Some Noob Question - 2nd Batch

[Fiery Phoenix]

So the N900 basically can emulate anything The Pandora can?


There are pro's and cons's for both. Without a doubt The Pandora is better for gaming as it's designed that way, with the nubs, etc. Both can browse the internet, the the N900 is a camera and phone. Both are pretty much the same price ( second hand N900's anyway )

 

[Yannick]

So the N900 basically can emulate anything The Pandora can?

yes, same hardware, both run linux

Both are pretty much the same price ( second hand N900's anyway )

The funny thing is:


a second hand pandora will cost as much as a new N900 (at the moment, on ebay)


I wanted an N900, but it was just too expensive for me. I bought a cheaper nokia

 

[Xenu]

So the N900 basically can emulate anything The Pandora can?


There are pro's and cons's for both. Without a doubt The Pandora is better for gaming as it's designed that way, with the nubs, etc. Both can browse the internet, the the N900 is a camera and phone. Both are pretty much the same price ( second hand N900's anyway )

Basicly if you are serious about playing games on a handheld system, nothing out there beats the Pandora. If you wan't to do a little of everything there are other choices. You could buy a phone and ad a Icontrolpad to it.

 

[Fiery Phoenix]

Is the N900 the best mobile phone device out there for gaming?


Heard the HTC is pretty powerful as is the Motorola Droid

 

[may88]

Is the N900 the best mobile phone device out there for gaming?


Heard the HTC is pretty powerful as is the Motorola Droid

Can't help thinking you're asking the wrong community. Personally, I'm duty bound to steer you towards a Pandora.


I have no knowledge of smartphones so I'll leave you to your deliberations.

 

[Fiery Phoenix]

I am considering going for both


I emailed Jacqueline over at the sales team to see if they could answer my queries over the 2nd batch and the hairline cracking issues. I do still want one, but will hold fire until I know these minor problems have been resolved. Dont really want to part with nearly £300 and then find hairline cracks and warpings in a matter of weeks.

 

[Yannick]

Is the N900 the best mobile phone device out there for gaming?

No it's *old*, as you said other phones have faster hardware now.


However it is the most *open*. It runs a real linux => Maemo. It has XTerm installed out of the box. You use apt-get to install stuff.


the others run android, in my opinion that's fake linux with fake java on top. Trying too hard to replicate iphone apps.


Actually, if you value a real linux on your phone, you already know you want an N900. If not, an N900 is just a very expensive phone with an OS to complicated to fully use.

 

[DaMummy]

I am considering going for both


I emailed Jacqueline over at the sales team to see if they could answer my queries over the 2nd batch and the hairline cracking issues. I do still want one, but will hold fire until I know these minor problems have been resolved. Dont really want to part with nearly £300 and then find hairline cracks and warpings in a matter of weeks.

asking jacqueline about cracks and issues with hardware is pointless, were here for those questions, and the item you receive in 2nd batch is miles away and changes for the better are more then likely to happen

 

[Prometheus]

Regarding the cracks, that's due, as far as I know, to an overly-tight screw. With any luck, the team have seen my topic in the Support section about it, and can do something about that. (As far as I'm aware, it happened in earlier ones. Mine is a recent unit, which is why I figured it was worth pointing out.)


As for the warping, I don't suppose you mean the "bezel-bowing" (where the screen bezel sticks out by a millimetre or two), as it's sometimes referred to? This is due to that part of the casing having a painted finish (well, all of it does, but it causes an issue with this spot), which I understand messed with the tolerances a bit. I'm unsure if the insides will be left unpainted (which should stop that from happening, if I've understood it right) in the next lot or not, though.

 

[macsimus]

For the n900 part of the thread :


I own one, and it's a very cool device (maemo, debian-like but you can even chroot a vanilla debian) and you can use it as a small computer-like phone : easy to get vim, irssi, xchat, ssh (both client and server), decent browsing etc.. (even gcc, python in the chrooted debian)


With the native phone app you have support for skype and msn(via the pecan plugin) and it works pretty well..


It fits perfectly for my use.


The main flaws of the phone being it's battery (hard to get more than one day use) and the lack of support/premature obsolescence from nokia.


But if you want a real open, not restricted Linux in a phone, i bet this is far superior to the android phones outta there..


Surely it's a device with many same capabilities as the pandora, but for me, i need both as i don't do any gaming on the phone and I expect a better keyboard on the pandora for small texts i'd like to type from time to time..


And, last but not least , it does a good job distracting me from my 1600-in-queue-hope-to-get-it-soon pandora.


Big kisses


Mac

 

[Tor]

As macsimus said. The only problem is battery life (limited by the size of battery it's actually possible to squeeze in) and Nokia's continued tendency to skip ahead to the next great thing instead of going incremental. With the jump to Meego I'm basically out of it, I don't want to follow anymore.


There are some managers at Nokia who really mess up all the time, which is sad, because they have some really really great people there too. And great concepts: Someone comes up with an idea for a useful conference, somewhere, and, if it looks useful and some people takes on responsibility for arranging it, Nokia jumps in with sponsoring flights and accommodation for folks that needs it and can do something useful at the meetup. Not many companies, if any, have done what Nokia has done in this respect.


But when it comes to top-level decisions about the road forward they continue thinking in 'ordinary' old-fashioned mobile phone terms: Come up with something new, make a new device which can run this new thing, then abandon the old device. That won't work out. As for games, I can easily imagine that Android will get ahead very quickly, and leave the Nokia devices in the dust, simply by going incremental (improving the same OS, and keeping compatibility with current devices). Something Nokia seems unable to do, despite very good intentions from the people who draw up the initial roadmaps.


To the person claiming that the N900 chipset is old and that there are other faster devices out there: No, I don't buy that. There aren't any Cortex-A9 in the wild yet, as far as I know, and other phones with different GHz aren't Cortex. Comparing apples and oranges, you know. And, in any case, it turns out that the N900 can easily be overclocked. 1GHz and above appears to be routine (I haven't overclocked mine. No need). And the way it's done it seems to actually achieve better battery performance too (due to faster-to-idle).

 

[chame]

before buy a pandora consider:


availability: pay today but receive date is unknown (2011 ?)


case design, keyboard and controls -> this is simply great in Pandora, nothing similar unles you get a gaming handheld. n900 controls simply cannot counter this


about the software, the OS is pretty decent, but there is a lack of support due to the fact there are only 700+ pandoras out there. most emus work perfect (atari, msx, amiga, genesis, nes, snes...), but probably the ones you want not... (N64, GBA, PSX)


to use pandora as a minipc will leave you a mix of feelings. you have desktop browsers (firefox), but without flash. with many windows opened everything respond slowly (even with OC). no skype yet. only 1 audio line, if you listen to a mp3 with audacious, cannot listen sound from an emu at the same time.


there are lost of applications in the repositories, but it not so easy. by using opkg you will full the nand in minutes. you can configure to install to the SD card, but is not for beginers. the PND system is quite convenient, but it depends on the ports other users make (not many). overall, if you like (and have) time to spend compiling your own software this is your device. there is not much support yet, it is an availability problem.


personally, I am using pandora as web browser and emu. there is nothing comparable yet. it lacks a bit in the software side, but will improve when more pandoras are shipped.


alternatives: apart from n900, there are many phones arround capable of web browsing and you will have 3G or gprs conection and not depend on the free wifi spots arround. blackberry, iphone, sony...


there are many good games also for iphone, if you want everything just "working", thats your device.


if you like retrogaming, and the snes/genesis era, try a GBA+flash cart. they are quite cheap nowadays, and the screen and controls are ok. is like to have a snes2, thousands of games 2D style


I had a psp2000 and I didnt like the whole thing, you need to get the correct emu with the correct firmware, too many requirements just to run an emu. and the web browser sucks. but you can use several emus + the original psp games + psx games


so there are other alternatives for the pandora. there are still 3000+ people waiting since years for their unit, I wouldnt preorder one until things speedup a bit

 

[Fiery Phoenix]

asking jacqueline about cracks and issues with hardware is pointless, were here for those questions, and the item you receive in 2nd batch is miles away and changes for the better are more then likely to happen

Actually I beg to differ, I dont think it was pointless - she replied today saying that the 2nd batch WON'T have the warpings or hairline crack issues that teh 1st batch did

 

[levi]

Woo! Excellent news, thanks!

 

[ManlyStump]

Actually I beg to differ, I dont think it was pointless - she replied today saying that the 2nd batch WON'T have the warpings or hairline crack issues that teh 1st batch did

Of course she told you that, you haven't bought one yet!


Seriously though good news, because I ordered from the second batch

 

[Klaue]

Since Fiery Phoenix seems to be statisfied with the answers and there really is no need for another noob question thread, I just bust in and ask something that may be obvious to some, but I couldn't find the answer yet:


Can the game controlls (d-pad, buttons) of the pandora be used like normal keyboard keys?


To make that more clear, what I mean is: There are some DOS games, for example jump'n'runs, that have no gamepad or joystick support. Is it still possible to play them with the game controls, either by linking the d-pad to the cursor keys or, in the games that support this, by having them register as normal keys ("press key for left" etc)? Or is the d-pad allready set as the cursor keys because there are no cursor keys in the keyboard?


(I don't want to hijack the thread, I just assume that this is a simple question that would be too insignificant for a new thread )

 

[Prometheus]

The d-pad already behaves as the cursor keys where appropriate - it's a very useful feature all-round. Also, the game buttons act as Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down.


Additionally, DOSBox allows you to map things to your liking, as well.

 

[Klaue]

Cool, thanks


EDIT: oh, one thing I just remembered.. The d-pad looks like an 8-direction one, is it? And are the other directions as easy mappable as the normal 4? (I'm just asking because I plan to try to maybe port a game that would benefit from that)

 

[WizardStan]

Can the game controlls (d-pad, buttons) of the pandora be used like normal keyboard keys?

The game buttons actually ARE regular keyboard keys. The D-Pad is the arrow keys, A is home, B is end, X is pgup, Y is pgdown, L is shift, and R is ctrl. A program can listen directly to the GPIO lines, or it can use the operating system to listen for those keypresses. And because Linux is so cool, those keys can be changed if a game comes along that doesn't want to change itself.

EDIT: oh, one thing I just remembered.. The d-pad looks like an 8-direction one, is it? And are the other directions as easy mappable as the normal 4? (I'm just asking because I plan to try to maybe port a game that would benefit from that)

It's only got 4 contacts, but it can register two at the same time (ie, up and left). To map those diagonals you would need some kind of middle layer to interpret. If you really need that much precision though, it may be good to consider using the left nub.

 

[Klaue]

Now that you write it, it could even be that the game I'm thinking about (Kobo deluxe, can't try it right now) allready recognises "(Up+Left)==Upleft".. Well, I have to check that, would make things way easier, which is good because it would be my first port (note that I diddn't yet look into the dependencies, so it may as well be pretty much impossible to port it - but then I find another game ) EDIT: scrap that, it says even on the homepage that it compiles on ARM, so there's not much porting to do. Dunno how I managed to miss that *face->desk*


Thanks