Pandora Press Reviews

[Duddyroar]

http://www.electricpig.co.uk/2010/07/16/pandora-review/

One of the first reviews to hit the net, penned by my good self.

Go easy on me.

EDIT: Updated post with link to Pocket Gamer review: http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/Mobile/Pandora/hardware_review.asp?c=22258

 

[Loon]

Nice balanced review, perhaps the ported games / few bits of homebrew are worth a mention too, if you've not already done so then try battle for wesnoth, it's superb.

PS : You've got a minor typo here 'However, those of you that reveal in flexibility' revel?

 

[fraseyboy]

Tis good. Nice to see a semi-big tech site doing a review.

 

[Bosbeetle]

No mention of the amazing battery time. A thing I aprecciate every day after a long day of work 3 hours of train travel I still dont have to be scared it has ran out of juice.

 

[Duddyroar]

That typo has already been brought to the attention if the site editor and should be fixed soon.

 

[gruso]

Hey Duddyroar Nice balanced write up, it's a good introduction for newcomers and it's honest/blunt where it needs to be. Nice photos too. My only criticism is that it does focus a little heavily on emulation - but the other half of me says, explaining homebrew and linux ports in the limited space you have can be a little difficult depending on your target audience.

 

[Duddyroar]

Very true. I was just scratching the surface with this review really and had to focus on the main elements.

However, if the review gets enough hits then there's a chance that additional features could go up on the site which look at other aspects of the machine's functionality.

Any chance of this being linked to on pandora press?

 

[gruso]

No probs, if you don't mind being torn apart by a whole other set of readers. I'll update our (un)official thread on neogaf too. (Those guys are even worse - they don't say anything.)

 

[amishaziz]

Great review, nice chatty style.

Another typo:

"16-bit emulation is particularly impressive, with Mega Drive and SNES games running as well as they would on their host hardware. Thanks to the lush D-pad controlling the action is a breeze and little in lost in the transition."

Should be:

"16-bit emulation is particularly impressive, with Mega Drive and SNES games running as well as they would on their host hardware. Thanks to the lush D-pad controlling the action is a breeze and little is lost in the transition."

 

[Duddyroar]

Crap. I'll let the editor know. Nice spot!

 

[Chaser]

Nice review. Concise and well written, though I feel that whilst some features maybe for the tinkering types only, as a general UMPC with office apps, net etc and a dabble with the basic emulators, its not really rocket science and most folk would love the battery time alone for basic music and films etc

 

[Dunny]

Another typo: "Launch Price ££230" - that's two pound symbols.

D.

 

[tsh]

Odd how some people see it as a gaming device, yet it has little that is not necessary for use as a general purpose computer. I suspect I use the nubs more than some gamers!

 

[ceepeeuk]

Nice review...but...I can't help but wonder how many review pandoras have been sent out, whilst 3500(ish) still have no idea when theirs will arrive, despite the fact that they paid nearly 2 years ago

 

[craigix]

Nice review...but...I can't help but wonder how many review pandoras have been sent out, whilst 3500(ish) still have no idea when theirs will arrive, despite the fact that they paid nearly 2 years ago

1.

 

[bradleyb01]

Odd how some people see it as a gaming device, yet it has little that is not necessary for use as a general purpose computer. I suspect I use the nubs more than some gamers!

+1 I use the nubs as a mouse 90% of the time complimented by the dpad for scrolling up and down menus, it is amazingly comfortable and intuitive, especially after I got used to using the right nub for mouse clicks!

 

[hobbyman II]

aaand, I think it was Craigs , at one point he said he was without a Pandora since it had been sent out somewhere, so I assume so, if you want to get upset about something, why not grumble about the 80% of dev machines that the so called "devs" never used to do anything with, that realy winds me up, I never offered myself as a dev since I thought the devices where going to more proficient "hackers", if I had known the failure rate I would have pushed myself as a "dev" hard, after all, I may not be an uber haxor, but I can sure as hell supply more results for OP than someone who does NOTHING :angry:

 

[amishaziz]

@ hobbyman II

I made a reply in another thread, similar to yours, and Exophase cleared a few things up quite nicely.

The devs for the most part are working for us in between their real lives, with substandard prototypes.

EDIT:

Here it is from the thread "I feel down"

"pfft

I can't speak for everyone else, but I sure as hell wasn't looking for a handout. Quite the opposite - craigix asked me to take a dev unit and I said that I didn't want a board w/o controls. Then a couple months later (September/October 2008) I was out of work and he says he'll pay me if I do work for it (lolz, yeah right) and I said I'd think about it.. no follow up on that any time soon and I got a job shortly thereafter. Some time later I get an e-mail asking me to receive one and I figured I'd take one if they were offering. It turned out I had much less time than I realized; afterwards I only did a little bit on it, then a few months later I sent it out to someone else who said he'd do kernel work. Now I can't speak for what happened to this guy; OP were okay with me sending it so it really isn't my responsibility anymore. But I doubt OP really is losing a lot of value by not having a few boards now, especially since most of them were 128MB of RAM and had other bugs.

Similar thing happened with other people who were too busy to work on it (like Svartalf), they sent it back or sent it to someone else.

I think you should take craigix's comment with a grain of salt anyway, because I think way more than 20% did a substantial amount of work, and very few did absolutely nothing (even if I did some NEON routines for zodttd).... as if people were really that desperate to get a raw board and too cheap to buy a Beagleboard instead, if that's what they seriously wanted. Personally I was utterly delighted to rid myself of it - I was really never excited to receive one in the first place, I just hoped I could be of some use."

 

[trix]

Well keep in mind that there are a LOT of dev's out there that ordered a pandora and did not want to have to promise anything to get a dev unit. It's one thing to be willing to help a great community and work hard to bring awesome stuff, quite another to want to promise to do so and receive a free unit, and thus feel obligated (kind of like a job) to work on what other people want you to. Meaning, I bet there are far more devs on the waiting list to get a Pandora that intend to contribute to the community, then there are ones that are currently contributing. Further, I'd bet that once the first batch has shipped, the amount of dev's actively contributing to the community will skyrocket, and even moreso when 2nd batch starts going out.

As for myself I am starting college and studying C++ (even right now before classes start), and once I have the knowledge to do so, I plan on dev'ing for the Pandora almost exclusively, as classes permit. Though, much of my early work will be learning exercises and thus not be worth contributing to the community.

EDIT:

Whoops! Forgot what I wanted to say on topic!
I thought the reviewer did an excellent job covering the ups and downs of the Pandora, though I agree he left out a few very important aspects such as the battery life and how good PSX emulation really is. Also, I think he should have emphasized a bit more how early the software is, and how much improvement is expected to happen. While technical knowledge does help a lot at this stage, things like the PND system and the active work on the OS are being done for the express purpose to eventually have a device that requires to technical knowledge whatsoever to utilize effectively.

But, kudos to you for an intelligent review!

- trix

 

[craigix]

I was out of work and he says he'll pay me if I do work for it (lolz, yeah right)

I didn't see this in the original thread but I'm getting very tired of his constant little slights and the way he can twist situations like this.

We absolutely intended to pay him to do work but as he said, he got a job. So instead we paid someone else to do work and got nothing.

Maybe Exophase would like to expand on his '(lolz, yeah right)' comment? Maybe he is suggesting some kind of dishonesty he would like to bring in to the open? I think we should all be told.