Hi guys. Noob questions before buying the Pandora

[knightron]

Hey guys. So i'm interested in getting a Pandora. Before i buy one though, i'd like just a few questions answered please.

I've owned a psp for quite a while now. It runs custom firmware, and mainly plays ps1 games. I get very very frustrated with the psp due to the joystick nub. Mine suffers from an apparent common problem and sends my character on foo game in a direction that i don't speculate (usually to the left). I don't play my psp very often because of this.

What is the quality of the Pandoras nubs like? Do they suffer this problem at all? Are you happy with the quality of the nubs? (I'm especially interested in the opinions of people whom own a psp too; for this question)

I also own a xperia play. I use it to emulate n64 games with n64oid. It is pretty cool; but alas, there is no way to assign controls to it's joystick pads, and so i get left with a lacking experience. How is the progress of the n64 emulator going? I found a compatibility list, but it was outdated, and probably improved since then. The game i'm most interested in playing is zelda oot; how's peoples experience with that game?

I see the Pandora runs Gnu/Linux, and has a little network icon in the panel, is that networkmanager or wicd?

Lastly, i don't want to buy the Pandora only to find that the 'Pandora 2' is released 6 months up the track or something. The Pandora is fairly old now, so i'm concerned about this. I couldn't find any info on the 'Pandora 2', just enthusiastic ideas on the 'pandora 2 spam' forum. Is there any official info on this? Is it even certain there will be a second?

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

Well pandora 2 is a while away if indeed it happens at all. The 1ghz pandora is the most recent version of the pandora. The 1ghz handles n64 emulation better than the re-birth pandoras asfaik. n64 emulation on any system is apparently far from perfect.It seems to be a difficult console to emulate.

The rebirth or 600 mhz pandora is cheaper and is still a very good machine. The nubs take some getting used to on the pandora but work fairly well overall. I mostly play 2d games on it so ive not tested the nubs extensively. The d-pad is certainly very good though. Smooth accurate and responsive. Ps1 emulation is near flawless on the pandora and runs very well on the standard rebirth models even.

The pandora is a quirky beast though but give it time and you will know your way around it.

 

[ekianjo]

Ok you ask many questions so let me answer briefly to each of them:

The Pandora nubs are the best ! Seriously, the PSP one and even the PS vita one are utter crap compared to it. They are the first nubs I find comfortable to use on a mobile device, and that says a lot. 

N64 emulation has not really improved a lot while there were a few tweaks done here and there in the config files. I barely play N64 so I am not sure if I can answer your question well, however Mario64 plays relatively well. 

Networkmanager, I think.

Pandora 2 is nowhere in sight. Nobody is even sure if there will ever be one. Pandora 2 spam is just that: spam and wishlists. If there is to be one it would probably take another 2 years before you see anything coming to market. 

Please note that the newer Pandora are not as "old" as the previous ones, since they now have a new ARM chip running at 1Ghz instead of the previous one running at 600 Mhz. It's clearly more powerful and all these versions all have 512 Mb of RAM vs 256 Mb for the earlier ones. 

 

[Mr_Loon]

Hi knightron & welcome to the boards.

I had a similar problem with the nub on my PSP Go, using JoySens to recalibrate it sorted it out. Try the built in, but unadvertised recalibration method first.

As for the quality of Pandora nubs, I'd describe them as good but not great, not as good as the 3DS circle pad IMHO. They are as good as the nub on my PSP Go (now it does not drift about).

Sadly the N64 Emulator on the Pandora has not seen a lot of love from the Dev community, a lot of things work quite well but I'm sure it is nowhere near as good as it could be. PS1 emulation is by contrast 100% awesome.

As for the Pandora 2, don't hold your breath for that, Pandora 2 is firmly at the concept stage at the moment, it may well take years for the concept to become a reality.

One of the best thing that the Pandora brings is this community, you can often get direct support from the project leaders, the software Devs are approachable and amenable to suggestions and people in general tend to be helpful & friendly. It's hard to put a financial value on that sort of thing but IMHO this aspect goes a long way to justify the high price of the Pandora.

 

[hailrazer]

Ok you ask many questions so let me answer briefly to each of them:

The Pandora nubs are the best ! Seriously, the PSP one and even the PS vita one are utter crap compared to it. They are the first nubs I find comfortable to use on a mobile device, and that says a lot. 

While I agree they are better than the PSP, they are nowhere near as good as the PS Vita analog sticks. The Vita has true sticks not nubs and they are ten times better for playing games.

Even the 3Ds nubs are a lot better than the Pandora nubs.

I love the Pandora but the nubs are actually not very good for gaming.  Sorry but it's just the truth.

 

[CocoCreekFisherman]

Also keep in mind that the openpandora is not from a conglomerate corp.

There seems to be a higher margin of error as far as build quality is concerned. However if you get the right unit there is nothing quite like it on the market IMHO.

I love my 1ghz unit.

 

[Binky]

If you want a pandora as a straightforward games console, you might find it a little unpolished or fiddly

If you like to tweak settings & hack, or you are fed up with the aggressive bureaucracy of the major market players, then the pandora could be the gadget for you!

The general consensus on nubs (as I've heard it) is that they are acceptable, hard to complain about, but nowhere near excellent.

The d-pad, however, is brilliant.

 

[knightron]

Thanks for the replies so far guys. I don't game as often as i used to. I don't even own one of the current generation consoles. I love retro gaming though. I also prefer hand held gaming, i always have. I run Gnu/Linux on my computers so it'll be pretty awesome to have a little pocket computer; although i don't code, but i think it'd still be cool. There's so many games i haven't played that i want to from 'old' consoles which is what my primary use for this would be. I've tried a few other handhelds for emulation but none of them cut it for me in some way. I am actually fine with the psp nubs, it's the drifting that is my biggest issue, and i just don't want the Pandora to suffer the same issue. Does any one have issues with the pandora nubs being responsible for sending a character in a direction you didn't say. For example, for those that don't know what i mean. If i have my psp, and i'm playing a game like grand theft auto, where the nub controls what direction the character walks. Sometimes, i can just put my psp down and watch as the character walks in an anti-clockwise circle, even though i'm not touching it. Another thing, when i would play snes games on it, the nub was responsible for bringing up the emulator menu, and the menu was coming up all the time while trying to enjoy some bloody donky kong. I tried the built in way to recalibrate it, but it did nothing. Since i've begun reading more about the Open Pandora this week, i have started to really want one. You guys have been very helpful so far, thanks again

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

^^^^ I have never heard of any involuntary movements in a game being produced by the pandora nubs as long as ive been on the forums.

I agree what others said the ps vitas nubs are better than the pandoras nubs. I use the nubs as a mouse on the desktop and they work well.

Wi-fi is a tad hit and miss on the pandora though. Depends on the unit one gets i believe.

A cheap wi-fi dongle can also be used in the usb port anyhows.

The battery life 10+ hours is certainly excellent.

If you check the repo herehttp://repo.openpandora.org/ you will see what software and emus are available.

 

[Binky]

One important thing to be aware of is that the nubs auto-calibrate; they will be very hard to control immediately after a reboot, but pushing them round in circles a few times will fix this.

 

[Grench]

One important thing to be aware of is that the nubs auto-calibrate; they will be very hard to control immediately after a reboot, but pushing them round in circles a few times will fix this.

2x - this takes a bit of getting used to, but it really does work that way.