Release Date

[droneb]

yes, but i live in colombia, make some calculus tax exchange rates and you will get about 1M COP stuck.

since im still a systems engineering student, i dont have money flowing out like a fountain like some seem to do around.

and my job barely copped to pay university, panda was paid using some saved funds i had by some extra part time job(as a translator).

really, looking at this point, im afraid ill have to withdraw my pre-order even before xmas

 

[juniorm33]

Honestly, I don't see the pain in waiting at this point. Having the money tied up shouldn't be an issue if you understood the nature of the project when you go in, which a fair few people don't seem to have. The tied-up money is what has been funding some of, if not all of the project. So in essence, although you can't see a final unit right now, you do have something for your money already in the form of prototypes etc. It's always a case of 'I paid, now where is my product' where as it was plain from the beginning (should anything more than a paper-thin investigation of it's design process and origins have been conducted by those interested) that pre-ordering in this case involves a large dose of faith, and the knowledge that the whole project could fail at any point and we may never receive a final unit.

Your wrong, there's a difference between what most people are saying in this thread compared to the usual wow I want a refund cause it's a bit late.
For a year it's been almost ready to ship, we've seen the videos of things working for over a year, prepared for OS being rough as we're first batcher's, not bought other stuff because it was always just 2 months away.
We're pretty much at the same stage as last year, apart from now we've seen moulds that aren't totally fine.
All I'm saying is that I have to have a cut off, I will need to move on, but I still think Pandora will come out sooner or later.
If last year I was told it's been delayed by 6 months, even 6 months after that, it would've been no problem at all.(i.e. a year late)
Answering some of these posts are making me sound and feel negative
I still have faith in the OP team, I except most of the reasons for the delays, expect to have a gem of a device in my hands this year. :lol:
Leave me with my blind faith for now

 

[juniorm33]

But its all personal I can imagine being 16 again and then having bought a pandora of my hard earned savings then it would have been a bummer.

I'm more in your boat but, everyone's circumstances are different as you say, maybe rent is cheap where you are but isn't other places. Most people wouldn't have bought it if it meant being on the streets, but it doesn't mean it hasn't become a luxury item they feel hard justifying any more, maybe it was going to be used for work or study instead of a netbook, so that money had a specific purpose which hasn't been fulfilled now.
Just cause we're ok I find it slightly short-sighted at best, insensitive at worst what you said, although I know you never meant it in that way. So don't take it as an attack on you.(That's why I quoted that part)

 

[Asmo]

What happened to the 'Manual' that ED was in charge of? A while back there were many offers of help in translating to various languages, but nothing since:

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/49721-instruction-manuel/page__view__findpost__p__758640

There are a lot of loose ends to be tied up in the space of 5 weeks.

 

[emil10001]

Thanks for the info Craig!

 

[Bosbeetle]

But its all personal I can imagine being 16 again and then having bought a pandora of my hard earned savings then it would have been a bummer.

I'm more in your boat but, everyone's circumstances are different as you say, maybe rent is cheap where you are but isn't other places. Most people wouldn't have bought it if it meant being on the streets, but it doesn't mean it hasn't become a luxury item they feel hard justifying any more, maybe it was going to be used for work or study instead of a netbook, so that money had a specific purpose which hasn't been fulfilled now.
Just cause we're ok I find it slightly short-sighted at best, insensitive at worst what you said, although I know you never meant it in that way. So don't take it as an attack on you.(That's why I quoted that part)

Indeed I did not think of the pandora as a replacement for a netbook that it might have seemed for some people in those cases I can imagine withdrawing and buy a netbook if they really need it.

hihi I said cases

 

[rmm2131]

>The Pandoras' boards are not manufactured yet.

Yes they are. I think you mean the Population isn't complete

>The Pandoras' boards have not been tested yet (if this step is required).

Testing the boards is rather like that stuff you see when mame games boot up, that's how long it takes per board.

>The Pandoras' case moulds are not (fully) finalised yet.

This isn't an issue at the moment, we will still have them before we need them.

>The Pandoras are not assembled yet.

That starts at the end of the month. It's the last step and will happen as they ship.

>The Pandoras' firmware/software is not finalised yet.

Well by definition it never will be as we will continue to update it. But everything currently works, you can see that in videos going back months.

>We're assuming there are no more hardware/software issues (drivers) to be sorted yet.

What have you not seen working?

>The Pandoras' firmware/software has not been installed onto the NAND chips yet.

That happens during that board test.

>The Pandoras have not been boxed yet.

There is no box.

The things you list are all just assembly and tends to happen all at once in the same place.

You are just breaking it down more and more, but there is actually less and less to do.

If you wrote this list 1 year ago it would be summarised as '1) assembly'.

I have no doubt they will be assembled and shipped and then the fun can begin.

Also, as I keep saying, our financial situation is good, we have given many refunds over the last year with no issues at all. This project does not have any debts and is privately funded outside the orders. That is one of the best things about it.

This would all make a great entry on the Unofficial Blog for those non-forum-ers.

I waited this long before pre-ordering cause I don't like waiting and having money tied up into thin air etc, so if I don't get mine by xmas i'll be cancelling my pre-order definetly.

Sure then you can get a DSi XL, PSP Go, Nokia N900, Kindle, iPhone, Dingoo, or one of the usual netbooks of the week. Face it, you'd rather have a Pandora.

 

[juniorm33]

Indeed I did not think of the pandora as a replacement for a netbook that it might have seemed for some people in those cases I can imagine withdrawing and buy a netbook if they really need it.

hihi I said cases

Yea, it's so easy to think of it as only a games machine, it's so much more, it just happens to hopefully have one of the best control systems for a portable console. :lol:

Sure then you can get a DSi XL, PSP Go, Nokia N900, Kindle, iPhone, Dingoo, or one of the usual netbooks of the week. Face it, you'd rather have a Pandora

Or change priorities and get the device that does most of what you want :blink:

 

[second exodous]

>The Pandoras are not assembled yet.

That starts at the end of the month. It's the last step and will happen as they ship.

Is this the 105? It seems that I haven't heard about the 105 in a while, so are just all the boards done and ready to be assembled? Or are the 105 to get you started on assembling and as you get those done you'll get more parts so there is really no break in the 'assembly line?'

 

[elwing]

Sure then you can get a DSi XL, PSP Go, Nokia N900, Kindle, iPhone, Dingoo, or one of the usual netbooks of the week. Face it, you'd rather have a Pandora.

honestly, between an IPhone 3GS with zodTTD psx, N64 emus + more and the great looking IControlpad and the pandora only the price make me stay with pandora... you got the same software on the IPhone, with the incoming IControlPad gaming control are as good as the pandora...

pandora's advantages are:
- prices
- full keyboard

IPhone 3GS advantages are:
- it's a phone.
- multitouch screen.
- it's already disponible (without the IControlPad yet, but that's still better than waiting for a pandora).
- a much bigger user/developper base.

what I don't understand right now is why the pandora dev team is working on some product (the IControlPad mostly, but also thinking to some software) that negate the pandora advantage over the IPhone 3GS...it seems a nice autogoal to me...

 

[Sugar_Kane]

"what I don't understand right now is why the pandora dev team is working on some product (the IControlPad mostly, but also thinking to some software) that negate the pandora advantage over the IPhone 3GS...it seems a nice autogoal to me..."

I think the biggest issue is that you have to jailbreak your iphone to use this or any of the homebrew software, and lock yourself out of apple updates until someone cracks them. There is also a slim chance that you could brick it and as the phone is very expensive a lot of people aren't willing to do this, me for example. There's also the point of battery life, which the iphone is very poor on compared to the pandora, even with the icontrol's added battery I don't think it will outperform the pandora battery. I don't think that releasing the two together will negatively affect the pandora.

 

[Sphinxter]

Blame craigx for having balls of brass instead of crystal.

Who told you that? His gay lover?

There is no other possible explanation for his being willing to take on this project.

 

[rmm2131]

Sure then you can get a DSi XL, PSP Go, Nokia N900, Kindle, iPhone, Dingoo, or one of the usual netbooks of the week. Face it, you'd rather have a Pandora.

honestly, between an IPhone 3GS with zodTTD psx, N64 emus + more and the great looking IControlpad and the pandora only the price make me stay with pandora... you got the same software on the IPhone, with the incoming IControlPad gaming control are as good as the pandora...

pandora's advantages are:
- prices
- full keyboard

IPhone 3GS advantages are:
- it's a phone.
- multitouch screen.
- it's already disponible (without the IControlPad yet, but that's still better than waiting for a pandora).
- a much bigger user/developper base.

what I don't understand right now is why the pandora dev team is working on some product (the IControlPad mostly, but also thinking to some software) that negate the pandora advantage over the IPhone 3GS...it seems a nice autogoal to me...

Don't forget also that Steve Jobs rubs each Iphone against his bare chest while saying "ooh yeah" take that Gates-ey. Apple for the win.

 

[second exodous]

Blame craigx for having balls of brass instead of crystal.

Who told you that? His gay lover?

There is no other possible explanation for his being willing to take on this project.

What?

Don't forget also that Steve Jobs rubs each Iphone against his bare chest while saying "ooh yeah" take that Gates-ey. Apple for the win.

Lol, disturbing image.

And Gates-ey throws a Zune against they floor yelling 'WHY!!! I LOVED YOU!'

 

[borgqueenx]

no box....confirmed now
thats really to bad. oh well ive readed something about a manual so that will do.

 

[borgqueenx]

>The Pandoras are not assembled yet.

That starts at the end of the month. It's the last step and will happen as they ship.

Is this the 105? It seems that I haven't heard about the 105 in a while, so are just all the boards done and ready to be assembled? Or are the 105 to get you started on assembling and as you get those done you'll get more parts so there is really no break in the 'assembly line?'

if those are the final 4000 pandora's, im gonna drink myself to (almost) death tonight.

 

[second exodous]

>The Pandoras are not assembled yet.

That starts at the end of the month. It's the last step and will happen as they ship.

Is this the 105? It seems that I haven't heard about the 105 in a while, so are just all the boards done and ready to be assembled? Or are the 105 to get you started on assembling and as you get those done you'll get more parts so there is really no break in the 'assembly line?'

if those are the final 4000 pandora's, im gonna drink myself to (almost) death tonight.

Well, I know all 4000 won't be done by the end of this month and shipped, my question was more of will the 4000 be done and shipped before Christmas?

 

[bananajamslam]

Why does everyone want a box? The only difference between having a box, rather than not, is that you would have to take the pandora out of that box. Then, most likely you will hide that box in a drawer somewhere so that, just in case you might sell it, you will get that extra dollar from the buyer on eBay who considers a box important...

 

[Monk]

Honestly, I don't see the pain in waiting at this point.

It's pretty much the same as the pain of waiting at any other point, just having done so for longer. Well - OK not QUITE the same as the waiting done before the financial crisis.

Having the money tied up shouldn't be an issue if you understood the nature of the project when you go in

Unless there's been a financial crisis in the meantime (which there has) or you've lost faith in the people producing (or not producing) the Pandora.

pre-ordering in this case involves a large dose of faith

Faith can be lost.

I've been following since the beginning, I couldn't afford to pre-order until this year

I see your own financial situation has changed too - I'm glad it is for the better

This is now the most exciting part because things are moving faster than they have at any other point, and we can see everything coming together, so it would be madness to pull out now!

I've been hearing that since about, oooh, November or December of last year. Right now it reminds me of Sisyphus - that boulder is nearly at the top, nearly nearly...oh. We've got to go through the whole Two Months worth of rolling the boulder uphill again...

It's a bit like paying an oyster that's made a promise to form a piece of grit into a pearl for you, to which it estimates a delivery date and provides you a series of updates regarding the formation of layers and it's iridescence. The date slips further away, but a point is reached where it begins the final stages of formation, you decide that you'd rather have your money back than get the pearl in the end because of the principle of the wait you had to endure.

Or because, at the end of the process, it looks like you'll have no money and no pearl - just an irritated gritty oyster

Ok it's probably nothing like that, but I'm at work and I'm bored shitless.

No worries - I can't fathom how people get bored myself, but I've heard the expression often enough to believe it exists.

Answering some of these posts are making me sound and feel negative

this is one of The Internets biggest pains. If you don't respond to stuff people can think you're avoiding the point, or trying to hide something, or they can end up with a badly skewed idea of something because there's no balance - but if you respond to every point you (or should I say "one"? I don't mean YOU you, just a general "you") can easily look like a raving lunatic. It's a bit depressing. Go and sort out some ISOs or some ROMs or something, in preperation for the Pandora. Play a game or two, just to remember/relive how great some of those old games were

 

[Monk]

... you will get that extra dollar from the buyer on eBay who considers a box important...

Some of these people ARE those eBay buyers who consider a box important... but they're doing better by sending their moeny to the vendor/developer instead of to the second-hand market.

I find it difficult to fathom the "collectors" attitude to boxes and stuff, at least to the degree it seems to get taken, but I can understand wanting to have everything "nice". That'd be, well, nice - so I think I'm halfway to understanding it.

Sadly, although we could make some smashing box art ourselves, it wouldn't be "legit" so probably wouldn't be worth the card it'd get printed on