Pre-order Dates

[CronoTriggerfan]

AireTamStorm, instead of quoting your entire mass of a post, I'll just respond here. For me, at least, I understand the delays completely. Coming from someone who portablizes consoles, designs PCBs, and does some limited programming, I know of the kinds of glitches that one can run into, and I know how much the slightest shipping error can hinder or delay a project, and in that respect, I have the greatest of sympathies for the devs.

I also know, however, how easy it is to update a blog or forum post letting people know what kind of progress has been made, delays that have ensued, and a timetable for release; it is here that I have slight frustrations with Pandora. Even if the progress is few to nil in a given week, let us know. Mindless rambling is much more comforting than dead silence in any instance, IMO.

As I said in the original thread where MWeston made his post, I'm perfectly fine with the wait so long as it's one where I'm kept informed and I have a vague idea just how long I'm waiting. I don't know about you, but it's just a little disheartening to be thinking for the past couple months that this thing was to come out in mid-September and only now find that mid-November would be a better estimate. Again, it's not the delay that bugs me, it's not knowing that there was a delay, and all the while knowing that we could have been told this should a blog post be made that takes all of three minutes to crank out.

That being said, Craig, MWeston, and the rest of you, my criticisms aside (take them as you will), I think you've done a fantastic job up to this point and I hope that when Pandora is released, it'll be completely up to par with your expectations and mine!

 

[Game_over]

I guess the root to some people complaining, and the anxiousness of them is the suggestion/input to update/news ratio has been pretty low. I've went back and looked at allot of the old posts and topics, and noticed that there are allot of variables that we only touched on and have not gone into detail in terms of true conversation of them. All of which is causing us to talk about the same 5 or so topics over, and over again.

 

[AireTamStorm]

Editremoved)
I wholeheartedly agree that the attacks on criticism need to be toned down. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Sometimes the poster genuinely deserved it, *winks at Chad* and sometimes they actually brought a valid point to the table, and didn't deserve it *winks at Chad again*.

I also know, however, how easy it is to update a blog or forum post letting people know what kind of progress has been made, delays that have ensued, and a timetable for release; it is here that I have slight frustrations with Pandora. Even if the progress is few to nil in a given week, let us know. Mindless rambling is much more comforting than dead silence in any instance, IMO.
I can understand wanting more news / announcements, but I doubt they're just sitting around with actual stuff to talk about waiting. Most of the time is probably waiting without news (shipping, delays, etc). I can agree that a blog is easy to update. I can't agree that the content is always available.

As I said in the original thread where MWeston made his post, I'm perfectly fine with the wait so long as it's one where I'm kept informed and I have a vague idea just how long I'm waiting. I don't know about you, but it's just a little disheartening to be thinking for the past couple months that this thing was to come out in mid-September and only now find that mid-November would be a better estimate. Again, it's not the delay that bugs me, it's not knowing that there was a delay, and all the while knowing that we could have been told this should a blog post be made that takes all of three minutes to crank out.
Again, until you've gotten up from your project and looked at your surroundings, I doubt they actually "knew" there was going to be a delay. Same thing here, a more frequent blog update would be nice, but there isn't always something to report.

 

[CronoTriggerfan]

Like I said before, there doesn't even need to be anything major to report. The slightest bit of information or even lack thereof on a weekly basis would be far more comforting than a major update once every month or two, a void in between waiting tirelessly for a new one, and then, when you least expect it, seeing a new photo or post on the blog.

 

[Kayday]

I don't really see what there is to complain about since none of us has put down any money for the Pandora. Maybe when we do pay for it when the preorder date arrives and it gets delayed again do we have the right to complain. I think a lot of us are more understanding towards the Pandora team after dealing with the GP2X fiasco so it's nice to know that the Pandora team is trying to avoid that.

But as of right now, I'm glad a date is posted and I'm excited to put down my money for one.

 

[impreziv]

after reading MWeston's post on that thread, i went out with my Pandora-savings fund, and bought the Sub-notebook ive had my eye on. i probably wont be buying a Pandora via pre-order anymore. if i buy one, it will probably be next year (if im still interested)

i understand whats behind the delays. its just that this things been delayed 4 months, since ive been on this forum, following the Pandora.

i was 100% decided on buying it months ago. but my situation has now changed from definitely, to if i have the cash whenever it comes out.

 

[CyruzDraxs]

Maybe I'll get it just in time to call it a birthday present! (Nov. 25)

 

[TheGrandPubaa]

I should be getting some extra money around the end of September, so this would be just about perfect for me(still an agonizing wait, though...).

 

[donny hopkins]

I'm just glad it actually has a date now so I don't keep worrying I'm going to dip into the money I've saved the day before the pre-orders get announced!

Don't care that it's still a few months off. I've waited this long, I can wait a little longer. Plus the 13th is the week of my 30th Birthday, so it'll be a little present to myself.

Forum/newsletter pre-order on the 15th also sounds superb.

 

[_VWV_]

Yeah, that's natural. If P's rival is out sooner than Panda for about the same price, I'll buy that competitor. I haven't promised anything for the dev team. I just want to buy a small handheld with Linux, powerful enough to run almost any app out there. I don't care about delays because I don't see an alternative on the market. But if a snapdragon based device or nokia n900 appear and cost the same money, then I'll buy one. The thing is that Nokias new handhelds cost about 550 at launch that's 150$ more. That's why I'm still here. Plain math, no passion.

 

[pariah]

I'm ready to pre-order the second it's ready. I've had the money saved up for months!

Whoo-hoo!!

p B)

 

[WizardStan]

[rant]
Sorry about the little rant.
Some of my best quotes come from rants. No problem.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not giving the Pandora team an excuse to be late to work or anything here. Some of these delays have been caused by unforeseeable events, though. I'm trying to show some understanding for that.

Mr Yoshida goes to work by walking a mile to the subway, changing rails twice and then walking another mile to his office. He's running a little late, so he calls it in.
<snip>

Aye, if Mr. Yoshida is late because of circumstances out of his control, then his employers should be quite understanding. And I imagine that's what happened with the first Pandora delay: massive understanding about a massive project not falling quite in to place as it was hoped.
But if Mr. Yoshida's train is delayed (small delay, not the exaggeration you suggested ) and he's late again the next day, and the day after, and the day after, at some point in time his employers are going to start getting upset. Maybe Mr. Yoshida should step back and re-evaluate his transit to the office if there are that many problems. Take an earlier train perhaps? Convince his bosses to make his start/end times an hour later? Lots of different things he could do. Point being, and the point I think that Azure was getting at, is that he has to eventually take some accountability if he knows delays are going to happen.
Ie, instead of being optimistic and saying they hope to have it out Spring '08, they could have recognized delays would possibly happen and said Summer '08. And any future delays that come up, take the estimate to fix it, and double that. If no delays happen and it's out earlier, even better. Be pessimistic and you'll never be disappointed.

 

[TaG]

[rant]Sorry about the little rant.
Some of my best quotes come from rants. No problem.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not giving the Pandora team an excuse to be late to work or anything here. Some of these delays have been caused by unforeseeable events, though. I'm trying to show some understanding for that.

Mr Yoshida goes to work by walking a mile to the subway, changing rails twice and then walking another mile to his office. He's running a little late, so he calls it in.
<snip>Aye, if Mr. Yoshida is late because of circumstances out of his control, then his employers should be quite understanding. And I imagine that's what happened with the first Pandora delay: massive understanding about a massive project not falling quite in to place as it was hoped.
But if Mr. Yoshida's train is delayed (small delay, not the exaggeration you suggested ) and he's late again the next day, and the day after, and the day after, at some point in time his employers are going to start getting upset. Maybe Mr. Yoshida should step back and re-evaluate his transit to the office if there are that many problems. Take an earlier train perhaps? Convince his bosses to make his start/end times an hour later? Lots of different things he could do. Point being, and the point I think that Azure was getting at, is that he has to eventually take some accountability if he knows delays are going to happen.
Ie, instead of being optimistic and saying they hope to have it out Spring '08, they could have recognized delays would possibly happen and said Summer '08. And any future delays that come up, take the estimate to fix it, and double that. If no delays happen and it's out earlier, even better. Be pessimistic and you'll never be disappointed.
A number of good points on both sides of the fence. Don't forget that if this were a 'major' project by one of the 'big boys' you probably wouldn't get to hear about it until it was almost certain to be delivered, therefore it would not be delayed.

The biggest factor with any release is how it will affect the market / sales. The 'UMPC people' could possibly go and buy one of many devices that will be available between now and November at or around that price point. Those wanting a pocketable device or an open gaming device are more likely to stick around because there are not the number of alternatives.

My guess is that the devs don't always know whether it is best to say something or not, to wait until they have more info etc. No matter what they say one group or another on this forum will disagree.

The main thing is that MWeston has took the time and effort to tell us the position and give us his best estimate for a date.

And WizardStan you are soooo wrong. Mr Yoshida should not change his transit methods. He should think about moving to a safer area or even another town.

 

[DJWillis]

A number of good points on both sides of the fence. Don't forget that if this were a 'major' project by one of the 'big boys' you probably wouldn't get to hear about it until it was almost certain to be delivered, therefore it would not be delayed.

Very good point, in order to stand a chance of selling any units there is a need to generate some 'buzz' earlier then the big boys I guess, when things go wrong as they always do its a devil of a balancing job trying to keep things up together. To say its walking a tightrope would be a huge understatement I think . Remember that I don't think any of us have done this before .

The biggest factor with any release is how it will affect the market / sales. The 'UMPC people' could possibly go and buy one of many devices that will be available between now and November at or around that price point. Those wanting a pocketable device or an open gaming device are more likely to stick around because there are not the number of alternatives.

There is a big glut of x86 UMPC's, I don't quite see what the fixation with linking them to the Pandora is. If you want an x86 based UMPC then the Pandora is not really what you after surely? Hell, I have some UMPC's, loads of ARM devices and all manner of kit. I would not say the EEE clones and the Pandora are in the same space.

My guess is that the devs don't always know whether it is best to say something or not, to wait until they have more info etc. No matter what they say one group or another on this forum will disagree.

That sums up the reason I tend to shy off posting. In my case, if people want to follow the kernel work I am more then happy to take the time out and talk but if I post here then it can often get out of hand and there is this expectation that questions can be answered in great detail and if they are not then it is taken as a personal slight. Trust me, there is nothing I like more then trying to be open and informative but I guess its about an appropriate audience. I keep most stuff open (as much as I can) but just don't tend to shout about it.

In the case of kernel work, I don't think most gamers here would care about the neatest way to implement the 2nd MMC/SD driver or the best way to code something so it has a chance of being accepted into the mainline Linux kernel etc.. All dull stuff for the normal gamer who wants to know if "whatever" will run at full speed etc. etc. . There is an audience for that but they tend to be the people happy to ask specific questions on IRC or follow commit logs, mailing lists and the like.

 

[fusion_power]

We lost an entire two months with slow assembly and broken boards.

I don't understand a few things... (sorry for my bad english)
The 2 months delay was mainly because of the Analog-Pad problem I guess. That's not the Pandora teams fault but afaik the Company that made these parts was choosen a long time before the delay began. And if these Company knows about the Pandora and their A-Pads, why didn't they sayed anything about the problems all the time before? Why did they wait 5 minutes before the things get serious? They told in the last minute or so, that they can't build the A-Pads like they wanted. Was there no contract thing that make sure, such informations are given early enough to search for alternatives?

Same for other parts. The PCB and many Hardware components of the Pandora were nearly final and known since a half year or so (PCB designed Februar). Wasn't it possible to order or pre-order all the needed parts early enough, that they are all available ...let's say.... August or so? Yes, the Wifi Module was choosen later but this should not interrupt the other parts of the PCB, right?
I know there is no money to buy all parts months before they get assembled. But I'm sure there is a way to make a contract for preordering the Parts and make sure, they arrive in time. So the companies that make all the Pandora components HAVE to stay in time by a contract. For such a contract or agreement you don't need to be a big company or so, so I still have trouble to understand, what causes all these Delays?

The Case for the Pandora is made at last, thats logical. I'm sure this wouldn't take much time if the molds are ready. I hope the Pandora will be out before chinese Pirate Copy Companies do their illegal Pandora-Clone Devices. Somehow they can do this very very quickly. ^^"""""""

I don't want to complain. But I'm sure, the whole Pandora story would be less stressful, if the devs sayed from the Beginning, that the Pandora will come out around November 2008. All these small delays because of to optimistic release dates are more stressful than a clear time period set further in the future. So you could impress if the Pandora would be finished earlier ( the "Scotty can do miracles" way):
-"Captain, the Warp Drive is broken, I need 3 weeks to fix it!"
-"You have 3 hours!"
-"OK, Captain, I'll do it in 2 hours!"

 

[Gilrad]

Ie, instead of being optimistic and saying they hope to have it out Spring '08, they could have recognized delays would possibly happen and said Summer '08. And any future delays that come up, take the estimate to fix it, and double that. If no delays happen and it's out earlier, even better. Be pessimistic and you'll never be disappointed.

Maybe that's what they're doing now. Assuming the completed pandora prototype has no problems that would affect the PCB spinning process or case moulding, I imagine a one month delay would be sufficient to get them out if they really rushed and crunched hard. Its better to make sure everything works just fine without the rush, IMO. It helps ensure mistakes aren't made in the mad rush that will be the final crunch, and spares us another delay announcement should the small issues pile into another month's delay.


As far as the kernel is concerned, who's to say nobody's interested in that stuff? Sure if you present it in LinuxCodeese, it might not be well accepted, but I would gladly accept a video of the kernel booting up and running a few basic functions, even if it's not on an actual Pandora. Keep in mind, aside from individual software endeavors, we have nothing as far as the OS and related subjects are concerned. Even the smallest bone, no matter how little it meat it appears to have, will be enough for most people to get excited over, I think.

 

[nubie]

I don't want to complain. But I'm sure, the whole Pandora story would be less stressful, if the devs sayed from the Beginning, that the Pandora will come out around November 2008. All these small delays because of to optimistic release dates are more stressful than a clear time period set further in the future. So you could impress if the Pandora would be finished earlier ( the "Scotty can do miracles" way):
-"Captain, the Warp Drive is broken, I need 3 weeks to fix it!"
-"You have 3 hours!"
-"OK, Captain, I'll do it in 2 hours!"

Interesting, so if they had overshot their original estimate by a year, and then what? Get it done sooner and just released it?

I think they need the publicity, it wouldn't do to be sitting on very expensive stock that won't sell.

If it bothers you so much, just put it to the back of your mind and stay away from the boards, then be pleasantly surprised in a year when you come back, or you can wait for the emails to come. Go take a hike, etc.

 

[CronoTriggerfan]

I love how half the people here suddenly become well-informed economists the second anyone mentions the release of Pandora. :lol:

Anyways, I would advocate a "don't rush it" policy, which is the one that's in place now, so long as I'm allowed to preorder on the 15th of September and Pandora comes out before December of this year, that is!

 

[Jaxartes]

Same for other parts. The PCB and many Hardware components of the Pandora were nearly final and known since a half year or so (PCB designed Februar). Wasn't it possible to order or pre-order all the needed parts early enough, that they are all available ...let's say.... August or so? Yes, the Wifi Module was choosen later but this should not interrupt the other parts of the PCB, right?

"Designed" is not the same as "designed, and tested, and all the details finalized, so we know we're never going to make the slightest change, and thus we can confidently order the mass production of thousands of the things." If you find there's something you want to change after you reach that point, you have to redo a lot of it. Which can be expensive, and can take extra time.

"Almost done" can be a dangerous state for a project. A lot of unforeseen problems can come up and set you back. Once you've done a lot of the testing or any of the production, if you find a problem and fix it then you've got to re-do a bunch of stuff.

I would expect that something like the wi-fi module might well require changes to the PCB. Small changes, but that's enough you need to make them before producing that PCB. And even a tiny change needs you to do some testing.

QUOTE

I don't want to complain. But I'm sure, the whole Pandora story would be less stressful, if the devs sayed from the Beginning, that the Pandora will come out around November 2008. All these small delays because of to optimistic release dates are more stressful than a clear time period set further in the future. So you could impress if the Pandora would be finished earlier ( the "Scotty can do miracles" way):
-"Captain, the Warp Drive is broken, I need 3 weeks to fix it!"
-"You have 3 hours!"
-"OK, Captain, I'll do it in 2 hours!"



Estimating time is hard. And I don't mean hard in that "oh, I broke a nail" way. I mean that you can spend a lot of time at it and get a pretty much bogus answer. Even a pessimistic seeming date can turn out to be optimistic.

It's one thing with simple tasks that you've done before. Things other people have done before, if you have access to their information. Driving 25 miles (40km) on a freeway is going to take maybe half an hour, barring bad traffic; and the chances of any unforeseen delay coming up (car breaking down, medical emergency, the road not going where the map says it does) is fairly slight.

But creating a high-tech product involves a lot of unknowns. A lot of details can keep it from working, or make it work differently than expected. A change to any one of those details might mandate changes to other details. And since you're trying to create something new, nobody else has done it quite the same before. (Even those who have worked on similar products, might not be sharing that kind of information.)

The only reliable way to know how long something takes is to do it. Then, maybe, you'll know how long it takes. Of course, by then it's a moot point (since you're already done).

Personally, I am disappointed. I want my Pandora! And the longer it takes the more other things can go wrong (other sources of delay, loss of customer interest, release of products that compete against the Pandora but that I don't like as much, technology becoming outdated by the time it comes out). But it's not necessarily an avoidable thing.

One thing, though: I hope this delay isn't part of a fit of perfectionism. "Doing it right" sounds great, and I agree with it--up to a point. But it's possible to go way overboard. Nothing ever seems "quite right," or quite as good as you imagined it. So you keep improving it a little more, and a little more. Then it's late, and you try to compensate by making it even better, but that makes for even more delays...

Disclaimer: I haven't designed hardware, so a lot of the above is not from direct experience.

 

[javaJake]

What I wonder is exactly how much of the delays have been 100% out of the Pandora team's hands.

I'll give you that.

However, I have to say, all the delays lately have been primarily due to outside forces. At least, that's what we've been told. But seriously, who's going to question the guys when they've obviously done such a great job ever since the Mother Thread was halfway done?

Someone mentioned that we've "employed faith" or something like that, and it's true, we have. In my own situation, I have faith in the crew because they've made all the right choices. Every time I wonder how they'll solve this-or-that, they do it.