It's identical to the S601 spec wise, same amlogic 8726 meson 3 chipset, amlogic has the source code for the android 4.0 OS already, and has released it for several of their devices based off the same chipset.
I've been looking at the simularities between JXD's firmware and the nova8 another amlogic 8726 based tablet and they are almost identical except for some kernel specific stuff that I can't dig really that far into without their source (still not available)
So if you (openpandora) had an inhouse pastic molding facility, were physically located in the same geographical location as TI or much cheaper and unscrupulous alternative and they were handing you a completed operating system. you had access to cheap physical labor and had the revenues of several other successful devices (JXD makes things other than gaming handhelds) no requirements for CE certificaion or woried about copywrite laws and patent infringement. You would be well off shitting these things out as quickly as they are.
In this fictional world I would be a very happy and content man with my retro gaming btw
Their QC sucks, boards are filled with faulty hardware and it's a crapshoot to get a good one. Once you do get one that isn't broken, you can see where even more is being saved. For a bigger company you'd think they would have spent more time on case design, the plastics and the way they fit, feel, and look are similar to the pandora (honestly no real offence here) but you guys (4 guys vs god knows how many) are able to produce the same quality if not much better is pretty good if you ask me.
anyway, back to my point that I've made a couple times before. What they need is to team up with some visionaries for mobile gaming. Craig, have you considered talking to them for some sort of partnership on a device similar to your attempts in talking to GPH in the past? Maybe not for the pandora as it is it's own thing much different than these. It has it's own successful vison in the niche it is hitting. JXD's development team is more open than most of these types. I was able to talk to them, and I don't even know what I'm doing lol. They have the resources and possibly even the ability to make a quality product, but I think they are really lacking in some fundimental areas I think you might be able to fix.
You might be shooting yourself in the foot as a company, but what if it worked? A device that could be inexpensively made (not cheaply) that met all of us mainstream niche (sounds contradictory I know, maybe common idiot?) gamers needs. I honestly think that might be more a direction you personally would want to go for a project based off things I've heard you say. I know the pandora and its following might not agree. But if you are targetting more of a mass market gaming handheld that didn't suck or rip off another existing device. Not sucking up but you know how to make things happen, and have visions that maybe be beyond the scope of what you're currently capable of doing with the resources you have.
make a device that was open to development, but maybe not so focused on being so increadably open and hackable. Worked hardware wise, but wasn't just absolutely the best hardware part for part you could find. Something that just worked, was extremely pocket portable, and didn't need a super dedicated group of developers to help maintain. Decent specs and could be mass produced. And most importantly, was comfortable to use. I think this is what some of us are after... maybe not all of us, but I'm sure some of us. It might be possible if you got good in with a company over there with those resouces available.
it's a long shot thought... but still a thought.