why doesn't pandora have gps chip?


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capeta

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Hi
I am just curious about why our pandora doesn't include the GPS chip. I think right now GPS is pretty popular for mobile devices.
Has the pandora team ever considered about the GPS option?

I know the price may be increase but I think it is worth at having GPS option
 
Same reason there's no camera, or mobile phone/Internet capability, or rumble pack, or flux capacitor etc. Just something that most people won't end up using and isn't worth the price increase. It would only be useful to people who constantly travel to new locations and have a mounting bracket for the Pandora in their car. I use the google maps java app on my phone and it's really not hard to find where you are. For everyone else it would just be a cool gimmic.

Ok so everyone will probably use the flux capacitor to send the Pandora to themselves half a year back. But I still don't think it's really worth the price increase just to get it a bit earlier.
 
Its a handheld gaming device.
the umpc bit of it is all secondary.
its prime purpose is playing old roms at insanely fast speeds.
and homebrew games ofcourse.
bisicaly its a psp for werdios.
thats not to say you cant do other shit with it.
I dont see why you cant hardmod a gps dongle into your case(room alowing). And poeple who realy want it will.
I have gps built into my phone. so i don't thik i'll need it. althogh my contracts up for renewal in december, and my new phone might not have it. any way we'll see.
 
zarneth said:
Same reason there's no camera, or mobile phone/Internet capability, or rumble pack, or flux capacitor etc.
IIRC the main argument against including that last one was that they couldn't find a battery capable of supplying the 1.21 gigawatts required to power it.
 
You can probably add SDIO GPS, but the real problem is to have a free vectorial map for realtime navigation ...
If my knowledge is good the major part of GPS builders use TOMTOM map which are not free.
And when you have the map you need to dev the navigation software :wacko:

increase the price around 150€ for how many users ? 20% max ?
It's a dangerous choice.
 
Riosingh said:
Its a handheld gaming device.
the umpc bit of it is all secondary.
its prime purpose is playing old roms at insanely fast speeds.
and homebrew games ofcourse.
bisicaly its a psp for werdios.
thats not to say you cant do other shit with it.
Where exactically do you get your information? You might want to retract that statement before a flamewar starts. Or was that what you were trying to do? :wacko:
 
Riosingh said:
Its a handheld gaming device.
the umpc bit of it is all secondary.
its prime purpose is playing old roms at insanely fast speeds.
and homebrew games ofcourse.
bisicaly its a psp for werdios.
thats not to say you cant do other shit with it.
I dont see why you cant hardmod a gps dongle into your case(room alowing). And poeple who realy want it will.
I have gps built into my phone. so i don't thik i'll need it. althogh my contracts up for renewal in december, and my new phone might not have it. any way we'll see.

A large DISAGREE :wink:
 
Built-in GPS chipsets have a pretty poor track record. At some point this may change, but for now the best GPS receivers are always the external ones. Cheap, robust, better reception because it's easier to position the antenna optimally, and typically better and faster reception because the latest and greatest chipsets are always readily available when you buy one, while you're stuck with whatever rubbish was soldered into your device.

The Nokia N810 has a built-in GPS receiver btw, and it's junk. It almost doesn't work unless you use A-GPS (software to assist by using the net to figure out where your position is, so that the GPS can, er, find your position..).

I saw an Asus PDU the other day, it had a quite ok built-in GPS receiver. But the owner lost the original plastic stylus and bought a replacement metal one, and now the stylus interferes with GPS reception.

And if you one day find that some reseller is making a nice metal cover for the Pandora you'll have to choose between GPS or cover.

And so on. Buy a cheap, super-good, bluetooth GPS with a Sirf star III or MTK chipset and be done with it. And it will work with all your other gadgets too. And next year there is probably an even better chipset available, then you can _upgrade_, something you can't do with a built-in GPS chip.
 
zarneth said:
Riosingh said:
Its a handheld gaming device.
the umpc bit of it is all secondary.
its prime purpose is playing old roms at insanely fast speeds.
and homebrew games ofcourse.
bisicaly its a psp for werdios.
thats not to say you cant do other shit with it.
Where exactically do you get your information? You might want to retract that statement before a flamewar starts. Or was that what you were trying to do? :wacko:

what part do you disagree with,and want me to retract.
pandora is a gaming handheld thats what is was desighned for.
it has a qwerty to make it easier to play amiga and c64 and specy games.
if you look up the posts and polls from when the craigonator was being desighned you will be able to varify this.

nerds are quite weird. i'm a 30 year old man with a wife and baby and i play with toys and nitro powered cars and toy helis. while the large portion of men my age play golf, squash and wanky shit like that.
I will admit my language is crude. but fuck it i'm not intrested on pleasing politacly correct lefties.

what info are you wondering where i got.

pandora is a console desighned by a nerd comunity for the nerd comunity.

or mabe you dont belive that my phone has gps and the contract will be up for renual in dec.
 
Riosingh said:
zarneth said:
Riosingh said:
Its a handheld gaming device.
the umpc bit of it is all secondary.
its prime purpose is playing old roms at insanely fast speeds.
and homebrew games ofcourse.
bisicaly its a psp for werdios.
thats not to say you cant do other shit with it.
Where exactically do you get your information? You might want to retract that statement before a flamewar starts. Or was that what you were trying to do? :wacko:

what part do you disagree with,and want me to retract.
pandora is a gaming handheld thats what is was desighned for.
it has a qwerty to make it easier to play amiga and c64 and specy games.
if you look up the posts and polls from when the craigonator was being desighned you will be able to varify this.

nerds are quite weird. i'm a 30 year old man with a wife and baby and i play with toys and nitro powered cars and toy helis. while the large portion of men my age play golf, squash and wanky shit like that.
I will admit my language is crude. but fuck it i'm not intrested on pleasing politacly correct lefties.

what info are you wondering where i got.

pandora is a console desighned by a nerd comunity for the nerd comunity.

or mabe you dont belive that my phone has gps and the contract will be up for renual in dec.
The whole "gaming device with umpc as an afterthought thing". I've lurked on the gp32x Pandora forum for easily half a year and there's been many... discussions... over whether it's primarily a gaming device or not. A few polls too. It's true that it started off as a more gaming oriented thing, and that emulators are a great way to unlock a big catalogue of games right from the start, but it's quite clear that it's evolved far beyond that.

I wasn't trying to be rude or anything. Just gets pretty annoying when people just assume things about the Pandora because that's the only thing they plan to do with it.
 
zarneth said:
The whole "gaming device with umpc as an afterthought thing". I've lurked on the gp32x Pandora forum for easily half a year and there's been many... discussions... over whether it's primarily a gaming device or not. A few polls too. It's true that it started off as a more gaming oriented thing, and that emulators are a great way to unlock a big catalogue of games right from the start, but it's quite clear that it's evolved far beyond that.

I wasn't trying to be rude or anything. Just gets pretty annoying when people just assume things about the Pandora because that's the only thing they plan to do with it.

+1
 
zarneth said:
Ok so everyone will probably use the flux capacitor to send the Pandora to themselves half a year back. But I still don't think it's really worth the price increase just to get it a bit earlier.

A flux capacitor could be cool, but i think it would be impossible to implement unless you invented a battery that could produce 1.21 Giga Watt.......well we could allways implement a Plotumium reactor on the pandora and make it fly.... roads.....where we go......we dont need roads.
 
I plan on using it as a umpc, but that doesn't change the fact that it doesn't have a gps because it was desighned to play oldschool roms and homebrew.

I bet when most of you realise how frustrating open source is you'll pull your hair out and stick your pandora in a
a)attic
b)ebay
 
Hells_Dark said:
I will do much more than gaming with my pandora.
me too. i might also try gps stuff eventually. but still i agree with tor: you're much more flexible with an external bt gps receiver. so i don't feel an internal one is missing in the pandora...

[edited for spelling]
 
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