I got my new toy!


Neelix

Insecticidal Maniac
Joined
Jan 8, 2011
Messages
3,279
Location
Melbourne, Australia
On Monday night I came home to news which was both exciting and disappointing. An attempt had been made to deliver my Pandora. Since no-one was home to take delivery it was to be left at the post office that afternoon. But when Mum went down to pick it up they had not received it yet.


So it was that Tuesday morning I left for work early so I could stop by the post office and pick it up. I excitedly opened it enroute and I have to say my first impression was that I was quite impressed with the build quality. No obvious flaws, other than the expected slight bowing of the lid and bezel. The buttons felt good, including the shoulder buttons. The hinge seems to have just the right amount of resistance. I ran through the first boot wizard and explored the OS a bit to learn my way around.


That done the first order of business was to get bluetooth DUN tethering working to my Nokia N97 mini. I got as far as turning on bluetooth and pairing the pandora to the phone before I had to start work. Good reactions from my work mates incidently. No-one in my team had heard of it before and I ended up taking it around the pod showing it off.


I didn't make much progress on the way home, and when I got there I discovered that Mum had got a new toy of her own, a new printer. Which she wanted me to set up for her. So I ended up mainly focused on that for the evening, though I did find time to hook up the pandora to my wifi network, and set up an SD card (couple of browsers, couple of games) and install HF4 and the community codec pack.


The bright side to that distraction was that the old printer used the same type of AC power connector as the pandora power supply. This was a happy find for me since the supplied cable had a US power plug instead of an Australian one.


On the way home from work last night I made a breakthrough with the bluetooth DUN tethering which now seems to work fine. I'll post my findings soon for those interested in getting this working as I know there are a few of you.


I did encounter a few minor issues with the unit along the way. The B key on the keybord got stuck the first time I used it. That hasn't happened again though. The DEL key mapping appears to be missing altogether. All I get from that key is backspace even when shifted.


The DC power connector has a very snug fit. So much so that it took a lot more pressure than I would have expected to push it in, enough that it felt forced. Please note that I don't necessarily consider that to be a negative thing, as it means I can have some confidence that the power connector will not just fall out at the sleightest movement of the unit.


Last night I played with a few different browsers including Chromium, Firefox and Fennec. The only ones that didn't crash on me were Chromium and Fennec. Except for the scrolling (up and down) I didn't like the interface on Fennec. I still prefer firefox to Chromium but I could't log into the forums with it. (it just freezes)


That brings me to now, typing this review on the Pandora itself. While I am a newcomer to the Pandora scene, (I've known of it for a little over Two Months now) this is the machine I've been wanting for years, so to actually be holding it in my hand is pretty awesome. :D


Now if only I could have a significant strech of time to actually play with it... :rolleyes:
 
I still prefer firefox to Chromium but I could't log into the forums with it. (it just freezes)

I'll bet it's eating up all your free RAM like it does on mine. Run 'top' in a terminal and see what your mem usage is before and after you launch it.
 
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