My Soul Died A Little Today.

[SomeGuy99]

^ You'd have to direct the question about warranty at Craig. Opening the case voids the warranty according to the quickstart guide.

Even the bottom half?

 

[mali]

^ I don't have a quickstart guide, but apparently it states that opening the case in general voids the warranty. ED allowed some exceptions on a case by case basis, but I can't advise anything that potentially leaves people with a useless Pandora

 

[Prometheus]

I have my Quick Start Guide right here. The exact wording, placed at the ninth bullet-point on the first Precautions page, on the inside of the back cover, reads thusly;

Disassembling the Pandora will void its warranty.

 

[SomeGuy99]

That's a complete joke.

Quality control at the moment is so low, that prevents you doing any kind of modding!

I wanted to see if I could tweak the Dpad, face and shoulder buttons. But now I can't.

 

[wermy]

This thread does have me worried a bit... Does anyone know what the solder points on the nubs look like (ie, are they tiny, are there a bunch of them, etc...)? Are there any pictures out there? I can't seem to find any... I don't even have my pandora yet, but I'm inclined to buy a couple extra nubs when I do get it just to tuck away, for a worst-case-Open-Pandora-Ltd-is-gone-and-my-nubs-are-broken type scenario.

Edit: typo.

 

[cosam]

Does anyone know what the solder points on the nubs look like (ie, are they tiny, are there a bunch of them, etc...)? Are there any pictures out there? I can't seem to find any...

Not sure if there are photos of the solder pads themselves but there is some info on the wiki. Doesn't sound like they're all that easy to replace.

 

[Prometheus]

Quality control at the moment is so low, that prevents you doing any kind of modding!

You've been down to help them out, then?

I wanted to see if I could tweak the Dpad, face and shoulder buttons. But now I can't.

Bit difficult without your Pandora, anyway, isn't it? I thought you were still waiting on a replacement?

 

[wermy]

Not sure if there are photos of the solder pads themselves but there is some info on the wiki. Doesn't sound like they're all that easy to replace.

I think I answered my own question. It looks like there are 6 solder pads for each nub, and they don't look too tiny. It looks do-able by someone with soldering experience.
http://gs113.photobucket.com/groups/n213/I0S2J7KION/?action=view&current=pandora_rev4.jpg

 

[MooTheKow]

I too am a member of the defective Pandora club. My unit arrived with a right shoulder button that didn't work quite right. After about a week my left nub broke. This weekend my LCD started acting screwy. Color went all wonkey.. then picture started fading in/out and doing weird stuff before finally going out. After a while and some tweaking the picture came back - but something is still wrong. There are random green'ish outlines on items that I select in minimenu... and things like the image of the SNES for the SNES emulator have weird green spots around the edges..

I'm in the US (Michigan) -- not exactly thrilled with the cost (and time) for shipping it back to England.

 

[SomeGuy99]

Bit difficult without your Pandora, anyway, isn't it? I thought you were still waiting on a replacement?

I consider not testing the power circuit on my unit poor quality control yeah. There isn't any other explanation I'm afraid.

Wether I mod my next Pandora or not, it's still a bugbear. I don't trust my next unit not to fail within a month, so it means I can't open it up at all to tweak the controls.

 

[Prometheus]

Oh, so you got a replacement? My bad - must've missed that. That sucks, though.

I thought you were still without one, hence my remark about being unable to tweak things.

 

[SomeGuy99]

I too am a member of the defective Pandora club. My unit arrived with a right shoulder button that didn't work quite right. After about a week my left nub broke. This weekend my LCD started acting screwy. Color went all wonkey.. then picture started fading in/out and doing weird stuff before finally going out. After a while and some tweaking the picture came back - but something is still wrong. There are random green'ish outlines on items that I select in minimenu... and things like the image of the SNES for the SNES emulator have weird green spots around the edges..

I'm in the US (Michigan) -- not exactly thrilled with the cost (and time) for shipping it back to England.

All of this happened to my first unit. Guess what? My second one still had the broken right shoulder button problem... two months after they built my original. Good going guys!

They paid me the postage back, which is why I'm not getting mega stressed out about it. I do only live in the next county though, so maybe they don't do this internationally?

Oh, so you got a replacement? My bad - must've missed that. That sucks, though.

I thought you were still without one, hence my remark about being unable to tweak things.

I'm on number two at the moment, and it's due for recall. I will be in the third Pandora club with you soon enough.

 

[Aninhumer]

Quality control at the moment is so low, that prevents you doing any kind of modding!

I wanted to see if I could tweak the Dpad, face and shoulder buttons. But now I can't.

I'd imagine they'll probably treat this stuff on a case by case basis.
I have no problem with OPT not being legally obliged to repair a unit if you opened it.

 

[SomeGuy99]

Quality control at the moment is so low, that prevents you doing any kind of modding!

I wanted to see if I could tweak the Dpad, face and shoulder buttons. But now I can't.

I'd imagine they'll probably treat this stuff on a case by case basis.
I have no problem with OPT not being legally obliged to repair a unit if you opened it.

I wouldn't even want to open it, were it not for the design faults.

Craig says a Pandora is like a model kit and is there for tweaking... but what if my nub breaks on it's own accord? What if some other thing goes wrong that wasn't my fault?

If I break something, fine. That's my fault.

Even Ed said the shoulder buttons need to be manually tweaked and that opening up the bottom half was safe.

Either the units are solid, won't break and don't need tweaking or ... minor modding should be allowed. Otherwise I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. It's impossible to win.

The only other solution is to pay OP to tweak for me... but are you serious? They haven't even solved the shoulder button thing yet. Why should I pay them to fix a design or manufacturing flaw anyway?

 

[Blue Ion]

I'm on number two at the moment, and it's due for recall. I will be in the third Pandora club with you soon enough.

Jesus, lets hope you are the exception on these returns, and that either mine is a new one from later batches or else I fear I'm going to return it again. Left nub always felt a bit looser than what it should be, and while it worked well, I fear it is not going to last.
I've sent mine to repair (due to the same lcd issues as many of you) on the 15th of june and they still haven't done anything with it.
If returns are going to be this slow, this is going to be hair tearing.

At this rate, it is going to be more time in repairs than in my hands, which is quite depressing.

 

[Prometheus]

SomeGuy, I think you're forgetting that the warranty pile was probably put together as they went along with building. I do believe that quality control has improved (my second unit was blatantly later and better-built than my already-good first one), and I would bet that the prodding I *think* you mentioned in another thread (was that you? I don't remember... If not, then disregard this ) to get a replacement sent out has wound you up with what's probably technically an earlier unit.

 

[SomeGuy99]

I'm on number two at the moment, and it's due for recall. I will be in the third Pandora club with you soon enough.

Jesus, lets hope you are the exception on these returns, and that either mine is a new one from later batches or else I fear I'm going to return it again. Left nub always felt a bit looser than what it should be, and while it worked well, I fear it is not going to last.
I've sent mine to repair (due to the same lcd issues as many of you) on the 15th of june and they still haven't done anything with it.
If returns are going to be this slow, this is going to be hair tearing.

At this rate, it is going to be more time in repairs than in my hands, which is quite depressing.

They don't actually repair and return your unit. What happens is they send you one of their stock assigned for replacements. This stock ran out recently, which is why it took a month for me to get my replacement (they were not buidling Pandoras).

There were a few interesting things to note about my replacement: It had an old, worn out Keyboard (I think this was one salvaged from a returned machine, or it may be that they are now filing down the sides of the keys to make them nicer to press. Either way, I kind of prefered it, even though the paint on the keys looks like it had worn off. It looked very messy). Secondly, the stylus wasn't painted properly (or was old and worn out) - probably something at the Chinese factory.

I have a feeling my Pandora was made of recycled parts and a new case. I didn't mind a huge deal, but kind of rubbish for a £200 machine.

Anyway, you need to keep pestering the sales team or you'll never get your replacement.

 

[SomeGuy99]

SomeGuy, I think you're forgetting that the warranty pile was probably put together as they went along with building. I do believe that quality control has improved (my second unit was blatantly later and better-built than my already-good first one), and I would bet that the prodding I *think* you mentioned in another thread (was that you? I don't remember... If not, then disregard this ) to get a replacement sent out has wound you up with what's probably technically an earlier unit.

But it took a month! I don't believe the sales team read this board.

I'm not one of those people that just wants to complain. I'd much rather be pleasantly surprised. B) Maybe it doesn't come across on these boards, but I'm known as very positive person.

I probably care a bit too much about this community if anything. To me, you're all some kind of big extended geek family. We've been through a lot together - what with all the waiting, the delays, the emotion and drama.

When I finally got my Pandora, I felt like I grew up a little - wised up. All you little brothers and sisters of mine, still waiting on your promises from Uncle Craig - I feel duty bound to protect you a little. You were told if you did your homework, eat your vegetables, went to bed on time, Craig would take you on the most amazing trip to to funpark.

You wanted to go on the rollercoaster, go on the ferris wheel - eat candyfloss till you puked, run around like idiots until your little legs got too tired. Every night when you tuck yourselves in at night and close your little weary eyes, this is what you dream of.

Uncle Craig tries hard, but he makes too many promises. Sometimes he just gets drunk and abuses us instead.

 

[emcee]

Today, I went use to my Pandora and it said my battery was low, and the meter was at 9%. Since I had it plugged in all night, and all day while I was at work, this seemed a little odd. I've been fiddling with for the last hour, and still haven't got it to charge.

At the same time, it's also managed to develop the same LCD problems listed in this thread, and for some reason I now have to put the nubs back in mouse mode every time I restart.

This is in addition to these preexisting issues: sloppy loose shoulder buttons, ridiculously slow wifi, the lid doesn't close flush on both sides, buttons 1 through 3 have to be pressed very hard to get a response, with the 3 key being just about useless, the two halves of the case on the bottom section aren't completely pushed together, and there's a crack between the sd slots.

I bought it used with a broken screen that I replaced, so my warranty has already been voided. Tomorrow I'm just going to take the whole think apart and try to put it back together right, and I'll reflash the firmware again while I'm at it.

The frustration to fun ratio on this thing is a lot higher than I expected.

 

[Loon]

I tried to get some official response to some very simple questions regarding the warranty in this thread.

No response was forthcoming.

My unit also developed the steadily worsening purple cast on the screen problem which is what prompted me to return it for repairs last week.

I can confirm that OPT will refund my postage cost to return the unit from the UK once they have confirmed that the Pandora is faulty under warranty, hardly surprising as UK consumer law clearly states that this should be the case. Not sure if this applies to EU / other overseas customers.

It would be really nice if someone from OPT could answer the questions regarding the warranty.