To buy or not to buy?


Hi Marco, my advice would be to buy a rebirth Pandora for your general computing needs and spend the money you save compared to the 1GHz version on a dedicated ebook reader.


I recently bought a Kobo Aura HD and it is unsurprisingly hugely superior to Pandora as an ebook reader. What did surprise me is how much better the reading experience is compared to my Nexus 7.
 
Mr_Loon said:
Hi Marco, my advice would be to buy a rebirth Pandora for your general computing needs and spend the money you save compared to the 1GHz version on a dedicated ebook reader.


I recently bought a Kobo Aura HD and it is unsurprisingly hugely superior to Pandora as an ebook reader. What did surprise me is how much better the reading experience is compared to my Nexus 7.
Click to expand...
I agree. Except the E-reader vs N7 part. If you plan on looking at multi-color graphs they may be hard to read on an Ereader
 
Mr_Loon said:
Hi Marco, my advice would be to buy a rebirth Pandora for your general computing needs and spend the money you save compared to the 1GHz version on a dedicated ebook reader.
Click to expand...
My advice : buy a 1Ghz Pandora to take full advantage of the power of the latest version, and do more things with it than you expected + buy a Kindle Paperwhite since it's very cheap anyway. 

EssoAir said:
If you plan on looking at multi-color graphs they may be hard to read on an Ereader
Click to expand...
Then you have the Pandora for that if needed.
 
I use the Pandora for Browsing but for reading Papers I would recommend a tablet, a pc with a big monitor or printed paper^^.
 
Hello Marco, well, as promised (and to get back on topic), here are the screenshots of the pdf you send me:

http://picpaste.com/130911-222547-viCxc6xw.png

http://picpaste.com/130911-222608-2iwqEmPV.png

They are fullscreen qpdfview (http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=qpdfview)

and as you can see, they are tabbed (multiple docs open, or the same document, multiple times) and multi bookmark... which behavior you can change to reload at restart (continue where you left off)... and remember its a program any linux distribution has.

I also found something more to your tex liking:

texlive (http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=texlive.sepulep.001)

Have not taken it for a spin (just downloaded it). If you are still undecisive and want me to take screenshots of them... just ask.
 
EssoAir said:
Marco said:
Hi guys,


while I was looking for a "smart" tablet running linux, I stumbled upon Open Pandora. The best thing after sliced bread!


Now my life is changed forever. However, I am a bit undecided if I have to buy it or not.


First, I think it is a great device, but I am unsure if it can fit my needs better than a tablet.


I would like to use it mainly as a PDA (Calendar, time tracking, invoices, email...).


And I think it is the best tool for these activities.


My doubts are about reading ebooks and scientific papers (pdf).


I have seen some youtube videos where a guy adds notes to pdf file and it is great, but I wonder how book/paper browsing is.


I do not read ebooks and papers in a linear way. I need to stop, go back, put a bookmark, juxtapose two different paragraphs, switch from a book to another. At the moment, only paper-based low technology allows me to do these things.


What do you think about?


Then people use Pandora for little programming. Has anyone got experience in LaTex editing on Pandora?


Finally, a big plus would be if I could write notes by hand (I do not care about handwriting recognition). I know that it is possible, but I do not know how much writing is comfortable. For example, the screen is small and the keyboard could be cumbersome for handwriting.


That's all (for now).


I am looking forward to hearing your opinions.


Thanks in advance!


Marco
Click to expand...
Dude, 800x480 is not good for reading books. Even 1024x768 (iPad 2 and iPad Mini) is pushing it. If you want to read stuff, get a Nexus 7 2012 edition off ebay for $150. Unless you plan on doing programming or classic console emulation, I dont really think the OP is right for you
Click to expand...
Oh please Bro!  I've read 1000-page tutorial on ASP.net (sorry it's for work  :D ) with the Pandora on the bus everyday to work and back
 
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I have been using my nexus 7 for reading my c# ASP.net books.


Wish I had the 2013 version with that sexy screen though :)


Pandora RULES!
 
Thanks again guys, in particular to FBnil for the screenshots.

A good reason to choose OpenPandora instead of Nexus7 or Kindle is the community support!

More valuable than fancy features. :)
 
I'm a bit late ...but here is a video of QpdfViewer about your PDF on my CC (256MB RAM) Pandora...recorded with SimpleScreenRecorder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDToGfT5Th8&feature=youtu.be

edit: added a new link from YT, first video was not working.
 
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I'm also looking at the Pandora. I don't really program, so I'm not sure if it'd be right for me. What are the advantages of this over, for example, a smartphone?
 
OJJP said:
I'm also looking at the Pandora. I don't really program, so I'm not sure if it'd be right for me. What are the advantages of this over, for example, a smartphone?
Click to expand...
- Physical controls

- Long-lasting battery 

- Tons of Free (and not ads-based) quality software

- Many good games you don't find on Smartphones

- The Community ! 

There's more, much more, but that's what I would put first.
 
Its very hard to make a pandora "just work", but this community is both very friendly, and a haunt of  some exceptionally knowledgeable people

Using a pandora, and hanging around on these forums will teach you at least 10 (ten) times as much computer-science as the average English secondary school.

If you're looking to play with emulators, the pandora often has the best implementations of emulators, and gets them before any smartphone (since they are developed for the pandora to start with) - it also has built in physical controls

There's also a keyboard, Firefox, Libreoffice and the GIMP - the pandora is a better device for creating content than any "smart" device out there.

If you are an audiophile, the the pandora's sound performance is stellar: http://www.head-fi.org/products/open-pandora/reviews/8570

(Or a copy of the same article here - see ekianjo's post below...)

If you're worried about freedom and privacy, then having Open-Source software and being able talk to most of the devs should be an advantage. Linux has good built-in security, and the platform is so obscure that no-one would ever write a virus targeting it. If you're really paranoid, you can eject out both SD cards and so remove all personal data from the device when not in use.

If you're a geeky sysadmin (which I gather you aren't) then the full compliment of GNU utils makes remote administration relatively simple.

Having said that, this is not a device for the faint of heart - casually browsing cat videos on youtube is fiddly, android support tentative and the case utilitarian. To quote everyone's favourite reviewer of tat-on-a-brown-sofa:

"Its the logical inverse of an iPod touch"
 
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The Pandora has a lot of features that can't be found in any other device (combined together, at any rate)

- keyboard

- game controls

- reasonably fast processor

- long battery life

- pocketable

- full linux OS

It does, however, have a high cost to go with all those features. If you aren't interested in something with all of the bullet points, then there may be something cheaper and more suited to your needs.

"For that price I could get a laptop!" Great, get a laptop. It won't fit in your pocket and you need an additional controller, but it has more power and a bigger keyboard so maybe that's the right device for you.

"Why get this when I can get a PSP?" so get a PSP. It doesn't have a keyboard or touchscreen but maybe all you want is to play some SNES on the go.

"My phone is more powerful". So keep using your phone. Even if it has a keyboard and game controls, it still lacks much of the abilities of a full desktop OS, and there's no way the battery is going to last 10 hours of nonstop gaming, even if you disable the radios (removing the most important feature of a phone: the phone!)

And some people agree that, while there is nothing else that fully suits their purposes, they still can't really justify the cost: they would prefer to simply go without. Which is fine, sometimes you have to put needs ahead of wants.

In the end, only you can decided if the features are worth the cost. But whatever you decide, decide it now: either get a P1 or don't, don't wait on the P2.
 

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