Opt: How Would Investments Help You?

[DaMummy]

show me a real competitor to the pandora, cause i would love to own one

 

[Gerix]

You should ask the people who are canceling.

 

[DaMummy]

the ones that are buying an ipad? youre shitting me right?

 

[Gerix]

It's taking customers away from the Pandora. Therefore, it is a competitor. I could say Windows doesn't compete with Linux. That doesn't mean Linux vendors should ignore Microsoft.

 

[DaMummy]

green apples are better than red/yellow apples, and lemons are better than limes, doesnt mean id rather have a red apple then a lemon

 

[Gerix]

But you might take the red apple if the lemon crop is destroyed. Some people will take the apple if the lemon goes up $0.20. It seems like you're talking about your personal tastes while I'm talking about the market.

 

[DaMummy]

as previously mentioned, the pandora is in a very niche market while your average jackass can take full advantage of the minor things an ipad/pod/touch can do

 

[Gerix]

You know what? Just forget about it.

 

[WizardStan]

You know what? Just forget about it.

I know and agree with what you're saying, if it's any consolation.

 

[Pleng]

Worst of all, when I lifted the lid up to turn the unit on first time, I found what appeared to be several flakes of tobacco around the keyboard and screen area.

This was worse than the dodgy keyboard? :blink:

Well yes, to me it was. The flaky keyboard shows QA issues with assembly are still occurring. The tobacco making its way onto (I really, really hope not into) my product indicates that QA is no being taken at all seriously. Also this didn't appear to be rolling tobacco, it appeared to be cigarette tobacco that had somehow made its way out of a cigarette and onto my Pandora.

I didn't really have the option to send it back as I'm going away in a couple of days. Besides, as quality generally appears to be getting worse as time goes on I'll take my chances with this one.

On the positive side, the keyboard has pretty much fixed itself. The lower, easy to press keys appear to have somehow raised themselves to the level of the rest of them so it's pretty even. The battery in the new Pandora seems about 50% better than the battery in my old unit, so that's nice.

On the negative side, the unit has developed a small crack in the top left-hand corner. It appears to start at the inside by the little foot thing on the screen's side and makes its way about 3 quarters of the way up the curve of the lid.

Granted I have taken this thing around with me a fair bit. Too and from work, and around London. But it's been in a heavily padded bag, and the thing is supposed to be designed with portability in mind. My DS and Dingoo took far more abuse without suffering any damage.

Though to be fair the Pandora is of course a global project, where would we be without MWeston DaveC & of course ED?

Nowhere. Apart from poorly coordinating this project, what has Craig actually brought to this project? Aside from a load of attitude?

Edit: And as for the competition, where are they? We will obliterate them when they show up.

No. You won't. You have to keep hoping there will be no competition and you will continue to be the only supplier in this nice market. Any serious competitor, with money behind them, who came about now could be using a better specd chip-set, would design a much more resilient case and would be much better equipped to meet demand than you could ever hope to be with your attitude.

 

[Loon]

...

Though to be fair the Pandora is of course a global project, where would we be without MWeston DaveC & of course ED?

Nowhere. Apart from poorly coordinating this project, what has Craig actually brought to this project? Aside from a load of attitude?

Edit: And as for the competition, where are they? We will obliterate them when they show up.

No. You won't. You have to keep hoping there will be no competition and you will continue to be the only supplier in this nice market. Any serious competitor, with money behind them, who came about now could be using a better specd chip-set, would design a much more resilient case and would be much better equipped to meet demand than you could ever hope to be with your attitude.

What has Craig brought to the project? How about the initial concept, working capital (i.e. hard cash), the assembly 'factory' etc. Not to forget the Christmas video with the Vodka, oh and the one on the roof as well.

I might be in the minority but I rather like Craigs somewhat unconventional, possibly Vodka based, attitude. What really turns me off is the rather robotic ultra slick PR that most conventional businesses tend to employ.

As for the competition what you seem to forget is that any open source hand held gaming console even if released by a big name will lack one rather important thing and that is the community.

To get an idea of the importance of this then look what software is available for the Nokia N900 with 100K+ units in the wild and backed by Nokia, available since November 09 and compare this with what is available for Pandora with 600 or so units out there. Now I know that the 2 devices are not aimed at the same market but to me the comparison is valid as they are both open technology.

Still, guess you can ignore most of this as I'm just a run of the mill rabid fanboi when it comes to the Pandora

 

[Pleng]

What has Craig brought to the project? How about the initial concept, working capital (i.e. hard cash), the assembly 'factory' etc. Not to forget the Christmas video with the Vodka, oh and the one on the roof as well.

Ill give you the concept and the capital. The 'factory' is a joke and the videos were irritating.

I might be in the minority but I rather like Craigs somewhat unconventional, possibly Vodka based, attitude. What really turns me off is the rather robotic ultra slick PR that most conventional businesses tend to employ.

There's a line between being unconventional and just downright unprofessional. Craig has gone so far across that line as to be beyond the point of no return.

As for the competition what you seem to forget is that any open source hand held gaming console even if released by a big name will lack one rather important thing and that is the community.

To get an idea of the importance of this then look what software is available for the Nokia N900 with 100K+ units in the wild and backed by Nokia, available since November 09 and compare this with what is available for Pandora with 600 or so units out there. Now I know that the 2 devices are not aimed at the same market but to me the comparison is valid as they are both open technology.

I dislike getting involved in conversations like this becuase it makes me sound like Im ungrateful to the developes which is not my intention, but here we go:

What software are you referring to? We have unfinished and feature incomplete ports of emulators for 16 bit systems, A slow PSX emulator and a beta N64 emulator. The 8bit machines seem fine. We have buggy hacks of web browsers, and an IM client that crashes if you have sound enabled. Now Im not familiar with the N900 but I can imagine that the software base must be at least similar. And being a phone Im certain that it has a UI suitable for the device size and some decent integrated PIM software. Something the Pandora may never have.

Anyway as you said the market for a phone is not a good comparison. A much better comparion would be with other gaming consoles such as DS and PSP. All of which have healthy communities behind them in spite of not even being open. You can bet if, for example, Sega or Microsoft came out and built a similar device to the Pandora and either designed it as open or it was easy to crack then a community would build up around it in no time.

And it would be well made.

And it would have a decent UI.

Still, guess you can ignore most of this as I'm just a run of the mill rabid fanboi when it comes to the Pandora

Admitting you have a problem is the first step to coming to terms with it. Well done

 

[WizardStan]

As for the competition what you seem to forget is that any open source hand held gaming console even if released by a big name will lack one rather important thing and that is the community.

Nokia doesn't have that large of a community, correct.
However, Sony and Nintendo both have exceptionally large hacking groups, the only thing holding them back is the company they're working with fighting* against them to prevent them from doing the hacking they are trying to do. If either Sony or Nintendo released a Pandora like open source console, it would quickly be adopted by this exceptionally large community and overtake the Pandora community. Just look at the jailbroken iPhone app store.

*ironically, it's probably because Sony and Nintendo are actively trying to prevent people from accessing their hardware that encouraged more hackers to join their respective communities. [citation_needed]

edit: h34r:

 

[Gerix]

In order to "obliterate the competition," we would need to have some sort of competency that cannot be duplicated by them. What is that competency? It isn't cost. It isn't volume. From the sound of things, it probably isn't quality (but maybe Pleng just complains too much). People keep mentioning the community. What makes the community great? If you were trying to convince someone to buy a Pandora, would you mention the community? What would you say about the community? And if the community is a selling point of the Pandora, how can we make it better? I guess the last question is whether you can sell a device based on its community.

And having that competency would only lead to profits above the industry average (I think?), not obliteration.

P.S. I hope this does not sound inflammatory. I am just curious concerning everyone's thoughts about the strength of the product and the company in the long run.

Edit: I glanced at my avatar and just have to add: "Your overconfidence is your weakness..."

 

[mali]

I guess the last question is whether you can sell a device based on its community.

I buy things based on the community surrounding a device. I did it back in the days when I bought my first PocketPC when I was active on Pocketmatrix, later Aximsite and Brighthand, ITT, NBR and now I'm here, I didn't order (again) yet, though. That's the problem with all those anonymous far east UMPCs. I wouldn't have a nice place to talk about it and something would be missing.

 

[zipper]

If you were trying to convince someone to buy a Pandora, would you mention the community? What would you say about the community?

I'd say the community will become, NEEDS to become, the main reason to buy a Pandora. Open source devices live and die by the strength of their community, surely?

 

[Exophase]

*ironically, it's probably because Sony and Nintendo are actively trying to prevent people from accessing their hardware that encouraged more hackers to join their respective communities. [citation_needed]

I resoundingly disagree with this. GP32 and GP2X has communities and homebrew development that was on a similar order of magnitude if not rivaling those acquired by the rivaling bigger commercial closed platforms (GBA, PSP respectively). These platforms would have been absolutely nothing without in the west without allowing development and giving some information on the hardware.

Sure, there are people who enjoy reverse engineering but by and large this is an impediment. You could cite that custom firmware development on PSP is likely the most popular form of homebrew, but I would say this is more of a symptom of the problem than anything.

In order to "obliterate the competition," we would need to have some sort of competency that cannot be duplicated by them. What is that competency? It isn't cost. It isn't volume. From the sound of things, it probably isn't quality (but maybe Pleng just complains too much). People keep mentioning the community. What makes the community great? If you were trying to convince someone to buy a Pandora, would you mention the community? What would you say about the community? And if the community is a selling point of the Pandora, how can we make it better? I guess the last question is whether you can sell a device based on its community.

If a device is quality and reflects what people want the community will form around it, period - there's very little that the responsible company needs to do to foster this and indeed very little they can do to prevent it. Brand loyalty is ultimately not a very big factor and if a decently funded company came out with a device that hit all of the same check boxes Pandora did then Pandora would most likely be utterly destroyed.

The thing that's working in Pandora's favor is that the market is not really there. They can hope to sell maybe in the tens of thousands (if they could meet that demand) and that's about it. Companies aren't really seeking these kinds of volumes and margins - in fact, any real company couldn't really afford it.

The sad truth is that Pandora can really only be done by a company ran by few people with small operating expenses - often requiring cheaper but less desirable solutions like case manufacturing in China at the total whims of the company. The modicum of build and quality control flaws are an almost inevitable consequence of this.

I just hope that OP don't become victims of their own hype and put forth a policy of continual improvement on the things they do have control over, because it's here where I think that in time Pandora can become incredibly solid and have an extreme advantage. By virtue of servicing a small but long-standing niche they're not held back by needing to constantly redesign to satisfy the latest trends. So they can take what they have and fix, respond, and refine, to really make it better and better. And if they can do this then they will have a substantial advantage over competitors. But this has to include a willingness to make fixes and alterations based on community feedback and not just be satisfied with what they think is great. I mean doing something about the shoulder buttons (ED commented that he never liked shoulder buttons in general, this isn't a good sign), doing something about the nubs, doing something about the hinge locks, etc... not just insisting that everything is perfect and anyone who disagree is either a fringe case who got a bad unit or just doesn't have any good sense. Design by committee is not a very good approach, but improve by committee can be. When everyone wants something changed you should definitely take note of it.

 

[SomeGuy99]

Exophase is a little misguided. Didn't you know? The Pandora is the best handheld in the world! Craig can back me up on this.

Hinge: Nothing wrong with it. All those other handhelds, by uncaring corporate money-machines got it wrong. The Pandora has it right, because it was designed by this community. We got what we always wanted. Why can't you see this?

Shoulder Buttons: I spent years waiting for a machine with these kind of amazing controls. Ever since I was ten years old, I was disappointed time and time again.

Nubs: You're using them wrong. You're not supposed to push them too hard, isn't that obvious? It's to prevent RSI and related injuries. Big companies don't care about us - they wouldn't even be bothered if we developed arthritis from their crappy controls. Why do you think you have to push the nubs around when you boot it up? It's to warm up your hands first, idiot.

I don't think you get the Pandora at all. It is perfect already. Why don't you go off and manufacture your own handheld instead of moaning about ours? Or you could just be useful, go off and port GPsp and be grateful we even use your software. Pokemon won't play itself now, will it?

 

[WizardStan]

I resoundingly disagree with this. GP32 and GP2X has communities and homebrew development that was on a similar order of magnitude if not rivaling those acquired by the rivaling bigger commercial closed platforms (GBA, PSP respectively). These platforms would have been absolutely nothing without in the west without allowing development and giving some information on the hardware.

CF500-6 has been downloaded over 160000 times from pspslimhacks.com alone. This is not the only place to get it, and not everyone is going to be upgraded to the latest version, not to mention all the old "Phat" consoles that run homebrew. Let's suppose that this number is wildly inflated and only half the downloads actually land on a PSP, that's still a minimum of 80000 PSP (slims) that have the ability to run homebrew against the 60000 GP2Xs sold worldwide.
So the numbers show there are more homebrew enabled PSPs than GP2X, and almost as many (though honestly probably much more) than GP2X and GP32 combined.
I'm not entirely certain where I was going with this argument. I'll be over in the corner.

 

[SomeGuy99]

The PSP is not perfect like the Pandora. People are starting to realise you can only get this kind of quality from a product built in England. Japanese corporations should never be trusted, as they have an irrational hatred for the west. Ken Kutaragi was removed from his position for leaking emails about Sony donating money to fascist parties. He is a disgusting and bigoted racist.

The giant enemy crab was an internal joke - it represented the allied countries from WW2 which beat Japan. It is a metaphor for our alien culture invading their traditional way of life. They want to 'attack our weak spot for massive damage'... they are showing their contempt for us.