Early Adopters Beware!

[FRZ]

I never bought the original gameboy when it came out, nor the gameboy color because it wasn't the NES in my pocket that I wanted. But soon as the GBA came out, I bought it. I bought two for my nieces and nephews. Than the GBA SP, I bought that too until the DS phat came out. Since the DS has been out I have so far brought six of them, two DS phat and four DS lite. I bought my DS lite also the first day it came out. I pre-ordered it at the Gamestop near by. Somethings I wait for a preview/review of it before I buy if I am really, really not sure what it is that I am buying. And I think the Pandora looks pretty neat to me that I'll be able to do gaming and non-gaming stuff on it.

 

[b._.o._.b]

Absolutely a risk involved.
I also bought an OpenMoko freerunner phone very early with very buggy firmware. I think the firmware I installed today, is the first that is acceptable for daily use. And I'm only talking about sms'ing and phoning.
I've read comments of people that bought it and sold it being very disappointed and didn't want to wait for the software to mature.
OpenMoko had some of the same issues as Pandora, a lot of delays en had more than one hardware revision. It is an open (source) device too.

The best thing about being an early adaptor is being able to be part of the enthusiasm of a community. Everybody wants the product to be a success and contributes. Also you learn most in the beginning period of building the software stack. You even might learn some coding yourself.

I will pre-order the Pandora. I trust the people behind the project, it is not a big anonymous company. You can read the comments from the creators on this forum. That makes it a whole lot more trustworthy than a company like Sony or even GPH.

If you want something without issues and very user friendly it is probably better to wait a while. It also depends on how much money you can spend. For some this is a big investment.

 

[azurege]

Every time a new GFX card was released by NVidia I bought it day 1.

How much of a PC gamer are you?



I always wanted to stay at the top of the tech tree with GFX cards right back from the TNT cards, I always made sure I had the top spec card of its generation. The last one I bought was the 8800GTX, I'm glad I stopped as the 9 series barely lasted 3 month.

I now own a Macbookpro, and have sold the PC, I got out of the game because of the costs involved and now only play WOW on the Mac. I'll stick to console gaming now.

 

[kloplop321]

Every time a new GFX card was released by NVidia I bought it day 1.

How much of a PC gamer are you?



I always wanted to stay at the top of the tech tree with GFX cards right back from the TNT cards, I always made sure I had the top spec card of its generation. The last one I bought was the 8800GTX, I'm glad I stopped as the 9 series barely lasted 3 month.

I now own a Macbookpro, and have sold the PC, I got out of the game because of the costs involved and now only play WOW on the Mac. I'll stick to console gaming now.


Ah. I can't do console games, I hardly ever do portable games(except when I am not home) everything else is homework and programming for fun.

 

[christo930]

As a confirmed geek and gadget freak, the mantra 'early adopters beware' has always served me well.

Waiting for the gp2x MK2 rather than buying a MK1, the DS lite rather than the DS phat, even the new PSP 3000 looks an attractive purchase with its funky new screen.

However, I've thrown all this common sense out of the window for Pandora, I want to be in from day one.

Having never been an early adopter in the past I'd be interested in hearing the experiences of others relating to the early adoption of tech products.

I would think the Pandora is a risky item to get the first run of. First, this is a project being done by a handful of people working on their first project (at least together). There are a lot of moving parts on the device. While unlikely, if it were a complete catastrophe, you would have a powerful game system with no software. At least if you buy the latest graphics card for you pc, you can still play your games. I don't know how nervous their investors are, but that could turn into a problem, like if the first batch takes a while to sell. And as others stated, very large companies with a lot of experience have made mistakes and there is no reason to believe that a small company on their first project couldn't make some mistakes. I'm usually not an early adopter, and any jump to Pandora or The Wiz will be later on in the life cycle. After all, the early adopters get the least and pay the most. I say they get the least because how much software is going to be out for the early adopters vs the later ones.

Chris

 

[monkeyo2]

I would be surprised if there weren’t a few small changes to the design after the first few batches to improve minor defects or streamline manufacturing; in fact I think the Pandora team will have outdone themselves if they get it right first time. The main thing I worry about is that it will break too easily, but I’m sure the team will want to minimise any returns.

Whilst I think getting one of the first 3000 is a risk, I still very much want to get one. I want to be one of the Pandora pioneers, experiencing the fun first hand rather than just reading about it jealously here. Plus, if the Pandora becomes as successful as I think it might, one of the first editions could become a rare collector’s item in the future.

If the worst comes to the worst, and a much improved Pandora is released, I’ll probably buy one of those, and just consider the expense of the first one as me having done my bit to support a very worthwhile project.

 

[nubie]

I bought my GP2X pre-ordered from the USA shop.

If I had ordered it from the UK shop Craig would have taken care of me faster when mine auto-bricked.

Most of my problems with the GP2X were down to shoddy design and lack of accessories.

The Pandora needs no accessories (USB), and the controls should be fine (even if the analogs were wonky, I have a good dpad, I hope.)

The GP2X was designed with too tight tolerances that led to problems with the stupid stick. USB wasn't available for 2 years and they completely botched that, = no support.

Craig has always been very good about trying to fix all the problems (he made and sold GP2X caps himself to try and fix the joystick, patching a sinking ship, but at least he tried).

So my trust is in Craig and MWeston that problems will be fixed and that the battery is actually enough to power this device, and that the power circuits are OK. The GP lost the power circuits (people still post on here with newly shot systems), and the batteries were never enough to properly run the device, should have been 3 or 4 AA batteries from the start.

This device won't have an auto-brick function (firmware that updates on random SD files), and can boot off of SD if the NAND is completely shot .

There may be issues, but I am sure that if I can't live with them Craig will try to appease us if we bitch on here enough

 

[sold]

Look at the gp2x. It was great in its time. It had some teething problems, but the differences between the mk1 and mk2 were very small. In fact the only differences as far as I know are the screen, and the joysticks were installed differently(not 100% sure, correct me if I'm wrong). The overclocking problem in some units was another frustrating hardware issue that divided gp2x users as some could not overclock as high, and it was necessary in some cases to get full use of certain emulators. Oh, and screw the f200, imo that was a case of too little too late. The Wiz is another example of what I believe will be a wasted opportunity to fix their past mistakes and shows GPH's lack of ingenuity. They should know better by now shouldn't they?

I think that Craigix and ED have enough experience dealing with people on this board complaining about GPH's oversights to avoid such problems.

Imho the first Pandora release will be as bug free as possible due to the experience and patience of its developers (some of whom were gp2x distributors) and any batches after the first will be prone to the same possible problems due to failure of components or manufacturing errors as the first batch. Shit happens, and I assume there will be a warranty/exchange policy to cover these problems. The way things look to me, there may be no need for hardware revisions anyway, at least not for a long time hopefully.

Just my opinion, and for the sake of this awesome undertaking, I hope I'm right.

 

[b._.o._.b]

Just thought of something else. DaveC is involved in this project and probably as hardware guru.
So whenever there is something to complain about the hardware of the Pandora, we all become owner of a certain part of him :lol:

 

[kutluch]

I have a hard time controlling myself when there is a new devicecoming that I really want. The only time that I have been truly sorry that I was an early adopter was with the tapwave zodiac. the analogue controller wore out after only a few weeks moderate use. I had 3 or four replacements before the company went belly up. I made sure that the last one they sent me was new and sealed so that I could sell it for more on ebay. If I can work out my budget I will preorder the pandora. as long as they are willing to stand by their work and fix defects I will be happy. Even my four 360 failures did not bother me too much as long as MS is footing the bill.

 

[oblivioner]

I'll get one as soon as I can, I have not been blessed with neither patience nor a lot of common sense, so I'll be there when the pre-orders start.

 

[Prometheus]

I've never had any problems with being an early adopter. As far as handhelds go, I bought the GBC, GBA, and DS at launch, and never had any issues (when I eventually killed my DS' touchscreen absolutely to death, I ended up with a DS Lite which had been manufactured after numerous Lite revisions, which also has no problems - this is actually my only experience with "waiting", albeit inadvertently, for revised hardware to be good enough I still use the old DS for GBA stuff and random testing/experiments, too). Same for the GameCube and Wii.

Like others, I have no real concerns about buying a first-batch Pandora - the team seem, unlike most companies, to be putting together something that's been designed to last (I'm sure that somebody said something to this effect somewhere, too, but alas I can't remember who or where), so I'm not even worried about "built-in obsolescence", and so on, either (which probably accounts for plenty of other problems in and of itself, for obvious reasons). Moreover, as others have also said, I'm sure that if any problems do arise, they will be dealt with properly and professionally - I mean, these folks have gone out of their way to deal with problems with another company's hardware before, I've no doubt that they will also stand behind their own (although hopefully there won't be any issues, anyway).

 

[christo930]

Look at the gp2x. It was great in its time. It had some teething problems, but the differences between the mk1 and mk2 were very small. In fact the only differences as far as I know are the screen, and the joysticks were installed differently(not 100% sure, correct me if I'm wrong). The overclocking problem in some units was another frustrating hardware issue that divided gp2x users as some could not overclock as high, and it was necessary in some cases to get full use of certain emulators. Oh, and screw the f200, imo that was a case of too little too late. The Wiz is another example of what I believe will be a wasted opportunity to fix their past mistakes and shows GPH's lack of ingenuity. They should know better by now shouldn't they?

What exactly is an overclocking prolem? The GP2X is sold as a dual 200mhz processor. Almost all of the units can reach 240 (which is what the chip is actually rated at). Anything above 200 is a gift. To say that some of the units can't overclock very high is a problem isn't very fair to gamepark. Overclocking just can not be seen as a problem that gamepark needs to solve. They don't even make the chip. The only way they could "solve the problem" would be to put a faster chip in it. The fact that it overclocks at all is a gift.

I personally think from what I've seen and heard about the Wiz is that gamepark has redeemed itself for any perceived or real shortcoming of the gp2x's controller. To me, it seems like they did listen to the community and put a dpad in the Wiz, then they listened and removed the second dpad and the 2.5 headphone jack. Why gamepark was so resistant to putting a d-pad on teh gp2x from the beginning is a mystery to me. They knew the community didn't like the controller and it should have been changed after the first run. But with the wiz, they showed that they are willing to listen to the community it serves and give users what they want.


Gamepark was the first to release an open hand held game consolem and they did it very well with the gp32. While I don't think the gp2x is as good as the gp32 was (kept in their time perspective, obviously it is faster), it was still a step forward. It also sold much better and demonstrated that you could, if managed right, release an open system on a small scale and make a profit while working with the community.

Chris

 

[TaG]

I'm sure there will be issues, but I'm too excited to care.
Excellent and succinct summary

The best thing about being an early adaptor is being able to be part of the enthusiasm of a community. Everybody wants the product to be a success and contributes. Also you learn most in the beginning period of building the software stack. You even might learn some coding yourself.
Absolutely agree.

I want to be one of the Pandora pioneers, experiencing the fun first hand rather than just reading about it jealously here.
I cannot really contemplate having to be a spectator on this!

The above three quotes pretty much sum up my view.

 

[waffles]

I just hope the second batch comes in sooner than the first.

 

[whiskthecat]

I have not been blessed with neither patience nor a lot of common sense.

Woot, I demand a poll now.

 

[schnitzelboy]

+1 to all the usually non- early adopters who now are making exception for such an amazing machine, I'll definitely be one of the ones that will be an early adopter for the first time

 

[CronoTriggerfan]

Early adopters being punished with faulty hardware usually doesn't happen on handhelds. The only instance I can think of that was a design flaw of early adoption was the cracked hinge deal on the DS Lites, but other than that, I can't think of a handheld that has launched with abysmal problems.

Well, the GP2x did, but this is different. :lol:

 

[greendots]

The one thing to remember: if too many people wait for the second batch there won't be one.

 

[CronoTriggerfan]

The one thing to remember: if too many people wait for the second batch there won't be one.

Somehow I don't think that's going to be a problem. :lol: