Well, there are no really new things for us here where we could learn from.
I'd love to tell you all when you will get your Pandora - but in fact, I can't unless we get the boards in a reliable timeframe (we get different amount of boards in the same timeframe... so no idea how long it takes) and as long as we don't have the 3000 boards, it's even more hard to tell. Fatih is bugging the Chinese while Michael is bugging the company in Texas
Our assembly line is working very well already, as soon as we get anything to build, they will be done pretty quickly. But unless we have everything we need to build them, we can't do any time assumptions.
I strenuously advise you find ONE viable outlet for communication, and stick to it in future.
It's easy (and said multiple times):
a) Twitter: Quick and up-to-date things
B) Boards: Assumptions, fresh news, answers to questions (if possible)
c) Official site: Only the most important news. Like cases have been ordered or cases have arrived. No inbetween news.
That's how we want it to be and that's basically how it is.
The second reason why I have chose to cancel, so that the OP team understand the competition, is because I am going to buy an iPad. I use a Mac Desktop, A Macbook Pro, and an iPhone as my primary devices. I was hoping the Pandora could be a convergence device for these 3, plus a great emulator, but I now realise that for the purposes I require a device of this nature an iPad will do me fine.
Well, then I guess you're really better off with an iPad.
The special thing about the Pandora is the things you CAN'T do with such devices.
It is meant as mainly an open source gaming console with a lot of power behind it. It appears the possibilities as Mini-Computer also are spot on - I'm happy I have a proper desktop with keyboard and not some weird gesture device.
And with that, there is no competition there.
We never planned to have any competition with any Apple device - the Pandora is a different system. And for what we built it, we haven't found any competition yet.
The hardware inside is comparable to most smart phones out there
Well, except for the Apple iPhone and the Nokia N900, I don't know any phones yet which are as powerful as the Pandora... but that's not the thing here. They are missing gaming controls. And if you don't need them... well, of course, then you basically don't need a Pandora, since those controls are what distinguishes the Pandora from those device.
To me it sounds like you're not interested in playing arcade-like games - because that's something you can't do with an iPad, iPhone, etc.
and the quality of the hinge, the keys, and the dpad have been been reviewed as lower than expected in a few reviews I've read. These factors combined lead me to believe quality control is not to where it should be. I haven't used a unit myself, so I can't comment on the validity of these assumptions but for me this is was a justification to get of the train.
Hmm, I wonder where you read about that.
I know of two problem posts with the DPad... one was a bit stiff and working after two days and the other one... forgot what was wrong. All other guys here on the boards say that the DPad is one of the best one they ever had.
Same for the keys - except for a few broken keymats, they are great.
Hinge? I haven't read any low quality or bad issues about that one here on the boards...
Of course, one thing you should never forget is: Users who are confident with a product, don't post. Only users with problems don't post. So even if you have 10 users posting about problems - with 500 delivered units, this is nothing to be afraid of. Especially not after the first batch.
You know what you could find a few days after the iPad has been released? When searching for iPad and problems, you could find dozens of users having WiFi problems with the iPad.
Bad quality control, too?
This is the first batch - of course there will be more broken units than with later batches. That's normal with every device out there.
Especially as the first batch here is the first bigger batch - usually, Apple or Sony do bigger batches as testrun... and those devices will never be sold.
We'd love to do this - but we surely can't afford that.