Eurogamer Pandora Write-Up & Review

[Tensuke]

Hey everyone, don't know if anyone's seen this yet (didn't see it posted) but Eurogamer just posted a review of the 1GHz Pandora today, as well as some backstory to the project.


Link here:


http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/df-hardware-the-pandora-story

 

[b_o_b]

Encouraging review. Well done.

 

[ShleeDragon]

holy crap.. that's an interesting article.

 

[Binky]

Looks like a fair review - didn`t mention PNDmanager, though.

 

[ekianjo]

Pretty good review. The comments are full of people who don't understand the concept, but that's hardly surprising seeing the audience of Eurogamer.

 

[erico]

That is a great review! It gets reduntant here and there but it is a quite complete and fair one.


Nice set of pictures too.

 

[Binky]

Sooo many people don't understand the legal issues around emulation:


"The entire selling point of this is piracy!"


They're right about the price, though.

 

[iRepMorons]

The comments are ridiculous.


How can you not justify paying the price, then this has the potential to emulate any game up to some N64 games, on the most part perfectly? Just think about how much you have spent on games consoles and games, and money in the arcades playing these games, and to potentially get them all for free o na handheld console, to play wherever you want in the world?!


"I've got one. Get a PSP instead"


Jog on, you muppet.

 

[Ian J]

Good article and the photo's do make the unit look swish.


I originally wasn't too keen on the new colour but it does photograph well.

 

[Ian J]

Sadly in todays society most people buy a product on looks rather than it's functionality.


Having said that those photo's do make the Pandora look very sexy. The black keys/controls against a gun metal case looks the biz.


I'm glad they showed the mini menu too, most shots show the full desktop which many users may not want.

 

[moxie]

The comments are ridiculous.


How can you not justify paying the price, [...]

To be fair, this is equally ridiculous. How can you not see that the price isn't justified! And so on, ad nauseam.


The thing is that we have different foci in our gaming life. Some of us consider the enirety of video gaming history to be a thing to be mined, where there might lie a hidden gem under any stone from any era. Others consider gaming to be a thing that continually improves, which means that the only games worth bothering about are the latest and greatest. It is two different outlooks on gaming. Now, being firmly in the first camp, I am of course of the opinion that those Others are missing out, and are a shallow bunch of graphics-addicted slaves to The Man, and so on and so forth. Then again, I'm quite concious of this being an opinion, not a fact.

 

[Rockthesmurf]

Decent article. I find it mildly amusing reading through the comments, seeing people talk about how a designer is required, as the handheld doesn't look pretty. The reason being, is I love the look of the Pandora, I appreciate that people on this forum are probably the minority, but the Pandora is this crazy little computer that fits in your pocket. It is what lots of people have wanted for years/decades and it looks how I always wanted my crazy little computer to look!


I do understand the price problem people have though, I don't have any solution to it though, of course! Although, maybe people should think about how much they spend on mobile contracts, certainly in the UK, I know many (many!) people on 45 GBP per month contracts, minimum term of two years, so over 1,000 GBP. Okay that tend to have swish smart phones, but the phones can't do a lot of things the Pandora can do. I'm not arguing they should drop their phones and just get a Pandora, but when you look purely at price, 1,000 GBP for a phone does make the Pandora seem a little more reasonable perhaps.

 

[moxie]

Indeed. People are completely daft when it comes to figuring out how money over time adds up.


And I completely agree on the looks, too. This is, indeed, how my crazy ass pocket computer should look

 

[pmprog]

To be fair, this is equally ridiculous. How can you not see that the price isn't justified! And so on, ad nauseam.

Actually, I was fairly close to not buying one at £400. I had a netbook that had cost me about £250. I had to replace the netbook as the LCD cable started failing (at the same time as my Pandora's LCD cable, bizarre!). I don't use my Pandora an awful lot these days, most of the time, I'm on the the netbook. Purely because better keyboard and screen size, and it runs Windows, where all my dev tools are.


It really does depend on your situation if it's justified or not.

people on 45 GBP per month contracts, minimum term of two years, so over 1,000 GBP. Okay that tend to have swish smart phones, but the phones can't do a lot of things the Pandora can do. I'm not arguing they should drop their phones and just get a Pandora, but when you look purely at price, 1,000 GBP for a phone does make the Pandora seem a little more reasonable perhaps.

To be fair, contracts usually offer phone upgrades per year, so you're talking 1 phone per year, which is ~£500, which is about inline with the high-end phones.

 

[traylorpark]

Aw, that read warmed my heart.

 

[_wb_]

Now that is what I would call a decent and thorough review. You can tell that they're not linux experts (e.g. "Ångström - a distribution version of Linux -"), but nevertheless, the review is fair, in-depth, with plenty of attention for the background context - which is a very important element of the Pandora story after all.


After that terrible c't review, it's good to see that it's also possible to get it right.

 

[craigix]

Just some background on this, this is the quality of review you get when a *real* journalist does a review, does his research, asks me questions and confirms facts and figures.


I'm pleased it worked out well and that you like it.

 

[the_marshal]

I read it and it's a really good article. They did some good research.


And yes the price for the 1ghz is high...

 

[Gerix]

I thought the review was pretty thorough. It even points out some areas where the device could improve. Also, I think I've seen the author before. Did he used to be a member here?

 

[THB]

Anyone notice DaveC and MWeston were merged into one person?