Why should anyone buy an Open Pandora?

[comradekingu]

You should get a pandora because it has that silver colour that antagonists crave.

 

[lingenfr]

It is shocking how many people will feed a troll.

 

[Binky]

Would you want to be responsible for all those thousands of starving trolls out there?

Please won't somebody think of the children?

 

[lingenfr]

I just refuse to play. I will be glad to answer legitimate questions, but this type of BS should just be ignored.

 

[brokemike]

relax im  not who you think i am lol. I have a very legitimate question that was just asked by me so please answer on my new thread

 

[WizardStan]

It is shocking how many people will feed a troll.

Didn't seem like a troll to me. A troll is someone who deliberately does something to provoke an emotional reaction. This is entirely different from someone who is legitimately ignorant and asking an unpopular question.Also, any troll would be very disappointed in this thread; no one got angry or flipped out, it's just been a steady stream of understanding and assistance. Patience is troll kryptonite.

 

[Zaroff]

I'll play along... I bought the Pandora for the obvious reasons -perfect retro emulation, great format (yes), physical keyboard, real OS, real computer. Since then though, I've used it a lot for a whole other activity: it's simply, so far, the most perfect DAP I've used. It just sounds incredible, and playing music through Rockbox with it is pure pleasure. I haven't compared it to the big boys yet, iBasso etc (though I have an Astell&Kern 120 coming, and I'll make a comparison with that), but I've owned most mid-fi players at one point, Sony, Cowon, etc. The Pandora blows them all out of the water with ease. I'd even say that even only as a high end DAP, it's worth the price of admission. It sounds that good. The AK120 has real serious work to offer if it wants to stay, let's put it that way... When you consider the full, 3D and detailed sound the Pandora has, the battery life for music, the storage capacity with cards etc, it sets the bar very high...

 

[ekianjo]

I'll play along... I bought the Pandora for the obvious reasons -perfect retro emulation, great format (yes), physical keyboard, real OS, real computer. Since then though, I've used it a lot for a whole other activity: it's simply, so far, the most perfect DAP I've used. It just sounds incredible, and playing music through Rockbox with it is pure pleasure. I haven't compared it to the big boys yet, iBasso etc (though I have an Astell&Kern 120 coming, and I'll make a comparison with that), but I've owned most mid-fi players at one point, Sony, Cowon, etc. The Pandora blows them all out of the water with ease. I'd even say that even only as a high end DAP, it's worth the price of admission. It sounds that good. The AK120 has real serious work to offer if it wants to stay, let's put it that way... When you consider the full, 3D and detailed sound the Pandora has, the battery life for music, the storage capacity with cards etc, it sets the bar very high...

Someone already did a very thorough comparison : http://www.pandoralive.info/?p=148

 

[sswam]

Laptops and phones can be good, and do have some advantages,

but here are nine reasons to love your Pandora (and those who helped make it):

- fits in pocket                (2)

- great gaming controls     (1) (2)

- full ASCII+ keyboard      (1)     (3)

- superb audio              (1) (2) (3)

- excellent battery life        (2)

- 2 x SD cards & USB        (1) (2) (3)

- full open GNU/Linux OS    (1)     (3)

- indie hardware project    (1) (2) (3)

- great community & devs            (3)

(1) few if any phones have this

(2) few if any laptops have this

(3) few if any other pocket gaming boxes have this

That's 6 ways a Pandora beats a phone, 6 ways it beats a laptop, 6 ways it beats other pocket gaming boxes.

And 3 ways it beats all of the above.

Few if any other devices can score more than 3/9, on this list of very desirable features.  Pandora is elite and unique.

 

[Zaroff]

Someone already did a very thorough comparison : http://www.pandoralive.info/?p=148

I meant a comparison with the real heavyweights of the genre, the likes of the DX100, HM-901, both AK 100 & 120, that kind of thing. Those are currently the top tier portable music players.

 

[Binky]

- 2 x SD cards & USB (1) (2) (3)

I don't think its fair to say few if any laptops have this.

Many laptops have an SD slot, many USB ports, an optical disk drive and a decent-sized HDD - that beats the pandora any day.

 

[_wb_]

- 2 x SD cards & USB (1) (2) (3)

I don't think its fair to say few if any laptops have this.

Many laptops have an SD slot, many USB ports, an optical disk drive and a decent-sized HDD - that beats the pandora any day.

Many laptops have no SD slots at all and only a spinning hard disk. You could argue that two SD slots and a NAND (small but quite fast) beats that.

The number of USB ports is not that important since USB hubs are very easy to find, and you can use bluetooth for connecting stuff like mice or keyboards.

Optical disk drives are about as useful to me as floppy disk drives - I nowadays try to avoid noisy power-consuming relatively fragile spinning stuff.

Some laptops (e.g. mine) have one SD slot and an SSD - that does beat the Pandora, although I would still argue that the Pandora is the only device I know that has two SD slots, which does have advantages - e.g. copying stuff from one SD card to another SD card directly.

 

[Binky]

USB SD card readers are almost as ubiquitous as USB hubs.

If you are going to use "just buy a USB hub" in favour of pandoras then you can use "just buy an SD card reader" in favour of laptops

 

[Grench]

And here I was going to comment that the 'Up to 256GB storage' might need to be 'Up to 512GB storage' though I don't know if anyone has tried the 256GB SDXC cards yet.

They're still a touch on the expensive side for my tastes - though they've come down closer, $600 a card is still outside of my range.

I -can- vouch for the 256GB using 2@128GB though - that is how mine is configured currently.

 

[_wb_]

USB SD card readers are almost as ubiquitous as USB hubs.

If you are going to use "just buy a USB hub" in favour of pandoras then you can use "just buy an SD card reader" in favour of laptops

Not really. An SD card reader is not the same as an SD slot: besides using more power, it also makes your laptop have something sticking out, which you have to remove whenever you want to put it in your bag. This is kind of annoying.

A USB hub is of course also something annoying that is sticking out, but it's less of a problem because when you're connecting stuff through USB, there is stuff sticking out anyway.

 

[Grench]

USB SD card readers are almost as ubiquitous as USB hubs.

If you are going to use "just buy a USB hub" in favour of pandoras then you can use "just buy an SD card reader" in favour of laptops

Lets talk 'walking around' capacity then.  No dongles.

My old laptop has a 60GB SSD and one SDXC slot.  I use 128GB SDXC cards.  So - it has a 'walking around' capacity of 188GB.  It weighs 6 lbs.

My old Pandora has two SDXC slots.  I use 128GB SDXC cards.  It has a 'walking around' capacity of 256GB+nand.

In reality the Notebook also has a PCMCIA type 2 slot and a expresscard slot - and I have the adapters to bring the PCMCIA -> CF -> SDXC... then there is the expresscard slot which has a 3rd SDXC via an adapter...  All of this sits flush on the sides of the notebook.  BUT the notebook doesn't fit in my pocket.

 

[Binky]

BUT the notebook doesn't fit in my pocket.

Irrelevant - sswam covered pocketability as a separate point.

I'd also argue that PCMCIA slots and their kin are better than an SD slot, since they can easily be used for non-storage devices where SDIO cards are few and far between

 

[Grench]

BUT the notebook doesn't fit in my pocket.

Irrelevant - sswam covered pocketability as a separate point.

I'd also argue that PCMCIA slots and their kin are better than an SD slot, since they can easily be used for non-storage devices where SDIO cards are few and far between

I actually have a couple of SDIO cards, but I've never even bothered to try to make them work on the Pandora.

I have the 802.11b networking SDIO and a Veo SDIO camera (horrid low resolution) from back in my Tapwave Zodiac days.

 

[sswam]

- 2 x SD cards & USB (1) (2) (3)

I don't think its fair to say few if any laptops have this.

Many laptops have an SD slot, many USB ports, an optical disk drive and a decent-sized HDD - that beats the pandora any day.

I'd change it, but I want to keep the 6 / 6 / 6 superiority pattern!  

and there is something retro-l33t about double SD card slots,

reminds me of the old double-floppy drives on Amiga and BBC Micro, etc...

The main things I like about dual removable media:

1. it enables to mix-and-match, e.g. use one SD card for "system stuff" - things I want to always be there - and a range of secondary cards for various things such as movies, music, emulator games, work / dev, etc

2. It's also nice having most of the programs and user data on removable media, means a "re-flash" cost almost nothing, and I can expect everything to work the same if I plug the SD cards into a different Pandora

No other modern phone/laptop/gaming device to my knowledge has dual "internal" removable media.  It's not a massive advantage, but it is a point of uniqueness.

As for CDs, DVDs, and blu-ray - this tech is fragile, DRM-encumbered, noisy, power-hungry, and obsolescent.  I do buy DVDs sometimes for reason of wishing to support the company, but it's more trouble than it's worth to play them on a computer, and I've sworn off blu-ray.

 

[Binky]

I do like the twin SDXC slots - and the way vlc is magically able to find the really start of the dvd, and the 6/6/6 symmetry.

Things are good