Expectations

[litphoenix]

In light of some things, I thought it would be an interesting idea to create a thread about expectations. Not expectations that everyone should have about the pandora and if they should purchase one, but your own personal expectations that you wanted out of the pandora and (for people who are fortunate enough) how your expectations have been let down, met, or exceeded.


As a BAD example, I'll start first...


When preordering my pandora over two years ago, I was hoping/expecting for the pandora to do the following things for me:


-I was pretty much expecting perfect emulation of NES, SNES, SMS, Geneis, NG, and NGPC, with all of their save state glory so I can play a few minutes and stop whenever I need to. (exceedingly met)


-For the pandora to replace the functionality of my now busted and gone PDA. (met, but I'll admit, I haven't been using it enough as a pda yet to know for sure)


-To replace and be my portable MP3 player with a large portion of my music collection with me (easily met)


-Videos on the go, without having to reconvert anything (I've discovered that too much of my anime is a bit too high quality, and I have to convert it to play on my pandora (I blame that on no one using the 2nd processor yet), but all the movies that I ripped to mkv files from their dvds play without problems, even with subtitles, which I cannot always turn off for some reason)


-Browse the internet without restrictions (met, though it can't play a lot of videos, but the fact that it does most visual flash elements and displays all the pages I visit just like my pc, that is a HUGE plus)


-Access my windows shares to copy files and/or videos (I know there's a but in hotfix 5 and I know there's a fix for it, but I don't know enough about linux to do the changes and feel safe about doing them yet, particularly when I see error and warning messages tossed at me; which I actually read)


-Portable office application ability (easily met)


-A flipping computer that will simply work that any applications that I get for it will always work down the line, and not having some big corporation decide to break any applications that I have been running on it. (see which companies I'm jabbing there? good


-Video out without difficulty (not met, I don't believe I have the skill or the tools to make a dual video/svideo out cable (with mic in and out) together and have it work to the expectations that I have for it)


From these, I'm going to guess that many would see this as low expectations. Perhaps this is so, but from any of my experiences with emulation and computers in general in the past, it is always best to aim low and anything else it can do is a bonus. I didn't list N64 emulation because I don't care enough about it to be concerned with it. I didn't list PS1 because I know no one is even using the 2nd hardware processor on the pandora yet, and to expect any 3d stuff to be going full speed on just the cpu would be crazy, and I shouldn't expect that from the first gen of portable devices that are even remotely capable to possibly reach this spec (but I have to add, it plays all 2d fighting ps1 games without any issues, which is super). And this is my first open source handheld. I never bothered getting any of the other gp32x or other things because the whole thing did not look user friendly enough or configurable and would not meet all the expectations I had for a portable device that I required. And also, to ramble on, gaming controls that make sense that don't look like they would be painful to use even in short sessions, which I won't jab any of the other open source consoles out there but those control things just aren't for me, particularly when the Dpad on the pandora is so flipping nice.


Am I happy with my pandora, yes I use it daily for at least playing the podcasts that I listen to in the car. I play some sort of game with it nightly. I tinker and play with the settings with things that don't work or things that did work and no longer appear to work for some reason. (A warning to everyone, Unmount your SD cards before removing them, I've had configuration files get corrupted by either pandora or by windows when I've ejected the card before unmounting them! And since I know what I'm doing with computers, I know that if I removed the configuration files, the would get recreated and I would just have to redo my own custom setting back and everything would be back to normal)


Has my pandora had problems? Yes, I've had to reflash once due to the batteries not being snug in the compartment and moving around a little (which is easily fixed with a little bit of rubber shim on the sides, and I still occasionally get a sound issue that is unique to my pandora, which is most likely a soldering fix I could try to do myself but for some reason, isn't happening anywhere near as much after I shimmed the batteries so who knows if I'll ever actually try to fix it myself.


Has the pandora met my expectations? Yes, but not to the overwhelming super high expectations that everyone seems to glow out at times since they're evolving as I use it more, but I can see that as things are evolving with the firmware and other fixes, that thing will get there eventually. (For example, I want a podcatcher software right on my pandora so I don't have to copy the files to my sd card, and have this happen every night.)


And the one thing I must add is how much the community loves their device. Any of the problems I've had with it, even the really weird ones, I have found answers to or have had people answer for me in very quick form. I am not the best in replying or keeping up with those threads, but I'll have to put additional thanks in those as well soon enough.


Simply another pandora user


PS <rant> As just another little aside, do people really expect to be able to use the pandora and plug and go without any problems? If you are, it is possible, but you have to seek out the knowledge and information. It is not going to do it on its own. I can see it reaching there at some point soon, with a good quick guide, but you want the quickest way to explain it, put the pndstore.pnd into the /pandora/apps directory on a sd card, and download everything from there. If you want emulators working, if you've done it before on a pc, I'm sure you can figure it out. If you haven't done it on a pc before, get it working there first, then apply your knowledge to the pandora. </rant>

 

[ibisum]

Hardware-wise, my expectations have been fulfilled.


Software-wise, I guess I was expecting a *lot* more homebrew. The game isn't over yet, and I think there is lots of stuff on the horizon that will change my mind, but I'm a little sad that we're not sort of seeing the same degree of creativity as was once happening in the GP32 days ..

 

[Fueler]

I've only had my Pandora for a little over a week.


Hardware:


- The D-Pad is amazing and exceeded my expectations.


- Wifi has not met my expectations, too slow to browse heavy content good enough for email.


Emulation:


- The new console I expected emulated was PSX and it was nicely for the games I've ran, so expectation met.


- UI is not standardized. I wish there was user experience guidelines for various emulated devices, ones that do not use keyboard and those that do. I have to use a cheat sheet to figure out how to save state and even get to the menu on most.


Software:


- in XFCE4 environment everything met my expectations.


- MiniMenu was a little less configurable than I had hoped but worked like a champ.


Video/Music:


- Video playback FAR exceeded my expectations with battery lifetime. (PanPlayer)


- Music met my expectations (Rockbox)


- UI is not standardized.


Development:


- So far so good, still learning how to set up full development environment.


- Wifi issues hinder me using some tools


Other:


- The feeling of that I can do anything with this thing is there. That is what I was expecting when I got my hands on this.


- Community has far exceeded my expectation. Everyone that I've worked with so far has been very helpful and want to build the community.

 

[Prometheus]

My expectations were probably "lighter" than those of most people. What I wanted out of the Pandora was a machine that I could use for playing the majority of my game collection (I only emulate stuff I actually own), and which I could use for writing in a much more practical fashion than netbooks had afforded me.


I recently had my Pandoraversary (I received mine on June 3rd of last year), and in spite of actually being on my fourth unit due to the bad luck of catching the biggest of the early problems (lethal-nub-death) multiple times, and a sudden LCD cable death once, I would still have to say that my expectations were exceeded.


On day one, my expectations were met - I wanted to be able to play my games, and write. On day one I had emulation for the SNES (my favourite console of all-time, courtesy of Snes9x4P - then known by the monicker of "Snes9x4D4P", as a nod to it being a port from the Dingoo version of Snes9x), NES (though NES emulation was a bit iffy until GINGE came along and GPFCE-GP2X was packaged up), my collection of arcade boards and official compilations (ranging from 80s classics, up to the CPS2 and whatever hardware it is that Konami's Bucky O'Hare runs on), Atari 2600, Mega Drive, MS-DOS, and a few others. A bit later came improvements to everything I used (or in some cases new ports of better emulators), along with emulators for some more systems I own games for, and later still came the excellent GINGE and PCSX-ReARMed, which essentially meant that my expectations were exceeded by this point. This completed the selection for me, and even if no new emulators were to ever be released from now forth, I would still be completely satisfied, because I can now do everything that I wanted the machine for, and more.


Writing-wise, my expectations were also met from day one. I only want a simple text-editor, and Xfce grants me that in the form of Mousepad, which is also what I use on my main computer. The keyboard was exactly what I expected of it, and it's great for thumb-typing (though I can also touch-type on mine almost as fast as I can on a full-sized machine). I couldn't be happier with that, and I'm currently writing a Mega Man novel exclusively using my Pandora.


I also use my Pandora for playing music, and it's done exactly what I want of it, here, ever since Deadbeef came along.


The community definitely exceeded my expectations, by far. I didn't think that I would get involved much, really, but that didn't turn out as expected at all. It still makes me happy to be in attendance both here and at GP32X, with such a nice, mature group of generally like-minded people.

 

[Caine]

Handheld emulator & homebrew gaming

• Software wise, emulation is exactly what I expected it to be.
  I expected more homebrew titles, but then again the team is still struggling to deliver the first batch and many users are still in the early stages of enjoying their Pandora.
  
• Hardware wise, I expected way better shoulder buttons (they seriously are the worst I have ever used).
  
• Expected a more direct mechanism in the firmware of addressing the game controls (e.g. as joystick buttons rather than home/page-up/etc...). The current setup ensures that remapping controls breaks many games. Then again, games should support remapping of controls.
  

Media playback

• The Pandora is a way better music player than I expected, though I don't use it for that so much.
  
• It is a much better ebook reader than I expected it to be.
  
• Video playback is very disappointing. I expected to be able to play a wider range of video codecs and quality without having to do transcoding (which I refuse to do). If the DSP is ever made to work this can still greatly improve.
  

PDA functionality

• Didn't expect it to be so useful for taking notes during meetings as it actually is.
  
• I did expect a better hinge (too wobbly when not at the extremes, doesn't stay up while typing)
  

Misc.

• Didn't expect it would fully replace my DS so easily. Thought it would have been more of an addition rather than a replacement.
  

 

[Blue Protoman]

Software, I just expected things to work, even with a bit of configuration. Got that, but better!


Hardware-wise, I actually expected some sort of flaw; none to speak of!

 

[DaMummy]

The community definitely exceeded my expectations, by far. I didn't think that I would get involved much, really, but that didn't turn out as expected at all. It still makes me happy to be in attendance both here and at GP32X, with such a nice, mature group of generally like-minded people.

you must not have been to the ask-a-craig section lately

 

[Prometheus]

^ I stand by what I said, because overall it is the case. Disagreements happen, that's part of human nature, but it doesn't change what the community is.