Pandora Review in Linux Format.

[diligentcircle]

I don't get the mentality that the overall score needs to be an average of all the sub-scores. It's not like the categories rated on are necessarily going to be perfect categories for the thing being reviewed, and more importantly, all of the categories don't have an equal bearing the overall goodness of something. In other words, picking the overall score by averaging everything else out does not necessarily reflect what the reviewer felt about the item in question. Having the reviewer pick this number arbitrarily does.

 

[iprice]

I don't think they use an average score of the totals - more like what they think of the overall unit based on it's price.


Eg They would probably rate a Ferrari F40 at 2 (or less) for value. It's performance may be 10 and it's graphics go all the way upto 11, but the monetary cost of the experience is too high. When you consider that there are alternatives to the Pandora (eg a netbook and a controller or other handheld) for less than £200 you can kind of see where they are coming from - OK, I know they're not the same, but you know what I mean.


It's a nice article though and helps to spread the word about the Pandora

 

[dreamer]

Hmm, it says up to 64Gb, but there is support for first gen sdxc cards up to 128Gb right? so that should be 'up to 256Gb'.


Overall a nice review though

 

[mcobit]

Sdxc cards were never in the specifications for the Pandora.


It is a bonus, that some of them work.

 

[dreamer]

Specification shmecifitation. It's possible.

 

[Prometheus]

Specification shmecifitation. It's possible.

Possible it may be, but it's outright misleading if you word it in the way that your previous post did.


You would have to specify very clearly that "Up to 256GB" only applies to some current and very particular SD Cards with the older pin layout and power usage, and that these will probably disappear from the market in favour of the newer kind anyway (the cards that happen to work are basically just SDHC in all but name - the true SDXC Cards will soon replace these, I have little doubt). At that point, it's easier just to be honest about what it's actually specified to be able to do, and consider anything else a bonus, the same as with the CPU's clock-speed.

 

[notaz]

You would have to specify very clearly that "Up to 256GB" only applies to some current and very particular SD Cards with the older pin layout and power usage, and that these will probably disappear from the market in favour of the newer kind anyway

It's not the first time I'm seeing some supposed "pin layout differences" being brought up, but I'm unable to find any details, isn't it exactly the same as the old non-SDHC one? All I'm seeing is support for higher clock rates in SDXC, but that doesn't mean they wont support slower speeds, especially having in mind that they must support slow speeds for card detection to work (the very first commands are sent in slowest possible speed to be able to talk to oldest devices, this is part of the protocol). So it totally makes no sense for card vendors to make a SDXC card that can't talk in SDHC speeds. The real difference I see here is the protocol and clock rates, and as the protocol is fully controlled by the driver on pandora, plus cards must support slow clocks for detection, I see no reason for any SDXC cards not to work on pandora.

 

[Prometheus]

^ My understanding of it (I'm no expert, I stress) is that the current SDXC Cards are "SDXC in name only", but are really just SDHC Cards, but that the "true" SDXC Cards (not available just yet, as far as I know) may not be usable in SDHC-compatible devices.


I'd love to be wrong about this, of course!


Either way, I'm pretty sure my point still stands - it would be irresponsible to promote the Pandora as capable of supporting cards up to 256GB, when all it can definitely do is 32GB per slot, and when SDXC Cards may not all work. It's the same reason it's not promoted as "Up to 1GHz", surely?

 

[notaz]

Still would be interesting to know where you got that understanding of yours from.

 

[Prometheus]

^ Mostly from explanations around here, from folks who know more than I do. (I only keep up with the issues of fraudulent cards, primarily, though - I'm not a tech-inclined sort, and just stick to what I need, which is Class 4 cards that work stably. )