Pandora Review by Gamester81

[thatgui]

however, and it's a big however... from the point of view he is making. Paying what amounts to being a premium dollar amount for what should be (at that price) a finalized polished end user focused device ... as a "homebrew/emulator game console".. it leaves a tad bit to be desired in terms of out of box/hit the ground running for a casual gamer. 

...chalkboard to some. But it would go a long way to shut half these people up. "here, just use this, and go away" It's more limited in it's capabilities, but it's more suited for polish and user friendliness IMHO. I can honestly say I have seen less amount of "how do I get this damn thing to work" type of posts on the android gaming system forums than I do on this one. And the questions I get are just usually stuff that the manufacturer screwed up on. (bundled software/partition naming etc) not the question of "where do my roms go" & "I can't find a romset that works" "my emulator won't load/crashes etc" those are some points this guy made. I've seen those specific topics more than once on here.

Whats following is more of a general rant and not directly addressed to you and it's also something that should not be some sort of strategic guidline for the OP Team (and is probably caused by having not slept very long the last night):Having read through forums/reviews/comments/whatever, I'm loosing the faith in the general populace ability of thinking. Why don't people try to think things through before they buy something ? If only they would care to take one or two hours before buying something they would probably not come up with lengthy texts/videos complaining about something that they could have known beforehand. And especially looking at that immense amount of imbecility that is revealing itself in the comments on googles play store / apples appstores / amazon comments /etc. I'm beginning to wonder if the things you address should not be left as they are so people that are willing to buy a Pandora have at least the ability to tie their shoes thus beeing able to overcome their frustration if something doesn't work on the first try - it is like watching my sons learning how to tie their shoes, except they have someone who tries to encourage them to go on with their efforts instead of just using the ones with velcro fasteners.

This of course doesn't make your points less valid nor should this disencourage you (or anyone else) to address these problems whereever you see fit.

 

[erico]

The tweeterman review is a great waste. I would feel ashamed to put myself on a ridiculous situation like that.

I really can´t care about donkey whatever, what I consider retrogame, are games from msx or coco 2 kind of stuff.

Either way, I can see the good points there.

Should I be a linux guy, that full desktop+battery life would instantly make me feel like researching more about it.

 

[klapse]

take away the negative attitude he had, and that he was sad it wasn't a nexus 7...

And there is nothing left of his review. Every complaint about usability he had was in direct comparison to other devices. He didn't make any attempt to recognize that it wasn't a Nintendo, Sony, or Samsung device with their budget and decades of experience, but still held it to their standards. He made no effort to understand why someone might want it over a keyboardless tablet, for example, he simply did a blanket "not good for anyone". When I pointed out in the comments that he wasn't being fair to expect the first device a tiny company produces to be flawless, that it has many good points which are not reproduced in any other device and is perfect for someone who is looking for those exact features, I got banned.
A good review is balanced, tries to figure out the the target audience, steers the non-target away while encouraging those that might find it useful to look into it. So no, tweeterman did not give a good review, he gave a good rant.

This is right (and Androidman did a poor attempt at backpedaling There is nothing unique to Pandora's MAME - you need to get the correct rom versions for MAME on other platformsm as well.

 

[SNESFAN]

Its not just mame thats stumping these types of people. If the problem with mame was my only point I would agree with you I had a weak argument and its not much easier anywhere else.

Except.... Once you find the right romset you do need to put it in the pandora/appdata/mame/roms folder that is created after mameforall is ran for the first time.

Where the android version of mameforall can go literally anywhere on the sdcard and you don't need to run the app first.... And the dedicated menu button always pulls up the menu.... In every application... On the platform...

But again, that's not the only point that was raised.

 

[Ian J]

For me the placement of roms for the Pandora couldn't be easier, for every emulator I run the emu 1st then stick the roms in the appropriate folder.

Yes on Android the ROMS can go anywhere but you still have to browse in the emulator to find them, if you have a memory card in gives you 2 sources to hunt through.

Obviously you need the correct roms which requires using clrMAME or similar.  But if you have used arcade emulators for any length of time you will probably have used clrMAME before so it shouldn't be too much of a mystery.

People really need to start to RTFM

What I'm trying to say is that I don't find setting up emulators on the Pandora any harder than on any other device, in fact once you have done it once it's easier.

I have to agree though with the controls for each emulator, I recently tried PanMAME for the 1st time in ages to compare it to the newer FBA and I had to read through the docs again to familiarise myself with the menu controls.

I so want the Pandora to succeed and it sucks when the very people that could be pushing it to extra sales are hindering it due to their laziness.

 

[Link]

I so want the Pandora to succeed and it sucks when the very people that could be pushing it to extra sales are hindering it due to their laziness.

+1

I feel like an idiot for even trying to get this guy a unit.  He can talk the talk, but he can't arrange folders.  For Christ's sake, he must have never gamed on a PC before Windows. 

To all the naysayers of getting him the device.  You are right, I was wrong.  I'm sorry for working to bump him through the que considering he couldn't even send me an email asking for help. 

 

[canseco]

He wanted a console and received a portable pc.

You can't blame console guys to poo on PC, they do it all the time,

Maybe podcast like Linux Game Cast and Linux Action Show will make a more complete review.

And don't forget to say that 1Ghz version is not the only one avalaible will help too with price haters.

 

[leathco]

As far as emus having uniform designs, Robert broglia has his .emu series and snes9x ported on Ios and android, all operating and looking the same. Perhaps these could be ported to pandora?

Sent from my HTCEVOV4G using Tapatalk 2

 

[Ian J]

I so want the Pandora to succeed and it sucks when the very people that could be pushing it to extra sales are hindering it due to their laziness.

+1

I feel like an idiot for even trying to get this guy a unit.  He can talk the talk, but he can't arrange folders.  For Christ's sake, he must have never gamed on a PC before Windows. 

To all the naysayers of getting him the device.  You are right, I was wrong.  I'm sorry for working to bump him through the que considering he couldn't even send me an email asking for help. 

No need to apologise Link, we've got to explore every avenue we can to push the Pandora.

Hopefully he will sell the Pandora on-line and someone who can use it will pick up a bargain.

I'd have to listen to the pod-cast again but I'm sure he said he didn't pay any extra for his 1ghz upgrade.

 

[thatgui]

To all the naysayers of getting him the device.  You are right, I was wrong.  I'm sorry for working to bump him through the que considering he couldn't even send me an email asking for help. 

I would not say that, he did an honest review - the Pandora wasn't just right for him

No need to apologise Link, we've got to explore every avenue we can to push the Pandora.

I don't think that is a good idea, we should rather focus on reviewers that fit the Pandoras niche. Churning out Pandoras to every reviewer that that had not climbed in a tree after counting to three will probably give us more reviews like the one from tweeterguy.

 

[Ian J]

To all the naysayers of getting him the device.  You are right, I was wrong.  I'm sorry for working to bump him through the que considering he couldn't even send me an email asking for help. 

I would not say that, he did an honest review - the Pandora wasn't just right for him

>No need to apologise Link, we've got to explore every avenue we can to push the Pandora.

I don't think that is a good idea, we should rather focus on reviewers that fit the Pandoras niche. Churning out Pandoras to every reviewer that that had not climbed in a tree after counting to three will probably give us more reviews like the one from tweeterguy.

Explore, but not necessarily act on.

I think the main issue with Gamester81 was that he had pr-ordered and was giving negative feedback on a podcast.

Until Gamester81 comes back and reports that the issues he had with emulators/roms not running have been fixed I'll not feel that he has given it a fair shot.

After that I think he should put up a 2nd review.

User error is not a reason to bash a product.

The Pandora delivers what it promises, if I bought a car but couldn't drive and said it kept stalling/didn't move should I slate the car?

 

[thatgui]

Explore, but not necessarily act on.

 If you don't want to act, there is no need to "explore" in that particular case. You can see it quite clearly wether a reviewer is suitable or not:

• tweeterguy, looking at some of his reviews (and this superfluous unboxing videos) you can quite clearly see that he is more interested in style than substance -> does not qualify
• nixipixel, doesn't seem to have much indepth knowledge about Linux, Gaming, technology, does only tipps,tricks and comments -> does not qualify

why is there a need for further exploration ?

I think the main issue with Gamester81 was that he had pr-ordered and was giving negative feedback on a podcast.

Until Gamester81 comes back and reports that the issues he had with emulators/roms not running have been fixed I'll not feel that he has given it a fair shot.

After that I think he should put up a 2nd review.

User error is not a reason to bash a product.

The Pandora delivers what it promises, if I bought a car but couldn't drive and said it kept stalling/didn't move should I slate the car?

thats debatable, and depends heavily on the definition what the Pandora promises. Your comparison with a car does not suit very well, as there are some unform rules on how a car is operated. In that case you'd rather say the Pandora would be a car where the steering wheel is stored in the trunk and you have to mount it on the steering column for the first time you want to drive.

 

[vcoleiro1]

The review is up on Gamester81's Youtube channel.  Some interesting comments that can be summed as follows: Way to Expensive.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/yfaPdlqsWjg?feature=oembed

 

[thatgui]

too bad he didn't edit the SNES - Emu part

 

[canseco]

He talks about PNDManager, strong community and Rebirth price.

It´s not the first time i see someone wanting unified shortcuts and maybe minimenu/pandafe lack some info about what keys do, like scroll tabs.

Not that bad after all.

 

[Gamester81]

Feck me, just listened to the latest podcast.

Words fail me.

I said that the "Pandora worked well" and "emulated well". I also speak high praise on it in Episode 130 of AGG (not released yet) and continue to explain how convenient the Pandora is and that I've been playing it a lot.  Furthermore in my re-edited review that I posted to YT, I edited out a lot of the minor things people commented on from the forum before and completely changed the recap.  I personally felt I was positive about the Pandora and honest in my review. I'm still getting my feet wet in the community on here and I do plan on eventually doing a follow up review once I fully understand the system inside and out.  I'm sorry if you weren't pleased with my thoughts on the Pandora...I truly am.

The review is up on Gamester81's Youtube channel.  Some interesting comments that can be summed as follows: Way to Expensive.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/yfaPdlqsWjg?feature=oembed

Thanks for showing the link.  I just want to clarify that in my review I never once said that it was "way too expensive".  

 

[thatgui]

I said that the "Pandora worked well" and "emulated well". I also speak high praise on it in Episode 130 of AGG (not released yet) and continue to explain how convenient the Pandora is and that I've been playing it a lot.  Furthermore in my re-edited review that I posted to YT, I edited out a lot of the minor things people commented on from the forum before and completely changed the recap.  I personally felt I was positive about the Pandora and honest in my review. I'm still getting my feet wet in the community on here and I do plan on eventually doing a follow up review once I fully understand the system inside and out.  I'm sorry if you weren't pleased with my thoughts on the Pandora...I truly am.

I think you did a good job (did not listen to the podcast though), but why didn't you edited out the snes part ?SNES is really good now (and I saw that you had Snes9x4P on your Pandora).

 

[vcoleiro1]

Thanks for showing the link.  I just want to clarify that in my review I never once said that it was "way too expensive".  

Yeah I know you never say that it's too expensive. I was referring to the comments people made to the Youtube video.  Every second one was way to expensive, I mentioned it, as the cost of the Pandora has been a hot discussion point on this forum recently.

 

[Gamester81]

I said that the "Pandora worked well" and "emulated well". I also speak high praise on it in Episode 130 of AGG (not released yet) and continue to explain how convenient the Pandora is and that I've been playing it a lot.  Furthermore in my re-edited review that I posted to YT, I edited out a lot of the minor things people commented on from the forum before and completely changed the recap.  I personally felt I was positive about the Pandora and honest in my review. I'm still getting my feet wet in the community on here and I do plan on eventually doing a follow up review once I fully understand the system inside and out.  I'm sorry if you weren't pleased with my thoughts on the Pandora...I truly am.

I think you did a good job (did not listen to the podcast though), but why didn't you edited out the snes part ?
SNES is really good now (and I saw that you had Snes9x4P on your Pandora).

Yeah I had thought about editing it out. I had downloaded the most up to date that I'm aware of SNES emulator at repo.openpandora.org and I still couldn't get the SNES emulator to work.  I know people would ask me about the SNES.  When I do a follow up review over the Pandora I will certainly make sure the SNES emulator is functional.

 

[mcobit]

You got this one:

http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=snes9x4p_ivanovic


?


Then just open it and it should present you with a list. Navigate to your romfiles on the sdcard (the sdcards can be found in /media/YOURSDCARDNAME. Select the .. Until you cannot go up any further and then you should see the media folder.)


Then just lqunch the rom you want.


Hope I could help.