c't writes article about Pandora

[ghostpatch]

For your information the article covers a whole page and c't is a German higher class computer magazine. Therefore a lot of lets call them “computer people“ will read it.


When I read this article I was like what? seriously....


The author didn't mention the awesome emulators and home brew at all.


translation:


”the game offering consists of known Linux titles like Battle for Wesnoth, emulators for old consoles, MAME, SCUMM-adventures and so on” - thats it


ok then he goes on about Quake almost running fluently at 600MHz,.... he wasn't able to start DOOM,.... bla bla bla


Another questionable point he had was Pandora not being competitive against Sony, Nintendo, Android smartphones and even the iPod touch! lol


Further points of criticism were, no ergonomics, no YouTube-videos, bad casing, slow browsing etc.


Notaz was mentioned for his Cyanogen port which annoyed with system crashes and a lot of error prompts. At least the author sad it was an experiment


I think the Pandora certainly has its weaknesses but also a lot a strengths. Sadly the positive aspects missed out. The overall expression was way too negative -.-


anybody else read this article?

 

[JeFF]

Picture / link please?

 

[ghostpatch]

its a hard copy magazine and I don't belive I can post a pic of it, due to Copyright restrictions.


I found this tiny preview pic. It won't help much though

 

[EvilDragon]

Oh, geez. I sent them a review copy (1GHz unit), as c't usually is pretty good and they also have some Linux experts... looks like the one who did it was NOT the one who knows what you can do with it.


I even offered them PanDebian and Slackware on SD Card, but seems like all he wanted to do is play a bit...

 

[ghostpatch]

yes, it seamed they* didn't know what they had in their hands. It's pretty poor for c't standards.They probably specialize in something totally different like consumer stuff. Assuming they are professional writers everybody who goes to school a little longer, theoretically knows how to give criticism/feadback, being the core of every reviw which is not what they did. But the worst thing was using sarcasm in such a negative and unbalanced reviw...


The good thing is some surely get curious - I would ; )


*I just noticed two authors are mentioned - doesn't make any differece anyway


Edit: I have to give credit for the headline! "Ich war eine Dose" translates into "I was a can" - awesome!

 

[klapse]

Well well, I will have to check this out. Maybe some of our german users can write a polite letter to the editor mentioning all that is incorrect in the review (no youtube? what?).

 

[erico]

Oh well, I take people interested/curious in such, and with money, will step to the open pandora page and check it further anyways.


It will be good for those people to then discover what is actually possible.


Bad for the magazine as those people might feel a little awkward about the depths of the review.


Nice pandora picture though.

 

[frostfall]

no youtube? Oo he missed the point : the pandora is not only a retro gaming console, it's a computer!! the repo is full of games and programs, you have full linux access with pandebian, full android access(with some bugs ok but there's some cool stuff working like gta3 etc...)...comparing a little computer with a console or a phone is absurd...

 

[EvilDragon]

Sure, everyone can send letters to the magazine. They have an area where they print comments of readers about articles... so they might react to that.

 

[klapse]

Send your (polite, informative) letters to ct (at ) ct.heise.de.

 

[kasp]

Well the Pandora is a niche device that only appeals to a small part of the population. It's no surprise that you would get the odd unfavorable review. Most people who try linux for the first time are hellbent against it as well.

 

[_wb_]

Yes, but it's a pity that a big magazine like c't (241,000 subscribers) does such an amateurish review. They should have reviewers available who, you know, actually know how to use a linux computer.

 

[EvilDragon]

Yes, but it's a pity that a big magazine like c't (241,000 subscribers) does such an amateurish review. They should have reviewers available who, you know, actually know how to use a linux computer.

Especially as their sister magazine (i'x) is specialized on Linux...

 

[Fzero]

I don't know of either these magazines, but perhaps you should have sent the Pandora to the sister magazine [i'x] instead ... In hindsight.


Of course not saying it's your fault though, I agree they should get someone who knows more about Linux to have done the review.


Perhaps the latest edition of the [i'x] magazine "does" have an article on it too, have you checked this?

 

[MasterJulian]

I just read the artice and man it blows. I usually enjoy my new c't at the weekend (when I have time to read it) but this article is very distinguished from the usual style. I have the strong impression that no one wanted to deal with the Pandora so they gave it to their intern who has no Idea how to use a linux box and who has grown up using iPhone and Co with capacitive touchscreen. Of course I am a "fanboy" (I hate this word) and my opinion is not objective but this article does not display the Pandora right. I can give my grandma an IPad and if I ask here a week later how she likes it she will probably say that her old cutting board is better. Its basically the same thing what the people at c't did. If I find the time later or sometimes next week I will write an (hopefully) objective email to the editorial team.

 

[EvilDragon]

If I find the time later or sometimes next week I will write an (hopefully) objective email to the editorial team.

I think that would be helpful. If a few people actually write them (non-aggressive) mails, they might do a small follow-up.

 

[xyta]

It's quite a PR desaster.


ct is the second most popular computer magazine in Germany and definately the one with the highest reputation/awareness ratio. It's usually known for objective reviews. For example, they usually don't nominate test winners, but discuss pros and cons of products in detail, also when comparing them to similar ones.


They do a lot of technical geek stuff for their testing, which sometimes is recognized outside of Germany:


Here they created new variants of malware to test the heurestic of antivirus software:


http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/12/21/dwindling_antivirus_protection/


"Change 2 Bytes and Windows XP Home becomes XP Professional:"


http://www.i4u.com/7929/change-2-bytes-and-windows-xp-home-becomes-xp-professional


ct is beyond that the author of the h2benchw harddisk benchmark, which is also used by other magazines (i.e Tom's Hardware).


So it's not just some rubbish "1000 best windows tweaks" magazine. It's an highly respected and widely recognized authority in terms of IT and technology, read by thousands computer geeks, hobby administrators and of course normal comsumers. ct has an image of being accurate, critical and infallible.

 

[EvilDragon]

It's quite a PR desaster.


ct is the second most popular computer magazine in Germany and definately the one with the highest reputation/awareness ratio. It's usually known for objective reviews. For example, they usually don't nominate test winners, but discuss pros and cons of products in detail, also when comparing them to similar ones.

Yes - and that's the reason it's important to find out what the heck happened here. I haven't read it yet (will do so tomorrow), but from what I have heard so far it seems they mostly only mentioned negative aspects and totally missed out all the points that make the Pandora interesting and important.


This is totally weird. If the author had problems or questions using it - he had my direct contact address, so he could've asked. I also offered an SD Card with PanDebian or Slackware additionally...

 

[erico]

@xyta


Oh well, maybe they had the intern doing the pandora review.


Speaking of good or bad points about something is part of a review.


By what others commented, It seems the review is not only bad, but highly innacurate, which leads to bad criticism and a fail by giving readers false facts.


I really can´t hold any respect to such magazine as their staff clearly did not do the job, or maybe, pandora is not what sells their magazines and they are more prone to deal with things they believe will get costumers.


One way or the other, should I ever be reading such and am interested, I would go check it myself before holding for truth whatever any magazine or site says so.


I do believe it is not just me that do it. :rolleyes:

 

[Binky]

Perhaps the reviewer was approaching the pandora as they would a smartphone..?