Hope it's the right decision...


Yeah, for proper PS2 you still need to buy a good notebook and this will neither be cheap nor really mobile.
 
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
This is kinda how I feel. I was never into UMPCs, but loved Palmtops from the first time I saw one (probably a movie about time traviling killer robots). When I bought one I went with one that had MS-DOS instead of Windows, even though I could throw Linux on the Windows ones, because it fit my intended use better (actually, one of my crazy plans, and the thing that motivated me the most to buy it, configuring routers, worked out of the box).

If I was more of a Windows user/gamer I would probably be more interested in the GPD Win. Pyra is better for me because it is about choices, comes with Debian (I may not get around to throwing something else on very quickly, however I know what to expect with Debian, and am familiar with Linux in general), it comes from a smaller company run by a man that interacts directly with the community, the community is what will help make the Pyra a success, and I view it as a next generation of the Pandora, which I am pretty pleased with. There are a bunch of other things the Pyra will have that the Win will not, and I want those (backlit keyboard with a layout that makes sense to me, 4G, external indicator LEDs, multiple SD cards and ways to boot it).

An additional thing to consider is if you will be using mostly x86 software. While it may be possible to run some of this on the Pyra, if this is something you need and want it straight out of the box you will probably be better off with an actual x86 CPU.


I understand the interest in 3DS and PS2 emulation, as I am with you on that. For me, right now, 3DS isn't all that important, and for the few games that I would like to play I will just use a 3DS. PS2 is about as recent as my major console interests go for emulation, however I will be happy enough with what is already planned (DREAMCAST! also I have so many older games to play I am probably set for life). If you really want 3DS and and PS2 games, and you know one device you are interested in WILL let you play them, while the other MIGHT, go with the one you know will have it...unless there are other factors that are more important.

Again, if you want Windows software out of the box, go with the thing that ships with Windows. If you are fine using something else that can offer you the same capabilities, or if you are ok messing around to maybe get the Windows software to work, keep the Pyra in mind. I personally enjoy working to get things running, and it helps me learn.

ED mentioned the price above, so I have nothing to add.

Ok, in addition to what I said a minute ago, only you can decide which is right for you, and both may be fine. The Pandora is weak in a few areas for me, and the Pyra seems to fix all of those for me. The Pandora was sufficient for some of my school assignments, however for many of those where it wasn't good enough neither the Pyra or the Win will be a much better choice over the other (many of my classes have been highly technical, so software is usually available for windows and Linux, however when it came to other assignments, such as running 2 or 3 VMs, even the classroom computers weren't sufficient many times, so while an x86 Windows palmtop may seem better it wouldn't work for that stuff).

Pentesting, as with many things, is really about your personal knowledge. You can have the best rig in the world, but if you don't know what you are doing it is useless for that. I would guess x86 might have more tools available, however it is highly likely I am wrong. On the other hand, even a cheap old Android device may be sufficient for your pentesting, and I did a demonstration of this to show how you can have a cheap and disposable pentesting setup that wouldn't raise too many red flags with observers (note: this was assuming you are attacking via wifi). Really, I think either the Pyra or Win will be fine for pentesting. Depending on the situation I would think a laptop or smartphone might be a better choice, plus there are many other things to consider.

Emulation and gaming...well, both offer you plenty. GPD has made some decisions that seem utterly foolish to me (disabling most of the gaming controls when using one of the sticks as a mouse??? what about all the games that use a mouse? Maybe they expect you to use the keyboard with those games, however the keyboard itself has major problems, but those will supposedly be fixed soon). There are really a few things to look at here. When it comes to emulation in general I still think the Pyra has the upperhand when it comes to controls, however the Win probably has greater potential for emulators. If you want the big name Windows only releases, Win is probably a better choice, however both are somewhat limited. The biggest benefit here is the modularity of the Pyra. We don't know what will happen, but anyone can release a new CPU board that could end up making Pyra a better Windows gaming option than Win. The Pyra may never get a new CPU board, but even ED says he wants to release one. Also, consider nubs vs sticks, and cross d-pad vs the circular one. They each have their own streangths and weaknesses, but many seem to prefer what the Pyra will offer, and, despite being a Nintendo fan since the NES, I think I agree with them. Oh, I completely forgot, Pyra just seems better with location of all L and R buttons (2 are on the nubs, where they belong) plus we have 6 face buttons, even if the new ones aren't in optimal places...I mean, at least they are there, so you can use emulators and games where you need those (think N64).

Learning: Pyra.

For programming you should ask those with more experience than me, however that was a major consideration during the keyboard wars, I mean discussions, for the Pyra.

"Daily stuff" doesn't really tell me what you are doing. My daily stuff is different than that of someone that uses tons of social media, or someone that only wants to watch porn or whatever. The Pyra looks like the best option for me based on current info about both devices.

For both programming and many regular computer tasks a decent keyboard is very important to some of us. At the very least you need a sane layout. The Pyra layout was discussed to death, back to life, back to death, then burned, and eventually we ended up with a bunch of ideas that were incorporated into the layout choices we voted on that were only possible because so many of us threw out our ideas and how we plan to use it. GPD didn't seem to give any thought to their layout for a long time, just going with something that looked "right". Sure, their space bar is centered, but did they consider all the different languages, what different people want to do, how different people will hold, or not hold, the device while typing? Highly doubt it.

The general look and feel of the Pyra keyboard seems better to me. The backlight will really help me. I don't know what GPD is planning to do with the caps, however the keyboard I am typing this on is similar to that style and about half of my keys are missing paint, with some so bad there is nothing showing what the key is (e and t, with r, d, f and shift almost all gone). This is because I sometimes push with my thumbnails, and I type a lot. The Pyra keycaps should prevent markings from being lost since it is a thick piece of clear plastic over it. The feel of pushing the keys is also important, and ED, as both a Pandora user and by listening to feedback of other Pandora users when making the Pyra, knows what works best. We will really need to wait and see which is better when it comes to all this, however my money is on the Pyra.

Finally done with this post. Now I can go read more of the discussion and reply to others.
 
Sure, you can emulate any computing device on any turing-complete device as long as you have enough memory. The performance, accuracy or feature set may not be satisfactory, however. When people say "should theoretically be able to emulate" I interpret that as "is able to run an emulator for" or "has enough performance to emulate with this absolutely valid simple formula for how much more megahertz you need to emulate something". Running an emulator and running it at playable performance are worlds apart. It's also very difficult to estimate what can and can not be emulated at playable performance. If you have less computational capacity than the device you're emulating, you won't get 100% performance under any conditions. Otherwise you may get 100% but it's difficult and depends a lot on the accuracy of the emulation.

Will typical commercial PS2 or 3DS games be playable on Pyra+OMAP5? No, probably not.
 
Pentesting, as with many things, is really about your personal knowledge. You can have the best rig in the world, but if you don't know what you are doing it is useless for that. I would guess x86 might have more tools available, however it is highly likely I am wrong. On the other hand, even a cheap old Android device may be sufficient for your pentesting, and I did a demonstration of this to show how you can have a cheap and disposable pentesting setup that wouldn't raise too many red flags with observers (note: this was assuming you are attacking via wifi). Really, I think either the Pyra or Win will be fine for pentesting. Depending on the situation I would think a laptop or smartphone might be a better choice, plus there are many other things to consider.


Pentesting is pretty much a no-go at all on windows. Very few applications and/or tools are available, almost all of them are exclusively on Linux, and most on debian actually.

However, pentesting usually requires some heavy hardware these days which is not really feasible on any handheld. Sure WEP is easy to crack, I have a hacked wifi driver on android that I can even do it with, but nobody uses WEP anymore, and packet injection isn't necessary for anything but WEP. WPA and WPA2 require GPU brute force or distributed cracking on the web, you might get lucky with reaver or with a WPS Pixie vulnerable router. Metasploit should work on the Pyra which is huge, RTLSDR would work, etc
 
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Pentesting is pretty much a no-go at all on windows. Very few applications and/or tools are available, almost all of them are exclusively on Linux, and most on debian actually.

However, pentesting usually requires some heavy hardware these days which is not really feasible on any handheld. Sure WEP is easy to crack, I have a hacked wifi driver on android that I can even do it with, but nobody uses WEP anymore, and packet injection isn't necessary for anything but WEP. WPA and WPA2 require GPU brute force or distributed cracking on the web, you might get lucky with reaver or with a WPS Pixie vulnerable router. Metasploit should work on the Pyra which is huge, RTLSDR would work, etc
Yeah, WEP also has some exploits that you can enter into the password section (3233343536 or something) and some of these tools you mentioned above can be exploited with the Pandora (not GPU cracking, of course ^^). But GPD claims that it will be able to run Debian, too and it will be x86. Cain, for example, is a tool I need and it's only Linux companion is Ettercap. Also, plenty of RAM and processor power is a good-side. But Windows 10 is a bad-side for sure. Not only its privacy issues, but it also makes updates obligatory (of course there is a reason why Microsoft wants you to update you OS ;-) )

I still think about GPD because it can also run Linux. We can't say the vice-versa for Pyra though. (Windows)
 
But GPD claims that it will be able to run Debian, too and it will be x86

Do they have drivers for all the hardware they plan to have inside for Linux ?
The surface from Microsoft can run Linux too but there are many patches required to make about everything work more or less.

At least with the Pyra you know Linux will be properly supported from the get-go.
 
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...
Great answer. If you are willing to get something a few years old you can get a laptop that will blow away the GPD Win and the Pyra combined for less than the early bird price of the Win and it will be much better for general computer tasks because it is the type of device those tasks evolved with. Of course you can always connect a Pyra to a keyboard and monitor and get some of that full size use back.

Even IBM has it as a principle: "Think different"

...

however, the Space Shutttle went to the moon with "slow" x86's and that is the mentality: "make the best of what you have".
Not trying to give you a hard time with these, just want to clear some things up.

"Think Different" was Apple's old advertising campaign. The IBM thing you were looking for is "Think". I think...

AFAIK Space Shuttles never went to the moon, and x86 CPUs didn't come until after the US moon trips, but were available during the space shuttle era.

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.
There are some laptops out now that might be able to give the Pandora some competition for battery life per charge. Pandora is still more convenient. Just like I said, you can get that desktop experience with a Pyra. Good call on all of that.

Pentesting is pretty much a no-go at all on windows. Very few applications and/or tools are available, almost all of them are exclusively on Linux, and most on debian actually.

However, pentesting usually requires some heavy hardware these days which is not really feasible on any handheld. Sure WEP is easy to crack, I have a hacked wifi driver on android that I can even do it with, but nobody uses WEP anymore, and packet injection isn't necessary for anything but WEP. WPA and WPA2 require GPU brute force or distributed cracking on the web, you might get lucky with reaver or with a WPS Pixie vulnerable router. Metasploit should work on the Pyra which is huge, RTLSDR would work, etc
Ah, well, figures. I don't play in Windows land much, and most of my playing around with security stuff is with Linux. I know there are some popular tools available for Windows, so I assumed many others would be available since that is what most people use/know/like.

Regarding actual pentesting, it depends on what you are trying to do, and the techniques you are using. Perhaps my definition is wrong, but if I can get access via social engineering, someone walking away from a computer while still logged in, or people putting passwords on sticky notes, I don't need really need much when it comes to hardware. Hell, I have been known to just use other people's computers when unattended. With some tools you can quickly get a lot done (things like the USB Rubber Ducky). I should look into something like that, as they seem fun, however I would guess they wouldn't work very often (then again, I dunno, people are lazy, and sometimes you have people inside actively working to make things easier or better for themselves by reenabling USB ports and such...now I REALLY want to play around).
 
Cain, for example, is a tool I need and it's only Linux companion is Ettercap. Also, plenty of RAM and processor power is a good-side. But Windows 10 is a bad-side for sure. Not only its privacy issues, but it also makes updates obligatory (of course there is a reason why Microsoft wants you to update you OS ;-) )

I still think about GPD because it can also run Linux. We can't say the vice-versa for Pyra though. (Windows)

Cain and Abel, the one tool that was developed for windows exclusively....

I have run Linux on some Windows only UMPC's, it is kind of a pain in the ass getting it to work, but it is doable, and once you get it setup, it does work ok (but it isn't optimized in the least like the Pandora and Pyra OS's are!). The Pyra likely won't be able to run windows (maybe Windows CE is someone is bored enough to make it work), but really it wouldn't make sense for the Pyra to run windows even if it could. It is like running backwards in a race, intentionally decreasing fuel efficiency in a car, or baking a cake made of shit.

I dunno man, think carefully about what you really want, need and use before you make your decision.
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There are some laptops out now that might be able to give the Pandora some competition for battery life per charge.

Really? Know any off the top of your head? I went away from laptops (until the pandy) in favor of desktop/cellphone with extended battery after being so pissed about the usual 2-3 hour battery life so I don't really know laptop stuff these days, but my sister does want me to give her some laptop advice/ideas. She is looking for screen size, low cost, thinner is better, and Windows, I think decent battery should also be a factor.
 
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Really? Know any off the top of your head? I went away from laptops in favor of desktop/cellphone with extended battery after being so pissed about the usual 2-3 hour battery life so I don't really know laptop stuff these days, but my sister does want me to give her some laptop advice/ideas.
I was going to reply at length here, but I don't want to derail this thread too much. I know in recent years some Intel CPUs have been more efficient. I will PM you so we can discuss this in more detail.
 
Just to add to the discussion my impressions from the Pandora.

For me the Pandora is just one of those devices that just works and it's always at my side, not worrying about constant recharging.
I can listen to music for hours (with decent quality, even with my 60ohm headphones), play games (emulated and native), do some work (did a demo for work once on Pandora).
For browsing the internet I currently use my pc or tablet/phone. The Pandora does run web-browsers (I have multiple installed), but I guess I'm now ruined by fast loading pages on my pc.

For the Pyra I think these options are just enhanced. So keep the good stuff and add more performance and memory, better screen and 4G.
I also hope it will be a good companion to have as a pc replacement, because having my home setup (screen/keyboard/mouse) is something I would like to keep, but having the Pyra connected to those devices instead of a big case would just be superb.

So is the Pyra something for you?
That's hard to say. I also had the same question before buying a Pandora. I'm still happy with the Pandora, as I guess the rest of us are to.
If you hope for a portable xbox-one/ps4, it isn't that. If you already have a linux laptop the Pyra might be a good match.

Is the hardware the best?
Laptops have bigger keyboards/screens, tablets have decent screens, phones are mobile, consoles have good controllers, the pandora has a bit of all those things.
So it might not be the best as a dedicated machine, but for a machine that does it all it is the best (as there aren't any others exactly like it).

How about software?
I never thought to play Half-Life on my Pandora, but I can now. The community has some skilled people that make good software.
The rest of the community is great because they always try to help, look at the keyboard discussion thread for example :)
I hardly see such dedication, even for the big windows/pc platform. If the Pyra gets the Pandora treatment we'll be in good hands.
When you expect to use all windows applications out-of-the-box, it will probably not do this.
 
AFAIK Space Shuttles never went to the moon, and x86 CPUs didn't come until after the US moon trips, but were available during the space shuttle era.
Yeah, the Apollo missions which went to the moon back in '69 didn't even have anything known as a CPU. The Apollo Guidance Computer was the first computer built out of integrated circuits, but that doesn't mean a CPU IC and a RAM IC etc. etc., it means it was built out of thousands of NOR gates, all wire-wrapped together. Even that wasn't powerful to actually compute the route, and that was actually done by the astronauts entering coordinates coordinated back at mission control and radioed over to the module.

The Space Shuttle used IBM processors. While they're classed as 'avoinics computers', as far as I can tell they did have an instruction set and were programmable in machine code and a dialect of PL/1, but they ran at something like 0.5 MIPS - IIRC that's something like the speed of the BBC Micro CPU from 1981. The computers in the first shuttles still used core memory like the Apollo computer did (little ferrite cores threaded on to copper cables in a grid). In 1990 they were upgraded, I think to use modern DRAM based on flip-flop circuits made from transistors.

Completely OT for this thread, of course, but I personally find this computing history stuff quite interesting.
 
The Pandora can do all that and more, so the Pyra should blow you away
The updated Pandora can quickly load and smoothly display at least around half a dozen open (mobile) web sites, plus one additional tab reserved for an intranet wiki, which might need to run on something like a LAMP stack, all the while you cycle through audio in the background, have some word processor and spreadsheet with some additional macros open, and dabble around with a couple of textbook-sized PDFs as well? Hmm...

What the Pandora definitely can't run is X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, as this baby needs at least Windows 95. And I also doubt that the earlier two DOS iterations of the series, i.e. X-Wing as well as TIE Fighter, can be put on file as "fully supported". Albeit these games would be a bonus, it would be nito to have them available for a session in a hotel room or somethin'.

The Pyra likely won't be able to run windows (maybe Windows CE is someone is bored enough to make it work), but really it wouldn't make sense for the Pyra to run windows even if it could. It is like running backwards in a race, intentionally decreasing fuel efficiency in a car, or baking a cake made of shit.
What's it with you Linux nörds and your sometimes utterly ridiculous anti-Windows hyperbole. A working installation of an older Windows simply increases the set of applications and games available to you while you're on the go. So it makes sense. In the end, that's what a swiss pocket knife is all about, non?
 
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What the Pandora definitely can't run is X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, as this baby needs at least Windows 95.
Why so definitely? There are several videos of the pandora running windows games via exagear and wine or qemu, so being a windows game won't make it impossible per se.
 
Why so definitely? There are several videos of the pandora running windows games via exagear and wine or qemu, so being a windows game won't make it impossible per se.
Being a Windows 95 (Voodoo 2 compatible) game that requires something like a Pentium II with 300 MHz and 64 MB RAM for optimum performance is what makes it impossible for the Pandora I'd wager. And with regards to the Pyra there's still some obstacles to keep in mind here, namely the stability issues regarding the game's multiplayer modes, and, last but not least, the suitability of the controls and the screen size of the machine to play the game on the device itself, i.e.without having to make use of other hardware. See, I never even held a Pandora in my hands, and the only hands-on experience I have with UMPCs are the HP 200LX and the Sony Vaio Pboth machines which are not exactly renowned for their prowess handling arcade games, especially when they're a bit more complex, such as X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter.
 
What's it with you Linux nörds and your sometimes utterly ridiculous anti-Windows hyperbole.
Skyrim belongs to the nörds!

It's partly valid technical points, part outgroup derogation, sometimes escalation of commitment. There aren't many general purpose linux-focused devices out there, so any emerging are understandably defended by the niche they serve.

The "fuel efficiency" part of the rambling you replied to is mostly valid since linux in general can more easily be configured to have less useless background tasks, giving the CPU more time to spend in low-power mode. In laptops the difference is sometimes masked due to bad drivers not using the hardware's power saving features correctly.
 
It's partly valid technical points, part outgroup derogation, sometimes escalation of commitment.
That's just the surface of it, but heck, it was just a rhetorical question anyway.

The "fuel efficiency" part of the rambling you replied to is mostly valid since linux in general can more easily be configured to have less useless background tasks, giving the CPU more time to spend in low-power mode. In laptops the difference is sometimes masked due to bad drivers not using the hardware's power saving features correctly.
I get that. The only part of his post I found objectionable was the, to paraphrase, "running Windows doesn't make sense, even when you could" hardline. Ach, whatever.
 
on the quality comment, i can attest. My pandora is pretty much my oldest still functioning (and still in use daily) tool.

I use it to do server maintenance on the go (wherever i have wifi access), quick programming tweaks, video and music player, browser on the go, alarm clock and quite a lot of bedside gaming.

The battery life is just stunning, in the 3years+ i been using it, i can count on my fingers how many times i actually ran out of battery while using it and its usually because i hadnt charged for a few days.


My only problems with my pandora have had to do with the damn nubs, its a shame but either way i barely ever need them (and they do work, i just dont like them due to their auto calibration crap changing sensibility on the fly xD). And offcourse, the case itself. While i have no major problems on my case, there are some odd cracks here and here and offcourse my screen section refuse to clip back in.

Please notes that i am not exactly carefull with what i use daily. It saw quite a lot of short / medium falls, extreme overclocks, hell, i once dropped it in the snow and it spent the night here before i finally found it back.
 
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