My Pandora Review

[cosurgi]

Hi,

The keyboard layout... well, that's something we discussed over and over again.
I used for four months and I do all the scripting for the OS, etc. on that keyboard.

How do you typically do your scripting? Is Pandora lying on the table? Are you typing with fingers (not just thumbs), or is Pandora in your hands, and you are using just 2 thumbs?

What is your editor? How often do you reach for Ctrl, Shift, Alt?

Once upon a time I was very fond of being able to code quickly in saturn assembler on HP48. It is only now, that I recognize its keyboard was hellish. My love for coding and HP48 was obstructing the fact the problem with keyboard. The love faded, and the HP48's keyboard hurts now. (they keys are still working fantastic, but the layout, how to reach all special characters like % or ; is crazy). Love of Pandora may similarly obstruct such problems. Then love fades, and problems resurface.

After using it for a few days, you get used to it. You can't do a standard PC layout as you're typing with your thumbs - and that's completely different to using 10 fingers

I'm sure whatever layout we use, somebody is going to complain about

that is obvious

 

[Dead1nside]

OP are reacting very responsively to the feedback and that's something you'd never get in a larger company. I dare say you're doing more QA than others.

With the keyboard layout, it is non-standard, but it's because of size constraints. I think I'll adapt quickly. In my mind it looks easier to type on than say an N900's keyboard which is quite cramped and close together.

Thanks again for the review.

 

[cosam]

OK, OP dudes, don't go all defensive on me ;-)

We're constantly improving things already, reading the boards and reacting - and of course, if the unit is faulty, we'll fix it.

I think that's all people want to hear. I hope a bit of (hopefully) constructive criticism will help iron out the creases present in these very early units.

The keyboard layout... well, that's something we discussed over and over again.
I used for four months and I do all the scripting for the OS, etc. on that keyboard.

You really are some kind of masochist, eh? It's all done and dusted now anyway; I shall not mention it again ;-)

I can assure you we check and test every unit. The shoulder buttons had to be manually drilled out so there is some variation on them, but they should work.

Maybe a jig and drill press (assuming you're not using those already) will help even those out.

Over 100 units out there now and no DOA and only one unit being returned so far (wifi/battery issue) is pretty good isn't it? In comparison to the F100?

We can't do miracles but the QC is strict here right now, we're aiming for a <1% failure rate.

Oh yes, no complaints here regarding functionality. The cosmetic issues don't bother me too much, but unfortunately many people are quick to judge things by appearances. The last thing you want is people thinking the innards are no good because of something that could easily have been remedied during production.

 

[Fzero]

Yeah nice to see these reviews, sounds good to me, as craig said it's so far so good, 100 out in the midst and just one with issues.... And that couldve been caused by transit even rather than not tested, but also good to see ED and Craig are doing more checks in their testing now before releasing

Am I right in thinking that none of the TVout leads have been sent to anyone?
I'd like to hear some views on this, if it plays nice, wonder if it has much of a black edge/border .... Like my laptop does when I tvout that

nice reviews though





Just another couple thousand more and I'll be joining you, HELL YEAH

 

[techFreak]

Before Assembly
Case ................ Check
LCD Screen .......... Check
LCD Cable Position .. Check
Keymat and Dpad ..... Check
ABXY Buttons ........ Check
Shoulder Buttons .... Check

Mainboard
Main Board .......... Check
Nubs ................ Check
LCD Screen .......... Check

After Assembly
Boot ................ Check
LCD Screen .......... Check
SD Card Slots ....... Check
Keyboard ............ Check
Toucscreen .......... Check
DPad and Buttons .... Check
Battery ............. Check

Meanwhile
Radio Rock .......... Check
Pepsi ............... Check
Snickers ............ Check
Munchies ............ Check
Sleep ............... N / A

I think we are testing the units quite a lot. We are testing each Pandora ONE by ONE, not only picking up random units and checking them. If you receive a faulty unit, all you need to do is to let us know. We will take care of it.

 

[Fzero]

Now that's good service for ya

 

[jonlad1]

Keep the reviews and responses coming guys!

 

[Dead1nside]

Now that's good service for ya

Sure is. We all appreciate you guys being so thorough. It's probably a sense of pride in your creation as well. I'd rather have tighter QC controls and slower production, even being quite far back in the queue.

 

[EvilDragon]

How do you typically do your scripting? Is Pandora lying on the table? Are you typing with fingers (not just thumbs), or is Pandora in your hands, and you are using just 2 thumbs?

I'm holding it in my hands and typing with two thumbs, that's what the Pandora was made for.
It's a mobile device, not something you put on the table. If I'd put it on the cable, I would connect a keyboard.

What is your editor? How often do you reach for Ctrl, Shift, Alt?

I used nano as well as mousepad, and both worked fine for me.
nano actually uses some Ctrl-Keys. Shift has been used quite a few times, since in Germany you often use big letters while writing. Don't forget that L and R are also mapped to Shift and Control

 

[Shaun]

I can assure you we check and test every unit. The shoulder buttons had to be manually drilled out so there is some variation on them, but they should work.

I didn't find that so reassuring myself. I'll be honest—the build issues mentioned do worry me a little. I preordered a Pandora, and I also won't lie about this: cancelling is an option that's in the back of my mind. Not because I dislike the Pandora; I really want one. But it would give me more financial freedom for my upcoming holiday. Of course, from what I've seen the Pandora is very awesome so I'd be giving up a lot. Odds are, it's very unlikely I'll cancel but it depends on two factors. First, any future criticisms of the Pandora from buyers, dependent on the frequency of these issues being brought up. Secondly, the likelihood of these issues being addressed by Craig and company before my Pandora (3900-4000) is shipped out.

 

[skeezix]

Whats wrong with minimenu?

If its that 'bad pnd' we're talking about in the other thread, take it out mm should come up lickety split!

Any problems, be sure to let me know; its been rock solid so far. (The only 'issue' I know about right now is a goof I made in the config, so its not using preview picture cache properly, so it takes 2-3s to pull up a preview pic; thats a 1character change to make in a conf file to enable the preview pic cache, and then it pulls them up from the SD cache near instantly.)

I'll go read up now

jeff

edit; re: keyboard. (Colour me biased as well, as having used the keyboard for quite some time.) I found the first hour took me some time to get used to layout (especially the space bar); on one hand, it coudl be 'odd' that the center buttons between the nubs are 'control' and 'alt', but consider.. they're "start" and "pandora" and "select" buttons, but just so happen to be control and alt as well, which makes trhem versatile; this sort of thing has lent itself to an odd but really useful keyboard -- we've got pretty much all (at least as my needs have been) important keyboard buttons (including | beingf on there somewhere.. just sometimes hyour modifier keys like shift and function are in odd places; but I think its a pragmatic layout -- the keys seem to be in good spots for when you need them, just not where you might expect them at first. (example: bottom right is Fn and Space, but fn-space is Tab. I use tab a _lot_ (in the shell etc), so I find leaning on fn and rolling my thumb over to space is _great_, for tab; there was a lot of thought put into the keyboard layout. So its odd and takes getting used to (but not as much as dvorak layouts , but I like it. I still think shift-4 shoudl be $ though

 

[EvilDragon]

Well, we didn't have that many big problems here.
About 100 Pandoras are out there, we had one broken battery and one non-working display.
Two other were because the battery was flat which killed the firmware on first boot. Now we're also doing the first boot here, so it should be fine - and flashing the firmware is easy.

That's not too bad regarding this is the first batch (and first batch is always the worst ones when it comes to building, just think about all the XBox360 that had the red ring of death).

We're adding more testing here and there and are getting a better routine while doing it, so we shoult be fine.

 

[cosam]

Whats wrong with minimenu?

If its that 'bad pnd' we're talking about in the other thread, take it out mm should come up lickety split!

Yep, I was kinda putting off trying it, but it works fine since reflashing ;-)

 

[Mithrildor]

Well, we didn't have that many big problems here.
About 100 Pandoras are out there, we had one broken battery and one non-working display.
Two other were because the battery was flat which killed the firmware on first boot. Now we're also doing the first boot here, so it should be fine - and flashing the firmware is easy.

That's not too bad regarding this is the first batch (and first batch is always the worst ones when it comes to building, just think about all the XBox360 that had the red ring of death).

We're adding more testing here and there and are getting a better routine while doing it, so we shoult be fine.

The non-working display is only backlight ,isnt it? 2% isnt that bad, and as this are only the first pandoras and assembling will probably go alot better after another 100 I assume you can get it to 1% failure or even lower

 

[EvilDragon]

2% is pretty good actually.
I remember the gp2x First Edition - I got about 20 back - out of 200.

 

[peca]

...About 100 Pandoras are out there,...

I'm little confused about total amount of Pandoras shiped out (reading about 100 out from sunday, but not sure if it mean 100 per day or total). Can You (or other OPT member) post (tweet) total all Pandoras done every evening or so? Pretty please We (I guess that whole community) appreciate some kind of progress bar (counter ).

 

[RajTakhar]

great work and even better feed-back

Despite cosurgi being cosurgi - he never did like that keyboard layout

What is the tally for units shipped so far, you guys say 100, how many today?

I know you keep getting asked for a count - well it's just because I am now in 900-1000 range and you guys are over here for like a week, and we have a bank holiday coming up in UK - sorry just being anxious

 

[gahndalf]

...About 100 Pandoras are out there,...

I'm little confused about total amount of Pandoras shiped out (reading about 100 out from sunday, but not sure if it mean 100 per day or total). Can You (or other OPT member) post (tweet) total all Pandoras done every evening or so? Pretty please We (I guess that whole community) appreciate some kind of progress bar (counter ).

+1,000,000

 

[Grench]

Two other were because the battery was flat which killed the firmware on first boot. Now we're also doing the first boot here, so it should be fine - and flashing the firmware is easy.

Have you given any thought to popping the battery on a charger during the build process? I.e. assemble, land it on powered USB hub and let it sit for 2 hours before moving on to the power-up test.

Just a thought.

The team is doing a great job - I can hardly wait to get mine!

 

[canguy247]

2% is pretty good actually.
I remember the gp2x First Edition - I got about 20 back - out of 200.

In industry as a whole it is very difficult to get below 3%.