Hackmodford's Pandora Review

[HackModford]

Okay... so I've had my Pandora for about a week or two and I think I can do a review now. I wanted to wait because of the sound issue but since that has been fixed I think I can give a good review now.

First off, the unit has a nice heavy feeling (not too heavy) and for the most part fits comfortably in your hands but is by no mean ergonomic. (it's a box for crying out loud )

At first the shoulder buttons felt like they should have been higher but I have since gotten used to them. I also thought that the shoulder buttons were hard to press (mine were never loose or anything) but for some reason I can use them easily now.

The D-Pad is simply awesome! There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. I'm sure everyone will love the D-Pad.

The nubs are light years beyond the PSP. Though they do seem to be "loose" they work perfectly fine. I do find it hard to do a right C button on N64 but I think it's just me not the nub. They feel very smooth and nice.

My buttons are just great! They don't squeak or anything. They go down with a nice click (except the A button, don't know what's up with that one but it feels mushy. But hey it works!)

The keyboard is really nice. I haven't learned to touch type but I can find everything extremely easy. The keyboard has a very nice feel to it.

To get most anything to work on USB I've had to resort to a mini usb 2.0 HUB which frankly is quite annoying. I have used a USB thumbdrive, a mouse, a keyboard, an imic (soundcard). USB seems flaky at the moment. If I unplug something nothing else will work, unless I unplug something from the HUB it works fine. (Maybe the HUB acts like a buffer?)

The sound is great (now) not much to say there. It's pretty much what you'd expect. Same with headphones works perfectly.

My SD card slots are fine too

The screen is just gorgeous! I was watching Stargate on it and it looked awesome. (it ended up bigger than my iTouch) sometimes you can't really tell there's pixels I think... The touch screen aspect of it is really nice and responsive. I go between using my fingers/stylus/nubs It all works.

Software wise there's pretty much all the main emulators you could expect.

Picodrive is as good as the GP2X version

SNES works but could use a little improvement.

NES works but has no way of exiting the emulator. If I'm in desktop mode I literally have to restart the Pandora since esc doesn't work during this emulator for some reason...

PSX is really good. I've been playing Lunar the complete story for about an hour now and am having a blast. (There's minor graphical glitches but hey! It's a beta)

N64 can play Mario64 decently at about full speed. But I haven't had much luck with anything else.

GBC or GB is fine...

GBA... we need gpsphone (or whatever that emulator is called that uses a dynamic recompiler...I think...)

NeoGeo Pocket Color Works really well just needs more options (you can say this for pretty much every emulator except picodrive and psx4pandora

ScummVM works fine for me but I don't use it that often.

OS is great but still has a couple hiccups here and there. For instance I can't unmount SD cards (they are aware of this bug) The sound fix isn't permanent (will be in next hotfix) The charging aspect doesn't seem to work 100%... for instance I have left the pandora charging over night and have come to find it only at 30%. I have no idea why? Also I basically abstain from the "sleep" mode because It's a pain to get the Pandora out of it.

I'd really like to get the netbook-launcher from Ubuntu on this OS... it would just make things great and work better than the minimenu IMHO

All in all... I'm extremely glad that I waited 2 years for this baby.

Oh yeah... if there's any mac users out there like me... you might want to check out a program called BlueHarvest. It will keep you SD cards from being cluttered with the mac system files (which are useless to the pandora)

 

[second exodous]

If I unplug something nothing else will work, unless I unplug something from the HUB it works fine. (Maybe the HUB acts like a buffer?)

I don't know if this will help but if it is storage that is locking up everything then Ubuntu had that problem a few years ago when it didn't before. I think it was one of the 8s(8.04 or 8.10) that if you didn't unmount a thumbdirve, hard drive, or a SD card it would lock the GUI up. The next release didn't have that problem or the few before it.

Anyway, if it's storage try to unmount it first before unplugging. If it is just mice, keyboard, game pads, ect. it's a different story.

 

[skeezix]

Should just make a zeniy picker that invokes umount from a .desktop

jeffphone

 

[SomeGuy99]

A few questions about your machine:

How loose is the hinge? With mine, it's loose enough that if push on the screen with the stylus it flops back.

Is the bottom of your case flat? If I put mine on a table and type on it, it wobbles a lot.

How is your screen in daylight? I find it really hard to see mine.

Is your paint wearing off yet? Mine is.

 

[Pickle]

i take it the nes emu is gpfce, if thats the case press 1+2 to get the menu back

 

[hedwards]

Nice review, I'm tempted to ask for pics, but I'm not sure there's anything that hasn't been captured at this point. It certainly sounds like the production quality has improved significantly from the first few.

 

[TitanUranus]

How loose is the hinge? With mine, it's loose enough that if push on the screen with the stylus it flops back.

Get used to this, with age things tend to get floppy and stay that way.

Is the bottom of your case flat? If I put mine on a table and type on it, it wobbles a lot.

Again, get used to this, age tends to cause wobbly bottoms as well.

How is your screen in daylight? I find it really hard to see mine.

I'm detecting a pattern here. Age makes it more difficult to see things too - perhaps a new pair of eye balls would help, otherwise get used to it.

Is your paint wearing off yet? Mine is.

I'm not an expert on make-up, but I did sleep with a 44 year old woman once, and in the morning I noticed that large sections of her face were starting to flake off - so age may only exacerbate this. Sorry if you haven't found this helpful, but I'm not feeling very helpful right now.

 

[levi1123]

A few questions about your machine:

How loose is the hinge? With mine, it's loose enough that if push on the screen with the stylus it flops back.

Is the bottom of your case flat? If I put mine on a table and type on it, it wobbles a lot.

How is your screen in daylight? I find it really hard to see mine.

Is your paint wearing off yet? Mine is.

1.) not very loose, maintains position if tapping when tilted from the lock position

2.) Flat, Perfectly for mine.

3.) Havent tried as i work 130p - 10p, no time outside with the unit yet

4.) Yes my paint is also, mainly on the lid, but i dont mind the beauty marks =)

 

[quartercast]

^ Pure class!


@SG99
those issues are really concerning... sounds like you need to send yours back

 

[ste_167]

hehe my A button is the same (works fine though). Let's push for a X and B emulator default 2-button standard!

 

[SomeGuy99]

How loose is the hinge? With mine, it's loose enough that if push on the screen with the stylus it flops back.

Get used to this, with age things tend to get floppy and stay that way.

Is the bottom of your case flat? If I put mine on a table and type on it, it wobbles a lot.

Again, get used to this, age tends to cause wobbly bottoms as well.

How is your screen in daylight? I find it really hard to see mine.

I'm detecting a pattern here. Age makes it more difficult to see things too - perhaps a new pair of eye balls would help, otherwise get used to it.

Is your paint wearing off yet? Mine is.

I'm not an expert on make-up, but I did sleep with a 44 year old woman once, and in the morning I noticed that large sections of her face were starting to flake off - so age may only exacerbate this. Sorry if you haven't found this helpful, but I'm not feeling very helpful right now.

No, I'm learning a lot. Do go on...

^ Pure class!


@SG99
those issues are really concerning... sounds like you need to send yours back

I need to send mine back for other things. I'm trying to ascertain if those particular issues are common, as I think they are flaws with the system.

I do love the Pandora (very much so) but it's nice to know which areas of it are design flaw and which parts are early production issues.

When I get my replacement unit, I'll have a better idea.

 

[ste_167]

## How loose is the hinge? With mine, it's loose enough that if push on the screen with the stylus it flops back.
Sounds about the same, it's not a netbook so I like the standard full-back hinge setting

##Is the bottom of your case flat? If I put mine on a table and type on it, it wobbles a lot.
Just checked, no wobbles but it's not really meant to be used on a table like a netbook.

##How is your screen in daylight? I find it really hard to see mine.
Not tried it.. bound to be hard to read though like most LCDs

##Is your paint wearing off yet? Mine is.
I've not had it long... I have various marks on it, but I'm very happy with it. My dad wants one - how cool is that? haha

 

[SomeGuy99]

You can say "it's not mean to be used like a laptop" but sitting infront of a table the other day, this was my first instinct.

It doesn't seem to work well at all. It's one of the Pandora's weaknesses. It has many strengths and unique aspects, but it's also has a few flaws.

None of it matters to me anyway. The Talented Mutant always has another trick up it's sleeve.

If I cared I may have been upset. Craig's videos stated it was fine in laptop mode, that the hinge was stiff enough. Even the promotional pictures show it in this mode.

 

[TitanUranus]

http://www.open-pandora.org/

That front page and all the other renders make it look like it's supposed to be perfectly suitable for sitting on a table and using like a netbook.

 

[SomeGuy99]

^ Exactly.

Some rubber feet or a magazine underneath would sort out the wobbling, but the weak screen hinge?

I tested it against my ancient Japanese launch DS Lite... much looser. The problem is most evident with scrollbars you see: When I drag a scrollbar down to navigate a page, the hinge just gives in! I try really gently, but at that force the screen doesn't register the press.

I still love it though.

 

[SomeGuy99]

you have to be a gentleman and hold her back when dancing, DUDE!

At least I don't throw my stylus at it.

 

[HackModford]

you have to be a gentleman and hold her back when dancing, DUDE!

Yes! That's exactly what I do when using the stylus on the desk. Couldn't have said it better!

But mine doesn't wobble on the desk when I type.

In haven't used it outside yet (I know I don't have a life) but I suspect it's probably really dark like most LCD's I've seen outside...

Paint wearing off?... No... I treat her really nice.

 

[SomeGuy99]

Paint wearing off?... No... I treat her really nice.

I'm finding it happens in particular areas, like where you remove the stylus. I've been very careful with it actually.

The areas without the paint just look slightly shinier. The colour is exactly the same, thankfully.

 

[korky]

Paint wearing off?... No... I treat her really nice.

I'm finding it happens in particular areas, like where you remove the stylus. I've been very careful with it actually.

The areas without the paint just look slightly shinier. The colour is exactly the same, thankfully.

I wonder if spraying with a clear lacquer would help???

 

[CoLDSToRAGE]

Some rubber feet or a magazine underneath would sort out the wobbling, but the weak screen hinge?

Not a bad idea actually...

Something along these lines would make it un-slippy on a desk.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?TabID=1&criteria=usb&ModuleNo=1840&C