Pandora Pricing - What Price Would You Pay?

[Kramy]

I hope by the time I decide I want to buy one, the price will have dropped a little bit, because I was willing to pay $300 for one, and even that price I was unhappy with. Not everyone is going to be able to drop $300 on the Pandora.

Sony made a mistake when they made the Sony PSP, because they made it over powered, over priced and the battery life sucked on it. And a lot of people admitted they would have been happy with a system as powerful as a PS1, that the PSP didn't have to be as powerful as it was when it came out.

I'd be willing to pay $400 - but don't cheap out on the parts. :lol:

I guess since it has features rivalling the OQO($2000), Lifebook(~$1500), and UMPC(~$800), yet also has superior battery life and more processing power...and the ability to play games...it kinda looked like a good deal to me.

But I will have to decide whether I fork out the cash for an EEE or a Pandora. Still haven't decided.

To me, $140 would be acceptable for a GP2X...if it had a USB port. But I'm looking at the Pandora and thinking "New touchscreen GPS! :lol: "

 

[Prophet]

Is this thread kind of a preparation for an official statement "ups, it's gona cost more"?

Definitely not - I have no affiliation with anyone on the Pandora team, other than my being in the emulation/homebrew/gadget "scene" a long time.

I don't *want* higher prices mind you, but would like to see Pandora succeed in the long run, and profitability to some reasonable degree matters on that end. If they can release it for around $300, and still do alright, then I'm all for the lower price point.

 

[nubie]

PSP is not competition, people mistakenly assume because it sort of has a screen (my unit had a frigging blurry mess that Sony calls a screen, as does every unit I have ever tried) and it can sometimes run "other" software that it is similar.

IT ISN'T. No support for USB host, no SD cards, frigging heavy (I haven't tried a lite, but it doesn't fix anything but the weight, possibly the screen, and is even more expensive), controls suck big time. (and I love PSX pads, I play my GameCube, PC, and Xbox games with my PSX pad)

This will absolutely connect to any USB device (HID/Mass storage should work out of the box), and has two usable analogs.

I can see $350 US, but only if the build quality and support is there. I need a web browser and proper media player, bare absolute minimum.

 

[Prophet]

nubie,

I agree with you that Pandora is actually very different, and in many respects, far superior, to the PSP. However to some people, who might ONLY be looking at the Pandora as an emulation box, the much cheaper PSP could look like the better value.

 

[lubidog]

I want one at whatever cost it costs! Within the reasons obviously. If Craig isn't gonna turn a real profit it won't happen!

And the eee pc shouldn't be competition. I'm writing this on mine and it is a real pc. The Pandora is a gaming multimedia device! For my pocket.

 

[Game_over]

Wow, this turned into a great discussion.

*Goes into Political Mode

The economy sure isn't what it used to be. I still remember buying Phantasy Star for $90 at Babbage's, and I'm only 22. But seriously I'm still at that point in my life that I can just say "Hey I can set aside a paycheck cycle to afford the Pandora, I already have SD cards". The U.S. is in an economical slump that is still going on and won't change until Bush (Jan, 2009) leaves (sounds kinda like an uneducated guess but I've seen a number of trends that brings me to that conclusion). There are 50 year old people moving back into their parent's home (I am not kidding) layoffs and divorce is the norm here; all of which make you re-evaluate your spending.

*Exits Political Mode

But yeah for what the Pandora is, it's an affordable handheld. Like Craigix said, this is packed with all next-gen stuff, I'm excited by what's to come but I'm not buying one till Aug/Sept.

-Launches have launch windows that last between 1-6 months after the release just becuase not allot of people buy one on day one doesn't make it a failure (just saying that for future reference).

And Craigix's store is known for packing in stuff to go with the system to make it even more of a steal. It most likely won't come with a CD of stuff, but it's not going to suck.

 

[Prophet]

Game Over,

*off topic*

I'm 41 and I have to agree our economy is probably headed for dire straits. It has me quite bummed lately. I'm in the process of learning a new profession in fact. Oil prices, food prices going thru the roof, jobs leaving and wages dropping, our currency devaluing more every day, the scandalous mortgage situation and constantly rising rents... It's scary stuff. And I don't think an administration change will solve it. It goes well beyond politics unfortunately. You live long enough, you start looking at politicians as the gang of opportunists 99.9% of them really are, no matter what side of the spectrum they come from. I don't know how it's going to end, but I think things are gonna get worse before they get better. Personally, I don't do credit (I'm pretty weird like that) and I have zero debt, and I intend to stay that way. Too many people live their lives in a financial house of cards in the USA, and I hope it doesn't fall down on them.

 

[squeakypants]

I want one at whatever cost it costs! Within the reasons obviously. If Craig isn't gonna turn a real profit it won't happen!

And the eee pc shouldn't be competition. I'm writing this on mine and it is a real pc. The Pandora is a gaming multimedia device! For my pocket.

Well, I think it should be. Both are "portable PCs", but the Pandora is much more portable. Also, the Pandora is reasonably good deal, while the eee PC seems extremely weak for $350.

 

[Chip]

I want one at whatever cost it costs! Within the reasons obviously. If Craig isn't gonna turn a real profit it won't happen!

And the eee pc shouldn't be competition. I'm writing this on mine and it is a real pc. The Pandora is a gaming multimedia device! For my pocket.

Well, I think it should be. Both are "portable PCs", but the Pandora is much more portable. Also, the Pandora is reasonably good deal, while the eee PC seems extremely weak for $350.


The TRS-80 model 100 and the Falcon Northwest Fragbook DRX are both "portable PCs". Do they compete with each other?

OK, that comparison may be a little bit unfair. But the fact is that the capabilities and specifications of the eeePC and Pandora are vastly different. About the only things they have in common is that they both cost $300-$400 and they both run Linux.

 

[trooper]

I want one at whatever cost it costs! Within the reasons obviously. If Craig isn't gonna turn a real profit it won't happen!

And the eee pc shouldn't be competition. I'm writing this on mine and it is a real pc. The Pandora is a gaming multimedia device! For my pocket.

Well, I think it should be. Both are "portable PCs", but the Pandora is much more portable. Also, the Pandora is reasonably good deal, while the eee PC seems extremely weak for $350.


The TRS-80 model 100 and the Falcon Northwest Fragbook DRX are both "portable PCs". Do they compete with each other?

OK, that comparison may be a little bit unfair. But the fact is that the capabilities and specifications of the eeePC and Pandora are vastly different. About the only things they have in common is that they both cost $300-$400 and they both run Linux.


And both have a 800x480 res screen.

Trooper

 

[Game_over]

Game Over,

*off topic*

I'm 41 and I have to agree our economy is probably headed for dire straits. It has me quite bummed lately. I'm in the process of learning a new profession in fact. Oil prices, food prices going thru the roof, jobs leaving and wages dropping, our currency devaluing more every day, the scandalous mortgage situation and constantly rising rents... It's scary stuff. And I don't think an administration change will solve it. It goes well beyond politics unfortunately. You live long enough, you start looking at politicians as the gang of opportunists 99.9% of them really are, no matter what side of the spectrum they come from. I don't know how it's going to end, but I think things are gonna get worse before they get better. Personally, I don't do credit (I'm pretty weird like that) and I have zero debt, and I intend to stay that way. Too many people live their lives in a financial house of cards in the USA, and I hope it doesn't fall down on them.

*shortly off topic*

You have a point, it's not just the administration change that I think will cause at least some sort of a shift. I couldn't agree with you more that it's likely to get worse before it gets better. Time will tell, it always does.

*Back on topic*

@ Nubie

The PSP slim has a better screen even though it's the same model screen as the old one. It's crazy how light it is, it feels like a glossy plastic toy. But yeah it's still a hassle to get the stuff going on the PSP. At least with the Pandora you are giving someone a canvas to create gameplay only found in this control set. I'm excited about all the devs being on a somewhat even playing field again and see how we are going to tackle this new platform. It only happens once every 4-7 years.

 

[JakeK]

I think that 50 bucks more than my expectation ($350) will be fine with me.

Of course in Australian

 

[skeezix]

I want a pandora.. _bad_.

The gaming side is one thing.. but to me its going to be a portable linux machine, a gaming machine with a keyboard (text adventures, dosbox), a machine with a touchscreen (pda, gaming), a network tablet (ssh/telnet client, possible web in a pinch), and so on.

ie: Consider it the same market as gp2x (not PSP, no commercial hardly) blended with the Asus EEE ... ie: I've got a lot of gadgets (he who dies with the most wins!), but I'm a minimalist. I rather hope this will be a good non-phone gadget -- mp3, video, gaming/emulation any time since its in the pocket, but also cool keyboardy things. A fast cpu wil be nice. Could even code on the thing, to some extent (does it have { and }, I forget .. )

*bad I wants it*

jeff

 

[DaveC]

Game Over,

*off topic*

I'm 41 and I have to agree our economy is probably headed for dire straits. It has me quite bummed lately. I'm in the process of learning a new profession in fact. Oil prices, food prices going thru the roof, jobs leaving and wages dropping, our currency devaluing more every day, the scandalous mortgage situation and constantly rising rents... It's scary stuff. And I don't think an administration change will solve it. It goes well beyond politics unfortunately. You live long enough, you start looking at politicians as the gang of opportunists 99.9% of them really are, no matter what side of the spectrum they come from. I don't know how it's going to end, but I think things are gonna get worse before they get better. Personally, I don't do credit (I'm pretty weird like that) and I have zero debt, and I intend to stay that way. Too many people live their lives in a financial house of cards in the USA, and I hope it doesn't fall down on them.

Well we got here due to some pretty reckless policies of the government. A continuing occupation of Iraq that costs billions a week and gives billions to no-bid contractors such as Haliburton, trade policies that are loose so much so that the jobs flowing out of the country are not discouraged, giving billions to oil companies that make record profits, giving tax cuts to millionaires, all the while borrowing from China to pay for all of this will end up in a disaster. The US currency is worthless as there is little to back it up. We are now the biggest debtor nation there is. If there is an administration that will not continue these practices and actually begin to reverse them things may improve after time. In the beginning it will just help things to not get much worse. The thing that is a fact is that the current administration has caused these problems. We need one that will not continue these policies.

I still keep hearing the eePC being mentioned as competition for the Pandora. I can't figure out why as there are *no gaming controls* on it. The eePC is a laptop, not a gaming device. To me there is no comparison between them.

Also the PSP was mentioned as a competing platform for emus and HB. The PSP has a horrible ghosty display. The screen resolution also is crap for running emulators. The 480 x 272 resolution is terrible as you have to scale everything up by a weird number to get a good size. So now you have the ghosting plus the blurry scaling on top of it. It is also too low to run the many PC VGA games that ran at 640X480.

I think the Pandora has huge advantages over the eePC and PSP for emus, HB, PC ports, and more.

 

[JakeK]

The gaming side is one thing.. but to me its going to be a portable linux machine, a gaming machine with a keyboard (text adventures, dosbox), a machine with a touchscreen (pda, gaming), a network tablet (ssh/telnet client, possible web in a pinch), and so on.

Ahhh the thought of playing text adventures (Police Quest) gets me really excited about the Pandora. Being in the Army (hopefully) with this will be great.

 

[Prophet]

I've got a lot of gadgets (he who dies with the most wins!)jeff

Literally LOL!

 

[kuehnau]

People saying they will pay any price for the Pandora, that is absolutely ridiculous. So it is small, big flipping deal. For $500 you can pick up a laptop that can do everything a Pandora does, plus choose whatever kind of OS you want to load up on it.

And you would still have the choice to upgrade or change the way the hardware works, I'd rather have those options myself. At best, it (The Pandora) is a portable hand held computer, at worse it is a expensive game device.

Since it has already become clear that the price won't drop (any time soon), you can bet that I won't be picking one up for a long while yet. It took me almost 3 years to pick up a GP2X, I can wait awhile for the Pandora. And by that time, I'll be willing to bet I can just pick up a laptop, almost the same size, with 50X the power at the same price.

You are right, I am not a average community member, I will never be a developer and I am just looking at the Pandora as a gaming alternative. But I know damn well I am not the <b>only</b> person here like that. The price isn't going to appeal to everyone and I am sure there will be plenty of people who wait for some sort of price drop.

 

[JakeK]

You talk about choice yet you won't let us choose what we think and want. The only other piece of hardware that is anything like the Pandora is the eeePC, but with no gaming controls.

So what if you can get a laptop with 50x more power, a laptop is 10x bigger than the Pandora. You can't simply carry a laptop arround like the Pandora or GP2x.

Even the Macbook Air isn't as small as the Pandora.

Who cares if it took you three years to get a GP2x, it has no relevance in your argument. It took me one month from finding it till getting it.

You must have no idea how small the Pandora is, there is just no point in comparing it too a laptop because it is rediculous to do so.

 

[lubidog]

I want one at whatever cost it costs! Within the reasons obviously. If Craig isn't gonna turn a real profit it won't happen!

And the eee pc shouldn't be competition. I'm writing this on mine and it is a real pc. The Pandora is a gaming multimedia device! For my pocket.

Well, I think it should be. Both are "portable PCs", but the Pandora is much more portable. Also, the Pandora is reasonably good deal, while the eee PC seems extremely weak for $350.



If you saw my eee running super fast XP you would never call it weak'! It is an amazing machine at an even
more amazing price!!!!!!!

Back on topic....

 

[b._.o._.b]

Totally agree with JakeK. As an eeepc user I can tell this is a great tiny laptop, but it really isn't suited for gaming. Of course you will be able to fire up some emulators and attach a usb control pad, but that is not very comfortable. It is also too big to replace my mp3 player.
On the other hand I don't expect the Pandora being as suited for word processing and surfing the web