NearTao
Member
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2008
- Messages
- 376
- Location
- United States
- Website
- www.neartao.com
- YOUTUBE
- UCD2urNmxTgZBdfCSWYyovCw
First let me start by saying that I've had the original Pandora for almost 2.5 years now. It's been a trusted friend and has seen a lot of use. It is a system that I know really well so I was able to make quite a few comparisons right away.
The first thing I did was read the letter that Craig wrote one sentence and... err printed the rest. I got a chuckle out of the whole thing but wasn't 100% sure what to make of it. Regardless, you're welcome Craig/Ed/et al... and thank you for all your hard work and dedication to this goofy device. I know you guys have an uphill battle for an untold number of reasons and the fact that you are sticking with is amazing. Keep up the good work, keep learning the trade and I'll do what I can to buy into this goofy little product line.
Packaging Impressions... My 1ghz had to fly to the US... so you just never know what to expect the box to even look like. It was much bigger than I expected though remembering how small the 256mb Pandora box was when that came in the mail. The wooden box is nifty, but not exactly something to use. I have it out on my desk at work and waiting to see how many months/years it'll take somebody to recognize what it is. When I opened the box I have to say I was impressed with how slick the Pandora's new paint job looks. One issue though, you guys should really be wrapping the Pandora in plastic, the battery case/power adapter scratched the heck out of the bottom. Personally I don't care because I intend to use mine, but some people may be more disgruntled by this.
Once I got the pandora out of the box I did the creak test...and boy does this system feel that much more solid than the original. The original has lasted me well and I haven't experienced any of the plastic stress fractures others have reported, but you can kind of feel that the plastic could give eventually in some fashion. Whatever process is being used to make the new cases I am definitely a fan here. The key mat feels much stiffer. Now this could be a factor of my original Pandora being that much more broken in, but it definitely feels stiffer.
Booting up the device I went through the standard fresh install sequence and I had a heck of a time calibrating with the touch screen. This is when I noticed that the top of the screen casing wasn't installed correctly. There was probably a half mm gap at the top due to somebody not putting the tongues into the grooves. I pushed down hard enough on the case to pop it in and they snapped into place. Another thing that's not a big deal... but really? At any rate, once I did this and hard rebooted the system (I couldn't figure out how to skip the calibration) I was able to calibrate the screen. I'm not sure what's up with the touch sensors on the new screens, but I have to put a lot of force on the touch screen which is worrying me that I will scratch the screen. I am curious to know what others think here.
Once I got everything configured... time to bring the SD cards over from my original Pandora. As expected everything worked fine mounting the cards and loading up the app menus. I started playing with SNES9x, Virtual Boy, GnuBoy and they were all as smooth as running the original overclocked. Except I didn't have to overclock it to get it started out of the box. So nothing surprising here obviously, but this is where I did first notice that the colors were a little different. Nothing that I could say one was better or worse than the other, just a hair different. Is it a ribbon cable difference (newer vs. older), LCD manufacturing difference (probably) or something else... not exactly sure yet. The LCD looks as good if not a little better than the original Pandora. There is still screen 'blurring/ghosting' on fast scrolling screens and stuff, but if you were okay or didn't notice this on the original Pandora then you'll be fine here.
Next up... time for some DOSBox. First up I loaded XCom... because I love the game and I wondered if it was any more playable with the touch screen... turns out that no it still has the same issues as on the original Pandora which I expected, but what the heck might as well check. Also, due to needing to push so hard on the screen I would actually say it's probably a bit less playable at least for me. Next up... Stonekeep! Stonekeep is a bit of a resource pig and it was nearly playable on the original pandora. On the 1ghz... as long as you skip the aweful intro movie it's actually quite playable. I noticed a few hiccups running at 1ghz, but 1.2ghz really smoothed it out a lot to the point that I think you could probably play this game start to finish and not notice any significat slowdown (other than the movies). I'm really interested to see how GTA plays... and at least give Fallout a try to see if it is playable at all.
Android... this is something a lot of people have been crowing about as a killer feature for the 1ghz because it's that much smoother. So of course I had to check it out... and it wouldn't start up, even on a clean app directory. I checked the logs and it was complaining about some missing /proc files. I am not sure what the issue was, but I decided to try doing a fresh install of the firmware here and it worked. The firmware on the 1ghz was branded as the latest release, but something tells me it wasn't because Android started up first shot after reflashing the firmware. My guess is that the firmware installed on the 1ghz Pandoras is probably not the bleeding edge latest... and probably worth just installing the latest firmware from the forums before you even get started. Once I got into Android all I can say is yes it is as good as the other 1ghz members have been saying... and compared to the 256mb version it's that much smoother and usable. Sure it's an iterative upgrade, but it is better.
Enough emulation... I wanted to try out Wesnoth since that can really bring the original Pandora to it's knees. Surprisingly it does load that much faster and I wasn't seeing the kinds of slowdown that you'd get on the original Pandora. I still find it hard to believe that the game is as memory intensive as members on the forum have said, but clearly 256mb is just cutting it. 512mb is obviously the place to be for this game, but I cannot speak to how much the better processesor here is improving the experience.
I'm not a power web surfer on the Pandora as I usually have a computer nearby with more screen space, memory, yada yada. I still figured what the heck... let's load up firefox. Personally I didn't find it any snappier, but it definitely didn't crash as often or epicly as the original Pandora did. Again I'm attributing this to the memory increase over processor improvements. Still though, I really expected it to feel a bit faster so I wanted to investigate. I'm not sure if I've been hugely lucky with my original Pandora, or just unlucky with the 1ghz Pandora, but upon checking download speeds the wireless on the 1ghz Pandora is definitely struggling. I've been able to clock about 150kb/s on the original Pandora, but so far it seems that the 1ghz Pandora is hitting more like 50kb/s. It's okay, but it probably accounts for a portion of the 'sluggish' web browsing feel of the 1ghz Pandora to me. I'll dig up some of the old forum posts to see if I can remember what to twiddle for the wireless settings, but a slow wireless connection doesn't worry that much since I'm not using the device as a web device primarily anyways.
Ultimately I've been very happy with the 1ghz Pandora so far. I'm trying to figure out what to do with the original Pandora. Maybe turn it into a little pocket web/torrent server? Run Minecraft server on it? I don't know. I'd give it to my daughter to play with but I'm afraid it'd be destroyed in a few weeks.
If anybody has any questions I'll try to keep on the forums and write back anything else that people would like to know!
The first thing I did was read the letter that Craig wrote one sentence and... err printed the rest. I got a chuckle out of the whole thing but wasn't 100% sure what to make of it. Regardless, you're welcome Craig/Ed/et al... and thank you for all your hard work and dedication to this goofy device. I know you guys have an uphill battle for an untold number of reasons and the fact that you are sticking with is amazing. Keep up the good work, keep learning the trade and I'll do what I can to buy into this goofy little product line.
Packaging Impressions... My 1ghz had to fly to the US... so you just never know what to expect the box to even look like. It was much bigger than I expected though remembering how small the 256mb Pandora box was when that came in the mail. The wooden box is nifty, but not exactly something to use. I have it out on my desk at work and waiting to see how many months/years it'll take somebody to recognize what it is. When I opened the box I have to say I was impressed with how slick the Pandora's new paint job looks. One issue though, you guys should really be wrapping the Pandora in plastic, the battery case/power adapter scratched the heck out of the bottom. Personally I don't care because I intend to use mine, but some people may be more disgruntled by this.
Once I got the pandora out of the box I did the creak test...and boy does this system feel that much more solid than the original. The original has lasted me well and I haven't experienced any of the plastic stress fractures others have reported, but you can kind of feel that the plastic could give eventually in some fashion. Whatever process is being used to make the new cases I am definitely a fan here. The key mat feels much stiffer. Now this could be a factor of my original Pandora being that much more broken in, but it definitely feels stiffer.
Booting up the device I went through the standard fresh install sequence and I had a heck of a time calibrating with the touch screen. This is when I noticed that the top of the screen casing wasn't installed correctly. There was probably a half mm gap at the top due to somebody not putting the tongues into the grooves. I pushed down hard enough on the case to pop it in and they snapped into place. Another thing that's not a big deal... but really? At any rate, once I did this and hard rebooted the system (I couldn't figure out how to skip the calibration) I was able to calibrate the screen. I'm not sure what's up with the touch sensors on the new screens, but I have to put a lot of force on the touch screen which is worrying me that I will scratch the screen. I am curious to know what others think here.
Once I got everything configured... time to bring the SD cards over from my original Pandora. As expected everything worked fine mounting the cards and loading up the app menus. I started playing with SNES9x, Virtual Boy, GnuBoy and they were all as smooth as running the original overclocked. Except I didn't have to overclock it to get it started out of the box. So nothing surprising here obviously, but this is where I did first notice that the colors were a little different. Nothing that I could say one was better or worse than the other, just a hair different. Is it a ribbon cable difference (newer vs. older), LCD manufacturing difference (probably) or something else... not exactly sure yet. The LCD looks as good if not a little better than the original Pandora. There is still screen 'blurring/ghosting' on fast scrolling screens and stuff, but if you were okay or didn't notice this on the original Pandora then you'll be fine here.
Next up... time for some DOSBox. First up I loaded XCom... because I love the game and I wondered if it was any more playable with the touch screen... turns out that no it still has the same issues as on the original Pandora which I expected, but what the heck might as well check. Also, due to needing to push so hard on the screen I would actually say it's probably a bit less playable at least for me. Next up... Stonekeep! Stonekeep is a bit of a resource pig and it was nearly playable on the original pandora. On the 1ghz... as long as you skip the aweful intro movie it's actually quite playable. I noticed a few hiccups running at 1ghz, but 1.2ghz really smoothed it out a lot to the point that I think you could probably play this game start to finish and not notice any significat slowdown (other than the movies). I'm really interested to see how GTA plays... and at least give Fallout a try to see if it is playable at all.
Android... this is something a lot of people have been crowing about as a killer feature for the 1ghz because it's that much smoother. So of course I had to check it out... and it wouldn't start up, even on a clean app directory. I checked the logs and it was complaining about some missing /proc files. I am not sure what the issue was, but I decided to try doing a fresh install of the firmware here and it worked. The firmware on the 1ghz was branded as the latest release, but something tells me it wasn't because Android started up first shot after reflashing the firmware. My guess is that the firmware installed on the 1ghz Pandoras is probably not the bleeding edge latest... and probably worth just installing the latest firmware from the forums before you even get started. Once I got into Android all I can say is yes it is as good as the other 1ghz members have been saying... and compared to the 256mb version it's that much smoother and usable. Sure it's an iterative upgrade, but it is better.
Enough emulation... I wanted to try out Wesnoth since that can really bring the original Pandora to it's knees. Surprisingly it does load that much faster and I wasn't seeing the kinds of slowdown that you'd get on the original Pandora. I still find it hard to believe that the game is as memory intensive as members on the forum have said, but clearly 256mb is just cutting it. 512mb is obviously the place to be for this game, but I cannot speak to how much the better processesor here is improving the experience.
I'm not a power web surfer on the Pandora as I usually have a computer nearby with more screen space, memory, yada yada. I still figured what the heck... let's load up firefox. Personally I didn't find it any snappier, but it definitely didn't crash as often or epicly as the original Pandora did. Again I'm attributing this to the memory increase over processor improvements. Still though, I really expected it to feel a bit faster so I wanted to investigate. I'm not sure if I've been hugely lucky with my original Pandora, or just unlucky with the 1ghz Pandora, but upon checking download speeds the wireless on the 1ghz Pandora is definitely struggling. I've been able to clock about 150kb/s on the original Pandora, but so far it seems that the 1ghz Pandora is hitting more like 50kb/s. It's okay, but it probably accounts for a portion of the 'sluggish' web browsing feel of the 1ghz Pandora to me. I'll dig up some of the old forum posts to see if I can remember what to twiddle for the wireless settings, but a slow wireless connection doesn't worry that much since I'm not using the device as a web device primarily anyways.
Ultimately I've been very happy with the 1ghz Pandora so far. I'm trying to figure out what to do with the original Pandora. Maybe turn it into a little pocket web/torrent server? Run Minecraft server on it? I don't know. I'd give it to my daughter to play with but I'm afraid it'd be destroyed in a few weeks.
If anybody has any questions I'll try to keep on the forums and write back anything else that people would like to know!
