Pyra in Alaska

[mcrobinson]

I just had my first weekend with the Pyra. I was order #73 and it shipped on Feb 9th from DragonBox shop, sat in Germany a few days, then sat in Memphis Tennessee a few days more due to storms, and arrived on my doorstep in Alaska on Feb 19th. I unboxed the Pyra that evening and began exploring. I was both immediate impressed with the device and slightly disappointed. After using it the rest of the weekend I am less disappointed and more impressed.

• Box and booklet are beautiful. The booklet describes the hardware well but not the software so you have to dig around on the forums/wiki a bit. Maybe include a quick start note with first steps (update software, install browser, install dbp package, etc) or a link to a wiki article.
• Build quality is good, way better than Pandora. The Y key was not set correctly but I was able to quickly open the Pyra, access the keymat, and fix the issue. I initially did not like the keyboard but after a few days my opinion has changed for the better, it works great. Biggest disappointment for me in terms of hardware is lack of touch input on edges of display, I guess I will be using the nubs a lot, thankfully they are excellent.
• Its great to have a current Linux distro, so much software available in Debian Arm repos, and Mate is a good default choice for desktop. Dbp package system for Pyra specific software looks promising.
• I knew there would not be lot of Pyra specifc software this early on but it was still a little disappointing. On the bright side I have a great linux device right now and the gaming will only get better especially once issues with the tiler get resolved.
• I am impressed with speed/responsiveness of the Pyra. Firefox and Chromium both run great! Once HDMI out is working, docking the Pyra to monitor/keyboard/mouse should give me a nice workstation.

Thank you Michael for sticking with this project! The Pyra is a very good device right now and is well positioned to become an awesome one.

 

[Binky]

Thank you for the commentary. Even though the pre-order experience is inevitably a bit wobbly with this sort of project, it sounds like the set of features to improve is fairly manageable, and I'm definitely looking forward to getting my unit when the time comes. Either way, real user feedback is invaluable.

Welcome to the boards!

 

[matzesu]

Thanks for your small review, ok, now whe have also a Pyra in Alaska, fascinating ^^
I think as far away from the first delivery at the beginning of 2021 you are, the more mature the OS will be:
When i got my Pyra, the Charging Software was still on a state where the CPU was running whyle you charge whyle it was off, you see this on the red LED LID Logo, but now the CPU is off whyle charging..