Post picks and first impressions of your shiny new Pandora here!

[SirDregan]

I also almost got arrested for threatening a postal employee (apparently thats real!), because the postman left a notice that I wasn't home, while in fact I was home all day, and had to go to the post office to get my package. While there I was told that I would have to "come back tomorrow" for it but ney, ney!


...

I know exactly what you mean! I HATE that they do that! I'm still not sure if they are just lazy and won't deliver every second package or if they have a certain time scedule and "cheat".


I can tell you what will end this


If you wait for a package, take the time once and stay in front of the house, waiting for the postal employee.


Such a great feeling, when you see him trowing that notice in the slot withouth ringing the bell and telling him: "Errmm... as you can see - I am home!"


I swear - he won't do that again. I'm getting my packages every time now


...somehow I have this disturbing image in my mind of you in your avatar clown mask, yelling "GIVE ME MY PACKAGE!" at the postal guy...

 

[Asmo]

Hey Asmo


did you upgrade, or was this your original order?

Original order!

 

[RobFord]

Cheers for the reply.


I will wait a little longer and then send an email, just to see where I am.


Original order 30th September 2008 21:42 BST

 

[Anihil8ion2199]

Sorry if I'm grave digging, but I felt I should write a small review of the software and didn't think starting another thread was necessary. Being kind of unfamiliar with Linux, I was a bit intimidated in the beginning but quickly got acclimated to the software.


I previously had a Dingoo with Dingux installed, so mini menu looked kind of familiar. XFCE looked a bit like Windows but worked a heck of a lot better than Windows ME, or Vista.


HF4 was good but I quickly went to HF5 RC1 and RC2 and they just felt better for some reason. The software was way better than I expected, and the PND system is very easy to understand.


If you follow ED's PND video you should have no problem setting up an SD card and having it work like I did.


I use a 64GB SD card formatted with Gpartition in FAT32. It works flawlessly except for one minor problem that I was able to work my way around.


For some reason Picklelauncher did not recognize my SNES rom folder on the large card. For kicks I decided to put the roms on a 4GB card and insert it into slot 2.


I started up SNES9x4P and pointed the directory to my 4GB card. It recognized everything. I then pointed it back to the 64GB card and was able to use all of the roms from the bigger card without the use of the 4GB card. Kind of odd, but its been working ever since.


The emulation works great. PSX emulation is way better than it appears on the wiki for the fact that even roms that are classified as playable in-fact work pretty well.


All emulators are pretty well developed but some still need more work. As much as I don't want to single it out Mupen needs quite a bit of help although I'm confident it will be worked on soon enough.


Panplayer has been a god sent! Really loving that video player and that is still early in its development.


Deadbeef is my favorite audio player and also works quite well.


The homebrew games are also very good for whats available, and ports like Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles have really gotten my attention.


Midori is so nice and fast when it works! Unfortunately though it does crash pretty frequently. I currently use Chromium-Dev, because it displays the pages I most frequent best. Firefox is familiar but it takes ages to load ESPN (which is my benchmark site).


Fennec loads the mobile sites by default, so that is also out, which leaves me with Chromium-Dev which provides me with a good balance of features and speed.


The battery life is legendary! I love nice, bright, crisp screens but have discovered that by lowering the brightness you get more battery life (about 14-16 hours legit!) without sacrificing much, because the screen is really great!


I can now look at the screen for longer periods of time with less eye fatigue, and darker games or movies look really good with the darker screen brightness actually.


Not sure I can verbalize this properly but differentiating darker colors is easier with less screen brightness. Watch the movie The Matrix and you'll understand... Thats where I really noticed it.


Just a random thought, also the stock stylus is way more comfortable than a DS stylus. Fits my hand nicely.


I will be back to post pictures and hopefully video (I've never made a video, but no time like the present!), but I really would rather want my girlfriend to take the pictures with her Nikon D90 than me with my mobile phone, because I can't do it justice.


Those should be coming later in the week, for now SirDregan is doing a nice little video series which is worth checking out!


Thanks for reading! Hope everyone loves there Pandora like I love mine!

 

[Prometheus]

My replacement Pandora has arrived, and what a difference from the older units it is! Some quick points of note;


1: There is almost no bezel-bowing - there's so little as to say there is none, in fact.


2: The left shoulder feels a little bit different from the right, but it's a vast improvement over the old kind without the little foam pads in the shoulders. There being a minor, non-usage-impacting difference between how they feel is something I've seen before. The "Y" game-button is a tiny bit squishy, but it works fine, and I know that this will go away as I wear it in, just as it did with the minorly squishy "A" button on the previous unit.


3: The keymat feels wonderful. Different to the previous units - it's a little softer, and responds better. It's completely even across all keys, buttons, and the d-pad. All controls function fantastically.


4: The screen is great, possibly the best one I've seen yet. No ghosting, and no stuck pixels (the previous one had two red ones which showed as red on dark backgrounds only, but they weren't noticable so I was able to ignore them). Looks gorgeous, even without the "TV"-style gamma setting applied yet.


5: It feels much more solid and sturdy than even the previous one, which was also very solid and sturdy. The hinge is stiffer, probably due to the paint, and does not yet spring back when close to its locking point, or spring down when close to being shut. This will take some getting used to purely because it's different to before, but I'm sure that will change with time.


I won't say I'm "lucky" to have seen how much the build-quality has changed since the first lot that were sent out, but it's certainly been an interesting experience! With any luck, this will be the last time. :lol:


EDIT: Whoops! I forgot the most important thing! The new nubs are *TOTALLY* different to the old ones. They have more resistance, they're a tad stiffer, and they don't feel as "soft" when being moved. They respond great, but mine do need calibrating from time to time (some of the cherry-picked old-type nubs didn't need this, such as the ones on my previous unit). Curiously, instead of the up-down-left-right dance several times repeatedly, these particular nubs prefer being moved in a circle a mere once or twice.

 

[iampanis]

Finally got min today. :lol:


Unlike Prometheus, I got a rather loose hinge and some slight bezel bow. But other than that, I've been very impressed. Good keyboard (using it right now), great gaming controls, nub mousing is happily trackpoint-like, awesome screen, and generally good software with a few quirks here and there.


And I had my doubts about XFCE on this kind of form factor, But I actually quite like it. Maybe the novelty just hasn't worn off yet.

 

[Prometheus]

And I had my doubts about XFCE on this kind of form factor, But I actually quite like it. Maybe the novelty just hasn't worn off yet.

It just won't. :lol:


Xfce works really well like this, especially with the nubs for mousing, I think. It's a damn sight more practical than a netbook, for me.

 

[Anihil8ion2199]

I've honestly been hooked on my Pandora, and have been using it far more than my netbook and my iPad combined!


P.S. My girlfriend has been pretty happy with my iPad...

 

[Prosthetic_Mind]

I got my Pandora in today and I've only had a few minutes to mess around with it, but here are the negatives so far-

• The spring in the second SD card slot doesn't seem to work very well, most of the time I have to fish the card out using my fingernails or a knife.
  
• I actually broke my strongest fingernail trying to pry out the stylus, right now I'm using my teeth.
  
• I'd like to be able to turn it off instead of logging in and turning it off when it's finished charging.
  
• I've only really messed around with SNES9x4p, but I seem to be getting a very noticeable ghosting effect.
  
• I can't get my Pandora to fit in its case despite turning the case inside and out about a hundred times.
  

All in all I'm very happy with the device, and when I finally get around to using it more (ton of exams this week) I'll be able to write in more detail.


Edit: Oh yeah and I love the touchscreen and stylus despite it being very difficult to pull out at the moment.

 

[Azure]

I got my Pandora in today and I've only had a few minutes to mess around with it, but here are the negatives so far-

• The spring in the second SD card slot doesn't seem to work very well, most of the time I have to fish the card out using my fingernails or a knife.
  
• I actually broke my strongest fingernail trying to pry out the stylus, right now I'm using my teeth.
  
• I'd like to be able to turn it off instead of logging in and turning it off when it's finished charging.
  
• I've only really messed around with SNES9x4p, but I seem to be getting a very noticeable ghosting effect.
  

All in all I'm very happy with the device, and when I finally get around to using it more (ton of exams this week) I'll be able to write in more detail.


Edit: Oh yeah and I love the touchscreen and stylus despite it being very difficult to pull out at the moment.

Yeah, the stylus is incredibly tight in the beginning but should definitely loosen up as it gets "sanded" down from repeated inserting/removing. I also recommend "drawing" circles with the stylus on some paper (you should see some faint marks appear on the paper) to smooth the tip down if it feels a little coarse on the screen.


I believe not much can be done about ghosting, unfortunately (I notice it too) EDIT: Apparently there's a TV-Mode I need to check out. Thanks Prometheus!

 

[Prometheus]

I actually broke my strongest fingernail trying to pry out the stylus, right now I'm using my teeth.

I hate to say this, but I now know from experience that the current styli are stuck in much more so than the styli on the older units were. :lol: If you figure out a good way of removing it, please let me know - I'd like to put back the extendable DS Lite stylus I usually use.

I'd like to be able to turn it off instead of logging in and turning it off when it's finished charging.

You currently can't, since the hardware needs to be on to charge. This will probably change in the future, once a charging mode the same as almost all rechargeable devices use is implemented. This one's just a "wait and see".

I've only really messed around with SNES9x4p, but I seem to be getting a very noticeable ghosting effect.

Try setting the gamma to the "TV"-style setting. It's in the LCD Settings option in the Settings menu in Xfce.

 

[Anihil8ion2199]

Someone suggested to use a pen to take out the stylus in the beginning and that has worked great for me! After regular use it becomes easy to to eject with your finger.

 

[Prosthetic_Mind]

I'd like to be able to turn it off instead of logging in and turning it off when it's finished charging.

You currently can't, since the hardware needs to be on to charge. This will probably change in the future, once a charging mode the same as almost all rechargeable devices use is implemented. This one's just a "wait and see".

I don't really mind that it turns on when I'm charging it, it's just that when it finishes charging I'd like to turn it off at the login screen instead of logging in just to turn it off. Thanks for that tip about the gamma.

 

[matzesu]

Acording to the original threath title i have twoo pics :


My pandora on the Unimog B)

And another picture

ii dit postet this whit my pandora

 

[WizardStan]

I don't really mind that it turns on when I'm charging it, it's just that when it finishes charging I'd like to turn it off at the login screen instead of logging in just to turn it off.

Chris_C has written a script that does just that. I think it's in the beta forum somewhere. Title should be obvious.


edit: sorry, it was posted to the gp32x forum.

 

[kagato]

I've had mine for a few days, but I haven't really had a lot of time to spend with it yet.


But, this is a first impressions thread, so that's what I'll give.


Hardware:

• It's a thing of beauty. I can't fault the construction on mine, everything fits perfectly and everything works as expected without issue.
• OK, there's one fault after arrival, and that's the left nub grip snapped off shortly after unboxing. I'm not fussed, it's a simpe glue job. I've actually been using it for a few days without it, because I didn't want to do without while it glued. (I'm getting a blister on my thumb from using just the stick, so I think it's time...)
• I seem to have been lucky; my display hinge is nice and firm, and will hold any angle I set it to. I do usually snap it back when playing games, but I find myself setting it on the table to view websites quite a bit, and keeping the display high is good for this.
• The screen is awesome. I'm keeping touchscreen use to a minimum until I get a screen protector on it, but it seems nice and responsive.
• I didn't think it would bother me so much, but I really dislike using the right nub as mouse buttons. It feels a bit like I'm abusing the nub by tapping it sideways all the time, the tactile response is all wrong for the task, and it's not entirely reliable (eg. sometimes there's a bit of 'bounce' and two clicks are sent). Triple-clicking (selecting all the text in a text field) is very difficult to do reliably. I'll be remapping to the L/R or the buttons soon once I get my confidence up. I hear I may need the kernel patch so I can map Fn-dpad for the page nav keys...
• Loving the battery life.
  However, I missed out on one train ride's worth of Pandora time because I took the blind assumption that the PSP charger would just work, and left the bundled one at the office. Plugged it in overnight, but it went flat as soon as I turned it on the next morning! It turns out that for some reason, my PSP charger just won't charge the Pandora. It doesn't seem to be making a proper connection; the charge light only comes on for a second or so, and again if I wiggle the connector a bit. This isn't a problem now that i'm aware of it, but it would have been nice to have both chargers available.

Software:

• Pretty good variety of software available now. I got a fair bit out of the beta section of the forums; the app store doesn't quite seem up to speed yet.
• I've spent most of my time browsing with Chromium and playing Super Mario 64. (hence the thumb blister )
• I was a little surprised how much software hasn't been optimised for the Pandora display, and throws controls off the bottom of the screen. This will obviously improve over time, but a couple of things are currently almost unuseable.
• Disappointed that no consensus about standard button mappings has come out yet. I've seen A, X and B all used as "OK" so far. This can actually cause some trouble -- minimenu is using B as "OK", but if the app launched is using A or X as "OK" and B as "cancel/quit", an accidental double-tap can quit the app before it starts up. That's a topic for its own thread I think, but I'd like to see an agreed-upon community standard for the default function of the buttons.

I'll write more later.


I have a spare non-adhesive laptop screen protector which I'll cut up and try on the Pandora, I might post some pics.


EDIT:


I'm not exactly sure why I was compelled to do this, but compelled I was.