience, most people say "Wow, that is a REALLY small laptop!", followed by one or more of these:


- "Isn't that screen too small to read?"


- "How is it called? Never seen it in any store."


- "How much does it cost? <280€ for a base model, 440€ for this one with more RAM> Well, that's a reasonable price."


- "What's its storage capacity? <No fixed storage, two SD slots so you can easily and quite cheaply add/swap storage. Currently 256GB SD cards exist so theoretically 512 GB is the current limit, but that tends to double every one or two years or so. And of course you can also use a USB stick or external HD.> Wow, that's cool! Most devices I know (e.g. my iPad, my laptop) have only a fixed storage capacity that is hard to upgrade."


- "What OS does it have? Is that Ubuntu?"


- "What kind of CPU does it have? <600MHz ARM processor, overclockable to ~950MHz> That's not bad for such a small device. <Indeed, my brand new laptop clocks to 2.5GHz which is less than 3 times faster while it needs active cooling, which is of course not feasible for a handheld.>"


- "My smartphone has better specs than that, but it's nice to have a real keyboard and game controls."


Most people don't ask about the battery life, and tend to assume it's something like the 4-6 hours they're getting from their laptops or smartphones. When I tell them that you can get 10 hours in heavy use and 20 hours in moderate use, they are obviously impressed.


So my conclusions are:


- size is right (although slightly thinner and slightly wider would also be OK imo)


- price is right (not the current price for the 1GHz models, but ~450€ is fine)


- screen area should be bigger (for readability! don't make the resolution so high that the default text sizes are even smaller than they are now!)


- storage options are an important feature


- battery life is an important feature


- real buttons are an important feature


- (smartphone+ICP2) could for many people be a more attractive thing than a Pandora 2. There is no way you can compete with the big-name smartphone brands. So please make sure that the P2 doesn't effectively become an overpriced, rapidly outdated smartphone of inferior build quality which cannot be used as a phone. There is no market for that, not even a niche market.

 

[ZXDunny]

Agreed with all this. Everything I've heard about the P2 has put me off - I'll be in the market for another P1 instead of a P2 when mine finally dies. That and the fact that I'll never buy anything from Craig ever again...


D.

 

[Farox]

So my conclusions are:


- size is right (although slightly thinner and slightly wider would also be OK imo)


- price is right (not the current price for the 1GHz models, but ~450€ is fine)


- screen area should be bigger (for readability! don't make the resolution so high that the default text sizes are even smaller than they are now!)


- storage options are an important feature


- battery life is an important feature


- real buttons are an important feature

Quoting cause i think that too...


For ICP2 (that i ordered) i reserve to receive it before commenting on it..

 

[klapse]

_wb_ you know you cannot compare a cortex A8 to an Intel laptop cpu, mhz for mhz.


Also, Android apps already have big fonts, so the high dpi problem is linux only, so if the P2 runs android by default, your high dpi objection is not valid. EDIT: but since we like linux over android it is valid for us linuxers.


Otherwise all good points, as per your usual high standard.

 

[PokeParadox]

I've had the "Funny looking DS" comment said more times than I can shake a stick at...

 

[kuru]

Often heard the "looks like a DS" one.


A female, not-so-tech-savvy, teacher at a course I had to take, was greatly impressed by the Pandora when I used it to hold a small speech. Within 15 minutes I prepared it using the Pandora. It included two images I hand-drew directly on the touchscreen - with Pencil or Easypaint, can't remember - and was held using the projector at hand and a DIY tv-out cable. 'tis a beast indeed.


I also got caught playing Contra III behind her back on the projector while the class was watching with growing amusement


The other teacher, long-haired male, took note of the gaming controls and asked a few q's on the topic, bearing a great smile when I showed him the wealth of emulation the Pandy offers and put it in his hands running After Burner on the SEGA Master System emu. He then admitted to being an old school gamer owning old consoles and an N-Gage


Mentioning the battery life is usually rewarded by jaws dropping.


Everybody agrees that the price I paid, which was 250€ on preorder, is amazingly good when held up against the features it boasts. Stating today's prices produced some frowns here and there.

 

[Mr_Loon]

Everybody agrees that the price I paid, which was 250€ on preorder, is amazingly good when held up to the features it boasts. Stating today's prices produced some frowns here and there.

+1 For those sentiments


The other one I get about my CC Pandora is an utterly incredulous 'that was made in England?'


A little further explanation of the global nature of the Pandora project slightly lessens the incredulity, but most are amazed that such a device was even assembled in the UK.

 

[_wb_]

_wb_ you know you cannot compare a cortex A8 to an Intel laptop cpu, mhz for mhz.

Of course not, if only because my laptop has a 64 bit cpu with 4 cores (and probably caches that are a lot bigger and faster, a faster bus and ram, and so on). But then again, it is not so easy to really exploit those bigger registers and extra cores, so you can't just assume four 64 bit cores will give you 8 times the performance (per MHz) compared to one 32 bit core. For single-threaded applications that are more about control flow than about big number crunching (and that description includes quite a big class of programs), the benefit of having those extra cores and wider registers is not nearly that large.

 

[Grench]

_wb_ you know you cannot compare a cortex A8 to an Intel laptop cpu, mhz for mhz.

Of course not, if only because my laptop has a 64 bit cpu with 4 cores...

Sure you can - although it makes about as much sense as comparing how well systems based on both platforms fit in a pants pocket. We all know how the results look - and it's not pretty.

 

[2bit]

I actually have more than one friend who secretly reads ( bur no comments ) these boards , after I showed them my Pandora . One of them constantly talks about ram .

 

[Binky]

One of the most common ones I forgot up there was that people keep saying the screen looks really good.


This is because the DS's screens aren't dreadful. - 320x240. in 2012. wtf?


It doesn't hurt that the pandora looks like a DS

 

[F_Slim]

So far people that saw me identified the Pandora as a pocket-size laptop, thought it's the coolest thing they ever saw in that respect, asked for the price and were like "oh ... really?? ... huh ... well ... ok ... (damn)"


This was at conferences, so people saw it as a netbook/nootebook replacement, not as a gaming-handheld. With regards to size it seemed perfect or surprisingly small. With regards to features all it misses is an easy way to attach it to a beamer using standard VGA-port using 1024x768 resolution. (If it could do that with some cheap adapter and run LibreOffice as PND, I would never have to carry a laptop with me again!!)