Spirit
Member
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2008
- Messages
- 411
A kinda random and unfinished review of my Pandora.
Disclaimer: I dreamt of something the Pandora is not. That's my own fault.
Also I just read what I wrote and it seems to be only negative things. The pandora is awesome, I just listed the things I did not like.
My main plans were GPS-related (OSM, Geocaching), nostalgic gaming (ScummVM, Dosbox, the older systems (not PSX, N64)), portable notepad/internet,
(add _full to access the originals if you must)
=====GPS/OpenStreetMap
I dreamt of a device that is convenient to use while riding my bike, maybe I could even build a thing to hold it on the bar. While my Bluetooth-GPS works very well with the Pandora, it ends right there. The device is almost too heavy and big to be comfortably in my jacket's pockets. Opening it with one hand is a dangerous task as you might drop it. One hand control is impossible except for using the thumb fingernail on the touchscreen borders. I always stopped, got it out of my pocket, opened it and hold it close to my eyes.
Putting it into a bike holder is not an option. I would be scared the wobbly hinge would break too soon.
=====Gaming controls
For me the gaming buttons are too small and narrow. And the device is of a shape/size that it uncomfortably pokes into my lower palm when held. I have big hands and I hold the buttons in a weird way, so you will be probably fine. It is ok for slower games and I played Powder a lot!
=====Internet
I was hoping that I could simply plug a WLAN stick into my Linux PC, configure it somehow to provide an access point, relaying "the internet" and then being able to connect to it with my Pandora. Turns out that stuff is not trivial to do, the stick I got is currently not supported to do that. And from what I heard the Pandora cannot do ad-hoc wifi yet. So, no mobile internet at home and in the garden for me.
I managed to use a USB connection to get the Pandora online though. But that is only useful for software updates and the like as it makes it non-portable.
=====SD-cards
I had huge trouble with a faulty card (actually two, the replacement I got died after a few days, stay away from A-DATA!) which I first blamed on the Pandora. Once I got proper cards, I never had trouble again.
=====The preinstalled (operating) system
I was quite surprised when I realised that one could have gone for Debian Armel instead of Angstrom and have a gazillion of applications in the repositories ready to go. I would have had much more fun if the primary OS was Debian and I had Wifi.
I used Linux as my primary OS and like the command line. The keyboard layout on the Pandora is not perfect, but you get used to it. The placement of the number keys is too narrow to the hinge to be comfortable to use for me though.
=====PNDs
While being a good idea for easy "plug'n'play" adding of applications, I found them annoying. You get a single file and cannot easily browse its contents. If something fails you have to look into /tmp/ for some logfiles. pnd_run does not log to stdout. Documentation for most PNDs is crude at best, some is 5 lines in a HTML file. On the other hand it is nice to be able to just drop a file on the card and have a new program.
=====Video/Audio
That H264 playback is simply not reasonable sucks big time. Very disappointed about that. I did occasionally watch videos on the train. It was not a good experience when the sun was shining. It is too huge as portable music player.
=====Screen angle
You must know that the Pandora is a two-hands device when hand-held. It's screen holds at 90 and 180 degrees, it might, but it is not guaranteed that it will hold steady at 135 degrees as shown on http://open-pandora.org/
If you have it at 135° and touch the screen without holding it, there is a high chance that it will snap into 180°. That is a shame because the fully opened Pandora is just weird and unnatural to me.
=====Other things
I feel weird using it in public because it looks like a mixture of a Nintendo DS and a soviet calculator.
It was great fun hacking around and imagining all the things one can do with it. But in the end, I decided it is not the right tool for me and I rather have something that "works". So it is up at Ebay and I will probably feel sick once I have to ship it. Gonna get a Dingoo A320 for gaming and a smartphone for "Linux on the go".
Disclaimer: I dreamt of something the Pandora is not. That's my own fault.
Also I just read what I wrote and it seems to be only negative things. The pandora is awesome, I just listed the things I did not like.
My main plans were GPS-related (OSM, Geocaching), nostalgic gaming (ScummVM, Dosbox, the older systems (not PSX, N64)), portable notepad/internet,
(add _full to access the originals if you must)
=====GPS/OpenStreetMap
I dreamt of a device that is convenient to use while riding my bike, maybe I could even build a thing to hold it on the bar. While my Bluetooth-GPS works very well with the Pandora, it ends right there. The device is almost too heavy and big to be comfortably in my jacket's pockets. Opening it with one hand is a dangerous task as you might drop it. One hand control is impossible except for using the thumb fingernail on the touchscreen borders. I always stopped, got it out of my pocket, opened it and hold it close to my eyes.
Putting it into a bike holder is not an option. I would be scared the wobbly hinge would break too soon.
=====Gaming controls
For me the gaming buttons are too small and narrow. And the device is of a shape/size that it uncomfortably pokes into my lower palm when held. I have big hands and I hold the buttons in a weird way, so you will be probably fine. It is ok for slower games and I played Powder a lot!
=====Internet
I was hoping that I could simply plug a WLAN stick into my Linux PC, configure it somehow to provide an access point, relaying "the internet" and then being able to connect to it with my Pandora. Turns out that stuff is not trivial to do, the stick I got is currently not supported to do that. And from what I heard the Pandora cannot do ad-hoc wifi yet. So, no mobile internet at home and in the garden for me.
I managed to use a USB connection to get the Pandora online though. But that is only useful for software updates and the like as it makes it non-portable.
=====SD-cards
I had huge trouble with a faulty card (actually two, the replacement I got died after a few days, stay away from A-DATA!) which I first blamed on the Pandora. Once I got proper cards, I never had trouble again.
=====The preinstalled (operating) system
I was quite surprised when I realised that one could have gone for Debian Armel instead of Angstrom and have a gazillion of applications in the repositories ready to go. I would have had much more fun if the primary OS was Debian and I had Wifi.
I used Linux as my primary OS and like the command line. The keyboard layout on the Pandora is not perfect, but you get used to it. The placement of the number keys is too narrow to the hinge to be comfortable to use for me though.
=====PNDs
While being a good idea for easy "plug'n'play" adding of applications, I found them annoying. You get a single file and cannot easily browse its contents. If something fails you have to look into /tmp/ for some logfiles. pnd_run does not log to stdout. Documentation for most PNDs is crude at best, some is 5 lines in a HTML file. On the other hand it is nice to be able to just drop a file on the card and have a new program.
=====Video/Audio
That H264 playback is simply not reasonable sucks big time. Very disappointed about that. I did occasionally watch videos on the train. It was not a good experience when the sun was shining. It is too huge as portable music player.
=====Screen angle
You must know that the Pandora is a two-hands device when hand-held. It's screen holds at 90 and 180 degrees, it might, but it is not guaranteed that it will hold steady at 135 degrees as shown on http://open-pandora.org/
If you have it at 135° and touch the screen without holding it, there is a high chance that it will snap into 180°. That is a shame because the fully opened Pandora is just weird and unnatural to me.
=====Other things
I feel weird using it in public because it looks like a mixture of a Nintendo DS and a soviet calculator.
It was great fun hacking around and imagining all the things one can do with it. But in the end, I decided it is not the right tool for me and I rather have something that "works". So it is up at Ebay and I will probably feel sick once I have to ship it. Gonna get a Dingoo A320 for gaming and a smartphone for "Linux on the go".
