Pandora Marketing Survey - Where did you first hear about the Pandora?

[crow_riot]

got a wiz as a birthday present from my GF, then on the second day i almost ruined it and was looking for help. so i found gp32x.de. and then i've got aware of the pandora

 

[NoeleyC]

Not sure how I started following that particular machine, but I ended up buying a GP2X F200 when it came out (I knew of the F100 but I preferred the looks of the F200, and I liked the idea of a touchscreen!). Had a PSP for homebrew before that. Heard whispers of the mytical "Craiginator" on the gp32x forums, and followed it from there!(day 1 orderer and all that... :blink:  )

 

[Farox]

When my friend came out buying a DSlite i was searching for an alternative (with open source/linux) and found the GP2X than i bought a new F200 in 2008.

At start following gp2x scene from italian forum, but after some months i have subscribed on gp32x.de forum and (was the begin of 2009) and found many many threads on this new console in development.

At first was skeptical but finally in 2010 i preordered one from Craig ...and after a year i upgraded to premium and shorlty received mine.

 

[Fzero]

From the gp32x.de boards too, but I think it was already 'Pandora' by that time when I registered on there.

I was interested in the Dingoo [A320] and that was what I had stumbled upon one way or another, then when looking for more info on that device I found that gp32x forums, then found out there was a far greater beast lurking in the shadows.

 

[Neelix]

Interesting... 

Thanks for adding that last option.    In my case, when a friend noticed I was carrying around my netbook, they said 'check this out' and brought up the pandora web page on it.  As soon as I saw the pandora and understood what it was I wanted it...  a couple of weeks later I joined the forums, and a few weeks after that Craig started offering "Premium" units, so I ordered one.

- Neelix

 

[_wb_]

I was Googling "horse-penis-in-anus" and found out about the Pandora. Just kidding

I don't really remember exactly how I found out about the Pandora. I think I heard about it many years ago on slashdot, and then completely forgot about it. I have a Sony Vaio P series mini-laptop, it runs GNU/Linux just fine and it has a nice keyboard and is really portable, but the battery life sucks, to the point of completely ruining its portability. At some point I impulsively bought an iPad. I liked its battery life, but I quickly got really annoyed by how closed it is and by the lack of physical keys. I think I started looking for open alternatives at that point, with a combination of good battery life, physical keyboard, and better portability than an iPad or netbook. Turns out there weren't that many options, and there still aren't.

 

[Farami]

Ashens review aswell. That guy is amazing.

 

[Mr_Loon]

I followed it from a point where the Pandora was still called "craiginator" or "dragonbox" or something on the gp32x.de board, but found it doing a web search for a successor to my Tapwave Zodiac. So was voting for the first option correct ?

Yes, that's the one. 

 

[Null]

gp32x.de, back in the Craiginator and the should we use a i.MX31 SOC? days.

 

[PowerGod]

My Game Gear died, and because it was my only gaming device I was searching for a replacement, and if possible something more recent... so after some research over PSP/NDS and known portable consoles I found the existance of these "Open Consoles"    :huh:

I mean WTF !! Linux in a console !! These things have been around for years and I've never heard anything !!

So I started to search some list of "Open Consoles" and I found the most exausting site "gp32x.de"... then, after reading a lot of recension on Wiz, Dingoo and Canoo, I found myself looking at a picture of the Pandora... but there wasn't anywere the name... after some day of crawling I started reading one of the many "Pandora" discussions, and I connected that picture to the descriptions !!

Anyway I waited 2 years before ordering... I wasn't so sure that such a great project was really able to see the light...  -_-

Luckily I was wrong  I will not make the same error again if the P2 will be realized...

 

[3_bit]

I've been looking for a good device to play video games "properly" and do everything else I could possibly want to OTG. This is how I found the OP.

 

[ZXDunny]

I owned a GP32 (and later a GP2X F100) when the discussion started after it became obvious that GPH couldn't give two fucks about the community, and that a new handheld was needed that brought the power and usability that GPH was so disinclined to add to their line. 

I fondly remember the enormous thread that resulted as people started to speculate, and some of the designs were pretty stunning. It's a shame the Pandora ended up looking like the mess it is now when there was so much genius floating about. Needs must, I suppose - at least we got a clamshell.

Got in on the first day of preorders and finally got my unit after 2.5 years from Craig. I'm lucky - AIUI there are still people waiting for theirs. Did Craig ever clear the first batch?

D.

 

[LuSimon]

Back in early 2011 there was a portuguese show on tv related to gaming called insert coin: They were showing the overall story of handheld consoles and they showed the GPH Wiz, then some weeks later I was bored to dead so I searched about that mighty wiz and then I saw the caanoo and then I saw in th openhandhelds.org the Pandora I became very interested in it and I have silently following it's progresso and the forums and rest is history

 

[Null]

I fondly remember the enormous thread that resulted as people started to speculate

<reminiscing>http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/38155-our-new-machine-pandora/ 375 pages (default settings) now that's what I call a thread, it's a shame it got locked (twice) though, it could still have been going to this day if it hadn't been. </reminiscing>

 

[FelixNemis]

I was looking at devices that run linux on wikipedia when I found it.

At that time I didn't have money though.

then when I did finally have money I got one. And now I'm happy

 

[F_Slim]

I was searching the web for "portable amiga handheld" (or something along those lines).

I saw one of those SEGA-handhelds in a discounter (a handheld thingy that has 30 or 50 SEGA games pre-installed). I thought to myself "by todays standards the Amiga was so simple, surely somebody managed to produce something similar for Amiga-games?" (I once also saw a retro-joystick you can attach to the TV which has hundreds of C64 games installed, and the hardware fits into the joystick-casing) ... I was willing to spend like €50 for something like this (seeing the SEGA-thingy was sold for €30, and assuming playing pre-installed Amiga games is all it can do). Then I learned about the Gp2x, Wiz and the like ... and was put-off by the prize. Then I found the Pandora and I was like "yeah, THAT's what I need" and was even more put-off by the price. But I soon realized that it's actually a pocket-size computer and not just a "toy" to play games with. In the end this is what justified the prize for me, so I pre-ordered one.

At some point I upgraded my order to a Rebirth unit, because I just couldn't wait.

Late last year I spend the money to upgrade to a 1GHz unit, since I had to send it in for a broken LCD-cable anyway.

I never added up how much I spend on my unit until now ... not counting that I'm an investor, too.

I did not regret it for a single moment though. I use it almost every day and learned countless things about hardware, software and operating-systems. I use it as portable TV, as MP3 and portable Video-Player, I use it for quick web-browsing, I found countless awesome OpenSource games and applications I would have never heard of otherwise ... and oh yeah: I can also play almost all my favorite old games with it wherever I go, too ... whatever I payed for it is fine with me, because it's worth it.

(Probably should have posted this in the "WAY overpriced"-thread )

 

[knightron]

I first heard about it on a forum that focused on psp homebrew.

 

[klapse]

I fondly remember the enormous thread that resulted as people started to speculate

<reminiscing>http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/38155-our-new-machine-pandora/ 375 pages (default settings) now that's what I call a thread, it's a shame it got locked (twice) though, it could still have been going to this day if it hadn't been. </reminiscing>

That is actually a very interesting thread - around page 75 the discussion about the OMAP3 starts - September 2007! Man, time FLIES.

Quote CraigIX "we have been working on this thing since March (2007)"

 

[siddharta]

I couldn't choose the right option..

I first read about the pandora in our Sunday Newspaper!

There was a small article describing it even before you could preorder it and I thought wow, I have to preorder it as soon as it is possible to do so.

Cheers Christoph

 

[b_o_b]

A podcast from one of the guys from http://www.tllts.org/ called "Lager" contained a GP2X review and I was immediately interested. So bought a GP2X and was very satisfied with it. The only thing I was really missing was a keyboard so the Pandora was the logical next step.