Hope it's the right decision...

[Alperoot]

Hello there.

In this post, I want to ask some questions to everyone.

1) Will Pyra ever be able to emulate Nintendo 3DS or Playstation 2? I know this is a bit childish but theoritically GPD Win should be able to emulate both of these. I don't know how well they will do, but they might work.

2) Emulating light Windows apps? I mean will it be powerful enough to run not graphically demanding apps without much slow-downs?

3) What will be the final price? Ok, there are a lot of threads about this and most say it probably will be about $500 but what do you guys think.

4) Is it the right decision for me... I mean the thread about GPD Win was able to convince me about buying a Pyra but do you think it is the perfect device for school work, pentesting, emulating-gaming,learning, coding and daily stuff?

All answers are welcomed. ^^

 

[DaMummy]

Like asking Mormons if their religion is the best one.

 

[Alperoot]

Like asking Mormons if their religion is the best one.

Thank you for your answer!
Edit : Lol

 

[Swordfish II]

I have had windows/mass production umpc's like the GPD Win in the past and was underwhelmed each time.

The Pandora had been wonderful, so I'm going to stick with the Pyra rather than tryout something brand new

 

[levi]

1) Theoretically, why not? Who knows what plans our developers have for the new device. I know Exo isn't that interested in doing a 3DS emulator for various reasons, I think I read, but who knows? Personally, I'm not banking on either, just existing emulators like DC and N64 running at full speed with widescreen hacks, and I consider anything else even high resolution rendering to be the icing on the cake.
2) The Pandora can already run simple windows 3.1 apps fine. Which Windows do you mean?
3) I'm thinking of 600EUR for the base wifi version. No idea how that converts to USD today.
4) I like open devices like the Pandora because I'm a coder by trade. Sure, I don't get MSVC, but I don't use that at work either. Perhaps the Pyra will be better able to run the behemoth that is Eclipse, but I do most of my work without an IDE, and having graphical windows is nice but coding on a terminal is fine for me too. It'll have libreoffice, I assume, which will cover a lot of school work.

As you can tell, I'm a kind of 'expect the worst, be pleasantly surprised when it turns out better' kind of guy. It's worked out exceptionally well for me doing that with the Pandora.

 

[lukey]

1) Will Pyra ever be able to emulate Nintendo 3DS or Playstation 2? I know this is a bit childish but theoritically GPD Win should be able to emulate both of these. I don't know how well they will do, but they might work.

3ds first needs some decent emulators. Sure our CPU is weaker but we will have more optimizations.

2) Emulating light Windows apps? I mean will it be powerful enough to run not graphically demanding apps without much slow-downs?

Yes i think so. But Battery runtime might be shorter than with an dedicated x86 Processor. Maybe we can Upgrade to one with futur CPU Boards.

3) What will be the final price? Ok, there are a lot of threads about this and most say it probably will be about $500 but what do you guys think.

I think ~600€ for the LTE version.

4) Is it the right decision for me... I mean the thread about GPD Win was able to convince me about buying a Pyra but do you think it is the perfect device for school work, pentesting, emulating-gaming,learning, coding and daily stuff?

The Pyra has an LTE Modem, Keyboard backlight, much more Storage(up to 1.2Tb with current SD Cards) and an awesome community. Especially the Keyboard Backlight is an huge benefit. Also it's still the fastest and smallest Device with an full Keyboard on the Market.

 

[Alperoot]

1) Theoretically, why not? Who knows what plans our developers have for the new device. I know Exo isn't that interested in doing a 3DS emulator for various reasons, I think I read, but who knows? Personally, I'm not banking on either, just existing emulators like DC and N64 running at full speed with widescreen hacks, and I consider anything else even high resolution rendering to be the icing on the cake.
2) The Pandora can already run simple windows 3.1 apps fine. Which Windows do you mean?
3) I'm thinking of 600EUR for the base wifi version. No idea how that converts to USD today.
4) I like open devices like the Pandora because I'm a coder by trade. Sure, I don't get MSVC, but I don't use that at work either. Perhaps the Pyra will be better able to run the behemoth that is Eclipse, but I do most of my work without an IDE, and having graphical windows is nice but coding on a terminal is fine for me too. It'll have libreoffice, I assume, which will cover a lot of school work.

As you can tell, I'm a kind of 'expect the worst, be pleasantly surprised when it turns out better' kind of guy. It's worked out exceptionally well for me doing that with the Pandora.

That is the thing I was worried about. "Running Win 3.1 apps fine" "Base model €600" "Running old consoles full speed". I am looking for a modern device, which probably isn't possible for now. I simply love linux but it's not like we have every single app ported to ARM Linux. Also, good luck for me stocking 600 EUR :*(

 

[levi]

Well, I was being slightly facetous with my answer to question 2; based on reports from people running Windows on Pandora, I'd be very surprised in Win95/98 don't run in one of the very first releases of Dosbox or QEMU. And if the Pyra does ship with a license for that fancy x86 emulator that I currently forget the name of, then I'm sure impressive results could be achieved with that and WINE.

But it's really, really early days in terms of understanding what can be acheived with the Pyra. Only two people have had access to prototypes so far, and I expect ED to have a better idea who to send prototypes to and achieve a better hit rate than Craig did sending out prototype Pandoras. Nobody so far has been working on these things, so I'd hope for fast results once devices hit developers hands, and it won't be long before we will find out if the Pyra meets your hopes, or merely my minimal expectations.

I guess realistically, I am kind of hoping for the same things as you, to be willing to consider 600EUR+ to be a reasonable price for this device. Again, it shouldn't be long now till prototypes start and we get real prices for this thing.

 

[FBnil]

but do you think it is the perfect device for school work, pentesting, emulating-gaming,learning, coding and daily stuff?

No, of course it is not. For 400 euro you can buy a normal laptop, with 8Gb RAM and a big harddisk, bigger than any SD card...
With a bigger screen you can also share your ideas, get less eyesight problems due to the bigger screen, have a normal keyboard with all keys and not get sore thumbs, you can even install the same Debian Linux distribution on it. etc. etc...

however....

The Pyra:
Besides the obvious "It will be more portable, it will use much less power" (I have measurable electricity savings with the OpenPandora),
it also holds some ideals I like to embrace.

1. Non homogeneity/excentric (i.e. If you want to think outside of the box, use tools that are outside of the box... without forgetting tools inside the box...). Call it a coolness factor. Even IBM has it as a principle: "Think different"

2. Freedom. The freedom of modifying everything (except the blobs, sigh), and even hardware (ready-to-solder spots for many uses, like the OpenPandora, I hope the Pyra has them too). You buy it. No subscriptions. Immediate usability, can open the device to take a peek...

3. Bazaar, not walled garden. A bazaar is a mess... but it is your mess.... (same to the Freedom point, except one is moral, this other technical). You control HOW you want to use the device. (which, does take some learning, so there is an initial effort in this not everyone is willing to take, just like investigation before voting...)

4. Security. With Linux, you can audit everything and know that there are no "phoning home" stuff also good encryption, etc, and updates one apt-get away. Then again, how much can we trust these chips?

5. a good game controller in your hands (not the best though, but good enough. Now with the Pyra being heavier and fatter... I have doubts, but hey, benefit of the doubt. Lets see first)

6. due to booting from SD cards, you can install different things on it, and have a bit like what you can do with VM's, but you can make an XBCM project (sorry, KODI), remove that eMMC, put in a new one, start a new project. (or mix it up together... Bazaar, but if you try a webserver, ugh... make sure you use a clean image without personal data).

7. Usability/Swiss-army knife tool. Just like such a knife, it is not the best tool for every situation, for example, pen-testing requires some good IO AND CPU power, which... well.. OpenPandora could not provide (it captured all packets on my private LAN... but I guess it would drop packets on a corporate intranet). Compiling: I do not remember what software it was, but Notaz or PtitSeb compiled something for 3 days... And no, Pyra will still have a tiny chip compared to the big ones (at least there is crosscompiling), however, the Space Shutttle went to the moon with "slow" x86's and that is the mentality: "make the best of what you have". Watch a few Commodore 64 Demoscene things in 2015... it still kicks a***! Want to learn how to program faster, optimized, compact? This device is the meeting point between embedded and normal desktops. With an arduino/rPI, you still need a second computer.

8. Ethics. It give Grecians some work, it give Chinese some work, it gives Germans some work. Yes, the cobalt inside could still be mined by African children, but the device is not "throw away, buy another".... it is about reuse, fix and recycle. Not a mass product, which is made for that purpose (to throw away and buy another)... the Ethos of the current team is also top notch. I'd support just for that.


that's why this device is niche, You can buy a mirror-reflex camera, an iphone, a Lenovo laptop, and a game desktop and/or console and still have the need for something like this... at least, I do...
[doublepost=1457300578,1457298669][/doublepost]oh.. I forgot games... well... it's obviously a gaming device too...

 

[Faust]

PS2 is already possible on the Pandora with some 2d Games. 3ds first needs some decent emulators. Sure our CPU is weaker but we will have more optimizations.

Where did you see that? I never heard about it, and never seen anything about it, so I'm not sure what you are talking about.

 

[Klumpen]

1) Will Pyra ever be able to emulate Nintendo 3DS or Playstation 2? I know this is a bit childish but theoritically GPD Win should be able to emulate both of these. I don't know how well they will do, but they might work.
2) Emulating light Windows apps? I mean will it be powerful enough to run not graphically demanding apps without much slow-downs?
3) What will be the final price? Ok, there are a lot of threads about this and most say it probably will be about $500 but what do you guys think.
4) Is it the right decision for me... I mean the thread about GPD Win was able to convince me about buying a Pyra but do you think it is the perfect device for school work, pentesting, emulating-gaming,learning, coding and daily stuff?

1) Atm it doesn't look like there'll be a usable 3DS emulator around for any system anytime soon. Considering the performance loss due to Windows and the mobile processor, I think nice mobile PS2 playing needs a system with well optimized hard and software and running it fine on Pyra some day if one of the wizards here is willing to put work into it is way more likely than on mobile hardware with windows and emulators that are optimized for desktop PCs.
2) Win95 and Win98 programs already ran on Pandora, so I guess with the right tools at least those should run well although there's little reason to do that since the Pandora has its own huge collection of direct ports of nice Windows games (Jedi Knight 2+3, Quake 3, Re-Volt, etc...) as well as homebrew and some commercials.
3) "Final price" in which year? I'd expect the Pyra to be way longer around than any GPD device (they seem to forget about a device pretty fast and replace it with another one,). Pandora gets support/software to this day.
Of course it will be more expensive in the first year but it will keep kicking ass for a long time even if it would only have half the actual lifespan of the OpenPandora.
4) Seeing your financial doubts and your use-cases, you're decision should rather be between a Pyra, a small netbook (Windows and/or Linux) or a small Android/Ubuntu tablet with a stand, a foldable bluetooth keyboard and attachable gaming controls. There are advantages and disadvantages in all of those although Pyra has most advantages in my humble opinion if you're willing to try some wonderful OpenSource alternatives to the programs you may already know. For example: I've used ExactAudioCopy for a very, very long time but now that I know Asunder, I wouldn't go back, same with MS Office and LibreOffice and many other programs.

 

[AnimatedFreak]

As for if the Pyra will be able to do Ps2 or 3DS is still up to discussion and I don't think the answer if final until the system have been out for a while. But considering that it is doing Dreamcast so good already I would say there is much more to bee seen when the system comes out.

You sound a lot like me when I was considering buying the Pandora I wanted a Windows device but I finally gave in and I am so thank for I did. Linux is a very good system and it helped me with school work a lot. There are a lot of application for Linux that will give you a very productive device more so than you think. You really don't need a Windows system to make sure you can do school work and if the Pyra is anything like the Pandora you won't be disappointed.

 

[Swordfish II]

No, of course it is not. For 400 euro you can buy a normal laptop, with 8Gb RAM and a big harddisk, bigger than any SD card...
With a bigger screen you can also share your ideas, get less eyesight problems due to the bigger screen, have a normal keyboard with all keys and not get sore thumbs, you can even install the same Debian Linux distribution on it.

This is all true. But one major point: I have never gotten on a 3+ hour flight and not had a laptop die 2-3 hours in no matter what settings or what I am doing.

I literally got off a 10 hour flight after using my Pandora the whole time with 30% battery left.

In addition I have never wanted something (aside from games) that Pandora repo didn't have. That will only increase with both the Pandora and Debian repos.

It is also nice that I could literally hook up a keyboard, mouse, and monitor and have a desktop.

 

[EvilDragon]

1) Will Pyra ever be able to emulate Nintendo 3DS or Playstation 2? I know this is a bit childish but theoritically GPD Win should be able to emulate both of these. I don't know how well they will do, but they might work.

I don't think there'll be a 3DS emulator out for any system, so that's something no one can answer whether it will be possible on any system.

The initial Pyra will not be able to emulate PS2, but who knows what future CPU upgrades will bring
The GPD Win will also not able to properly emulate PS2.
Well, theoretically, it can run PCSX2.
My PC at home (with a Core i7-3770 @ 3.40GHz) works okayish with most games, but still has some slowdowns with some games. The passmark value for that is 9340.
The passmark value for GPD Wins CPU is 1711, so it's about 4 times slower.
So most games will probably not run playable (or: enjoyable).

2) Emulating light Windows apps? I mean will it be powerful enough to run not graphically demanding apps without much slow-downs?

The Pyra? Yes, with ExaGear and Wine, it already quite some Windows games (tested on the devboard).
Sure, for Windows games, the GPD Win will be better, but stuff like Diablo 2, World of Goo, etc. will run fine on the Pyra as well.

3) What will be the final price? Ok, there are a lot of threads about this and most say it probably will be about $500 but what do you guys think.

Will probably be announced within the next few weeks.
The retail price will not be that much different from GPD Wins retail price.

4) Is it the right decision for me... I mean the thread about GPD Win was able to convince me about buying a Pyra but do you think it is the perfect device for school work, pentesting, emulating-gaming,learning, coding and daily stuff?

Hmm, hard to tell. It depends what is most important for you.
For daily stuff, both systems will be good. Websurfing, emailing, office, etc. will run without any issues on both systems.

Coding... well, depends on what you want to code. If you want something like VisualC++, then a Windows system is probably better.
But that's something devs can probably tell about, I'm just porting some games, and I clearly prefer Linux systems here.

Emulating / Gaming.
As mentioned, the GPD Win will let you play a lot of Windows games. How well they will run on the system is unknown.
More recent games are probably too demanding for the system, strategy games often have small icons and text so it might be unreadable or the capacitive screen will be too inaccurate (it's hard pressing small buttons with your fingers). Pyra's resistive screen will be better here.
For example, I would not play FreeCiv on the GPD Win, but I already play it fine on my Pandora.

What I like is that the games on the Pyra will be especially ported to run on the system.
So you can download stuff from the Repo and it will run fine out of the box. I always loved that about these systems (GP32, GP2X, Pandora, etc.).
Install and play.

With the GPD Win, you get a HUGE library of games (all Windows games), but need to install most of them first (can take a long time) and then configure them (resolution, controls, graphics settings).
If you're unlucky, the game is too demanding for the system or it isn't enjoyable for some other reason - and then you have to uninstall it again.

This is too annoying for me, but that's my personal taste.
When I want to play a game, I don't want to wait and setup everything first, I just want to play and know upfront it works fine.

So a huge library of games can be good, but it can also be a downside as all these games are designed to run on any Windows system and are not customized for the GPD Win.
Whereas the Pyra will have a smaller library of games (though you can probably play many classic Windows games as well), but the games you will have will install almost instantly (depending on the download size), can be removed within a second and they are preconfigured.

 

[TrashyMG]

The Pyra? Yes, with ExaGear and Wine, it already quite some Windows games (tested on the devboard).
Sure, for Windows games, the GPD Win will be better, but stuff like Diablo 2, World of Goo, etc. will run fine on the Pyra as well.

Well for Diablo 2 we'll have a native port... I've already had Notaz's hard float executable working on the devboard. I'd say with emulation we could push some games from the early to mid 2000 and perhaps some less intense modern games. I'm far more interested in native ports personally, it's were we can get most performance and there is a vast selection in native linux software.

 

[mius]

Is it the right decision for me... I mean the thread about GPD Win was able to convince me about buying a Pyra but do you think it is the perfect device for school work, pentesting, emulating-gaming,learning, coding and daily stuff?

Well, I see the Pyra in the same light as FBnil, i.e. as a swiss pocket knife. And while I'd prefer a Windows device to be perfectly honest (I'm simply more familiar with it), the GPD Win won't cut it for me as the non-removable battery is a complete deal breaker, and the current keyboard design, the one advertised in their Indiegogo pitch, sucks donkey balls. My favorite UMPC design is still the apex of Sony's Vaio P series, i.e. the last Japanese second generation model.

Anyway, here's what I want the Pyra to run for me, as much as possible optimized for the small screen:

- a web browser, of course;
- a decent, distraction-free word processor;
- a screenwriting app, in case I can't modify the word processor for said task via templates;
- an outliner such as GingkoApp;
- a knowledge management system, i.e. a glorified personal DB (think Evernote, ConnectedText, etc.);
- a personal information manager;
- a media player powerful enough to play at least DVD images (I highly doubt standard BD images would be a possibility);
- driver software to mount disc and disk images in the first place lol;
- an image viewer and organizer with some basic editing capabilities
- a minimal audio editor capable enough to turn the device into a backup voice recorder and editor;
- Skype (or whatever is available on Linux/Android);
- some DOS and Windows emulation; if the machine could run the Star Wars: X-Wing series of games smoothly, including X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, then I'd be a happy man;
- Android, or Android apps in Linux;
- a small sketching and animation app that works well with the resistive touchscreen and a stylus;
- and a good, lightweight document reader

 

[WizardStan]

Will Pyra ever be able to emulate Nintendo 3DS or Playstation 2?

No.

I know this is a bit childish but theoritically GPD Win should be able to emulate both of these.

No.

 

[Swordfish II]

Well, I see the Pyra as the same light as FBnil, i.e. as a swiss pocket knife. And while I'd prefer a Windows device to be perfectly honest (I'm simply more familiar with it), the GPD Win won't cut it for me as the non-removable battery is a complete deal breaker, and the current keyboard design, the one advertised in their Indiegogo pitch, sucks donkey balls. My favorite UMPC design is still the apex of Sony's Vaio P series, i.e. the Japanese second generation models.

Anyway, here's what I want the Pyra to run for me, as much as possible optimized for the small screen:

- a web browser, of course;
- a decent, distraction-free word processor;
- a screenwriting app, in case I can't modify the word processor for said task via templates;
- an outliner such as GingkoApp;
- a knowledge management system, i.e. a glorified personal DB (think Evernote, ConnectedText, etc.);
- a personal information manager;
- a media player powerful enough to play at least DVD images (I highly doubt standard BD images would be a possibility);
- driver software to mount disc and disk images in the first place lol;
- an image viewer and organizer with some basic editing capabilities
- a minimal audio editor capable enough to turn the device into a backup voice recorder and editor;
- Skype (or whatever is available on Linux/Android);
- some DOS and Windows emulation; if the machine could run the Star Wars: X-Wing series of games, including X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, I'd be a happy man;
- Android, or Android apps in Linux;
- a small sketching and animation app that works well with the resistive touchscreen and a stylus;
- and a good, leightweight document reader

The Pandora can do all that and more, so the Pyra should blow you away

 

[Alperoot]

Wow, thanks for everyone's replies! I guess I will think more about this.

 

[LuSimon]

Hello there.

In this post, I want to ask some questions to everyone.

1) Will Pyra ever be able to emulate Nintendo 3DS or Playstation 2? I know this is a bit childish but theoritically GPD Win should be able to emulate both of these. I don't know how well they will do, but they might work.

2) Emulating light Windows apps? I mean will it be powerful enough to run not graphically demanding apps without much slow-downs?

3) What will be the final price? Ok, there are a lot of threads about this and most say it probably will be about $500 but what do you guys think.

4) Is it the right decision for me... I mean the thread about GPD Win was able to convince me about buying a Pyra but do you think it is the perfect device for school work, pentesting, emulating-gaming,learning, coding and daily stuff?

All answers are welcomed. ^^

You'll have a modern device as much as it can be! you'll have a fully fledged linux machine on your pocket! and that is what you should keep in mind.
If emulating PS2s and windows apps are what you're aiming for then you shouldnt even consider a device like this even most pc's nowadays cant run PS2 properlly and the 3DS is still a work in progress...

The pyra goes beyond that, you want to work with the pyra? then expect to use the last iteneration of GIMP as a great image manipulator, expect to use Blender to forge 3D models, you can use a huge variety of programming languages and applications to code, plus if want to work at office stuff libreoffice will be what you want, there are music synths and so many other software regarding whatever you may want to work at. All those aplications are compatible with windows and if all things go well you can also play some steam game like there are on the Pandora right now like "Eldritch, Quake 3, Half Life, Starwars Jedy Outcast" even Minecraft even tho it isnt on steam, all those that I just named are a few examples and those dont even run by emulation, they're native ports and work really smoothly.

You will also be able to do so much more beyond that, it's a computer you can do whatever you want with it!

About the price tag, keep many things in mind, you're paying for a product that doesnt ask you to pay anything again unlike windows (it's the advantage of opensource, most of the software is free and open regarding the sourcecode in case that is something new to you) you're paying for the first fast computer without limitations running fast enaught to be able to run stuff like Doom 3 on your pocket for example (if I was in 2004 and heard such a thing I would eat someone alive), and you're paying for reliable hardware that will last you for years, not like most of the mass produced rubbish that the computer industry is going for.

All in all you're in a free world choose whatever fits your taste better, but you seem to be missing many of the features that the pyra will have, and it's ok, many streamlined platforms are being made nowadays for people that want limited use and limited freedom in sacrifice to flashy bombastic stuff to show off and never use again.