ah, so maybe here is the place to write my first impressions mini review....
i received my pandora yesterday and did not have too much time to spend with it. still, I have some quite strong first impressions.
Design: i half expected the pandora to be a brick. surprisingly, it is not - or does not look and feel like one. if you like razorblade apple design, it might not be for you, but it really looks nice to me. it also does not weigh too heavily and it is perfectly comfortable to hold in both hands. well done overall.
Build quality: here, the pandora is definitely lacking. but not as much as i expected. if you don't look at it too closely, you'll almost think it is a polished machine. well, almost since the lid on one side does not close correctly. a 0.5 mm issue, but noticeable. the same is true for the lower edge of the bezel. it is bent outward - again by maybe half a millimeter. also, the shoulder buttons are wobbly and the keyboard has a kind of squishiness that doesn't give you a nice tactile feedback. there are a few more smaller issues like the batery sticker not properly sticking, but as bad as this may sound, these are relatively minor issues and the rest looks solid. it does not feel sloppy like a chinese PMP, it rather feels handmade - which it was
Controls: in principle, the controls of the pandora make a good first impression. nubs are perfectly placed, everythink is optimized for thumbtyping. well done. the nubs themselves however are not optimal. the left one has a higher acceleration to the right than to the left. strange. also, in standard xfce setup, the right nub is assigned to "mouse click" which i found suboptimal - but that is a pure software issue. the dpad is good, the abxy pad too. keys are a bit squishy as remarked above and the upper row - the one with the numbers - is really hard to reach. small keys and so close to the hinge.
Hardware: the pandora is fast. that's a subjective first impression of course. websites render as fast as on my pocket pc, and programs load faster. the 0.5GB internal flash disk is not spacious, but it is fast. wifi works nicely, has about the same range as my eeepc and speed is enough to match a 10Mbit DSL connection. the 2 SD card slots are nice but also necessary. because of the small internal flash one SD slot will have to be permanently occupied. also the 2 usb ports are a really nice touch. for now i did not have any issues with the full size one only being hi-speed. The screen is nice, with good angles. It also doesn't feel too crammed. However, it is definitely one notch below the 1024*600 screen un my umid.
Software: the first impression of the os was incredibly polished. but when looking closer you will notice immediately the work in progress nature of it. out of the box you con't even play mp3's for example. the special hardware is nicely integrated - i really liked the special nub setup dialog. also, you can see that this is a hackable machine. e.g., root console is easily reachable. what i had problems with was the strange assignment of the right nub as mouse buttons (and no easy way to e.g. map them to something else). this and tab as fn+space, which is a real pain for the right thumb. oh, and i can't switch the machine off while on the power line. but these are issues that will be easily corrected once i have a bit more time to play with it. the coolest thing about the firmware however is the bootup dialog. this machine is designed to be hackable - a very nice feeling.
so in summary, no, i don't regret having bought it. not even having waited over 1.5 years for it. the SW will have to improve a lot and i will probably spend a lot of time customizing my p. but this is what i was after
. i would not recommend the pandora to everyone. if you are looking for an out-of-the-box gadget, it will not be for you. but when looking for a pocketable device that you can have full access to and that is above all hackable, the pandora is a very nice option.
edit: oops, i forgot: the battery life is an astonishing 10+ hours in surfing mode. this is really nice.
