Half-Assed Review Because Mine Is At Ebay Now


Spirit

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A kinda random and unfinished review of my Pandora.

Disclaimer: I dreamt of something the Pandora is not. That's my own fault. :)
Also I just read what I wrote and it seems to be only negative things. The pandora is awesome, I just listed the things I did not like.

My main plans were GPS-related (OSM, Geocaching), nostalgic gaming (ScummVM, Dosbox, the older systems (not PSX, N64)), portable notepad/internet,



pandora_01_t.jpgpandora_02_t.jpgpandora_03_t.jpgpandora_04_t.jpg
pandora_05_t.jpgpandora_06_t.jpgpandora_07_t.jpgpandora_08_t.jpg
pandora_09_t.jpgpandora_10_t.jpgpandora_11_t.jpgpandora_12_t.jpg
pandora_13_t.jpgpandora_14_t.jpgpandora_15_t.jpgpandora_16_t.jpg

(add _full to access the originals if you must)

=====GPS/OpenStreetMap
I dreamt of a device that is convenient to use while riding my bike, maybe I could even build a thing to hold it on the bar. While my Bluetooth-GPS works very well with the Pandora, it ends right there. The device is almost too heavy and big to be comfortably in my jacket's pockets. Opening it with one hand is a dangerous task as you might drop it. One hand control is impossible except for using the thumb fingernail on the touchscreen borders. I always stopped, got it out of my pocket, opened it and hold it close to my eyes.

Putting it into a bike holder is not an option. I would be scared the wobbly hinge would break too soon.

=====Gaming controls
For me the gaming buttons are too small and narrow. And the device is of a shape/size that it uncomfortably pokes into my lower palm when held. I have big hands and I hold the buttons in a weird way, so you will be probably fine. It is ok for slower games and I played Powder a lot!

=====Internet
I was hoping that I could simply plug a WLAN stick into my Linux PC, configure it somehow to provide an access point, relaying "the internet" and then being able to connect to it with my Pandora. Turns out that stuff is not trivial to do, the stick I got is currently not supported to do that. And from what I heard the Pandora cannot do ad-hoc wifi yet. So, no mobile internet at home and in the garden for me.

I managed to use a USB connection to get the Pandora online though. But that is only useful for software updates and the like as it makes it non-portable. ;)

=====SD-cards
I had huge trouble with a faulty card (actually two, the replacement I got died after a few days, stay away from A-DATA!) which I first blamed on the Pandora. Once I got proper cards, I never had trouble again.

=====The preinstalled (operating) system
I was quite surprised when I realised that one could have gone for Debian Armel instead of Angstrom and have a gazillion of applications in the repositories ready to go. I would have had much more fun if the primary OS was Debian and I had Wifi.

I used Linux as my primary OS and like the command line. The keyboard layout on the Pandora is not perfect, but you get used to it. The placement of the number keys is too narrow to the hinge to be comfortable to use for me though.

=====PNDs
While being a good idea for easy "plug'n'play" adding of applications, I found them annoying. You get a single file and cannot easily browse its contents. If something fails you have to look into /tmp/ for some logfiles. pnd_run does not log to stdout. Documentation for most PNDs is crude at best, some is 5 lines in a HTML file. On the other hand it is nice to be able to just drop a file on the card and have a new program.

=====Video/Audio
That H264 playback is simply not reasonable sucks big time. Very disappointed about that. I did occasionally watch videos on the train. It was not a good experience when the sun was shining. It is too huge as portable music player.

=====Screen angle
You must know that the Pandora is a two-hands device when hand-held. It's screen holds at 90 and 180 degrees, it might, but it is not guaranteed that it will hold steady at 135 degrees as shown on http://open-pandora.org/
If you have it at 135° and touch the screen without holding it, there is a high chance that it will snap into 180°. That is a shame because the fully opened Pandora is just weird and unnatural to me.

=====Other things
I feel weird using it in public because it looks like a mixture of a Nintendo DS and a soviet calculator. :)

It was great fun hacking around and imagining all the things one can do with it. But in the end, I decided it is not the right tool for me and I rather have something that "works". So it is up at Ebay and I will probably feel sick once I have to ship it. Gonna get a Dingoo A320 for gaming and a smartphone for "Linux on the go".
 
sure, i just posted it in the marketplace forum:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250689027050
 
Sorry to see ya go, but at least someone who knows what to expect can get your unit off Ebay.

Good luck!

Chris
 
I'm sorry to hear that it wasn't right for you, but I'd like to say thanks for the great photographs and honest review. :)
 
Well, it sounded as a fair review to me.

I myself wanted it for pretty much the same as you do, but I didn't really expect it to be so rugged to comfortably use it on the bike, for example. Despite improvable, the built quality is enough for me. And I love the endless possibilities it brings to have a connectible little linux machine in the palm of my hand. I love that you enjoyed so much the powder port at least :lol: .
 
wrath of khan said:
Sounds like a load of BOLLOCKS to me.

What exactly do bollocks sound like? Do you have to use a stethoscope to hear them properly? How did you become so intricately involved with mens testicles?

I liked the review and the photo's. I'm still looking forward to getting mine, but I can understand that some people might realise it's just not for them after they get it. For me it was never an option not to be certain it was for me before buying. I simply could not afford for it not to be the right thing for me - the more information available which gives honest and fair feedback like this, the less chance that other people will be dissapointed. Hope you get what you want, and thanks for the lovely pictures - they only serve to increase my appetite for Pandora!
 
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wrath of khan said:
Sounds like a load of BOLLOCKS to me.

You're from Ireland right? So it's more like BALLACKS!

;)
 
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Yeah, do not miss the bit about me having the wrong expectations.

Many things gave a negative impact on my reception:
-No Wifi at home
-Used to place my whole joint/knuckle of the thumb on the gaming controls, that just does not work well ( http://spirit.enjoys.it/pandora/pandorabuttons.mkv , fear my engrish!)
-Expected better adjusted system
-Like to tinker on the commandline without an additional layer of user-friendlyness, which is why I do not like PNDs
-More need to hack around myself than expected, partially due to Angstrom, the old kernel, the small space on the device itself

Most of these points won't apply to YOU. :)

For GPS-stuff mobile phones simply surpassed anything on the market (feature-wise, not accuracy obviously). The software I wanted to write (well, try to write) myself does exist now for Android.
 
Seems like a fair review except for the comment about the battery. Running an mp3 player with the screen backlight off, my battery lasts 15+ hours. If your battery is going dead with this type of usage, maybe you've got a bad battery.
 
You are right, I blindly made that comment, thinking that "normal" mp3 players had a much longer battery life. Turns out, they do not. Thanks!
I removed that comment.
 
It is not! I meant/thought that a "normal" mp3 player would have even longer battery life but it turned out they do not.

The Pandora has excellent battery life. It is nice to simply not having to worry about it. Easily does a whole day if you pause and close it. I often turned it on in the morning, went for my day and at some point got it out of my backpack and still had a lot of charge left.
 
Ah, this sucks, sorry you didn't like it. I think I'll like mine when I get it, I have my fingers crossed. As far as the features go I think this pretty much everything I want other than a 1080p HDMI out, and maybe 3G but I can live without those two. From the pictures it looks like it isn't too big for me so I'm not at all worried about that. GPS doesn't really concern me as much as it does others, maybe it is because I live in a city that has a grid layout so I don't need one?

Oh well, you'll most likely make a profit on e-bay so you can start looking for a device that fits your needs. Good luck.
 
Interesting idea .. Maybe when pnd is run from pnd_run to send stdout instead of logfile? Such a minor hing but easily done :p I've thought about adding pnd_mount and pnd_umount type commands but i figure folks can hit up pnd_run.sh directly for that, then browse with any explorer

Not a bad review; most o it seemed - theres things i want right now, but they're not there yet and i dont want to wait (h264) or stuf like wifi (laptop pro lem plus panda driver problem) - but all totally fair.

Jeffphone
 
good honest review, of course you are right that some things wouldnt affect certain people. and good choice on the dingoo, i myself was exstatic when i found out about them :D then i dropped it in a river and sold my iphone to buy another 1! definately wont make the same mistake for my pandora, i dont have anything to sell to get a new 1 lol
 
in your ebay link, it states the warranty ends in 2 years, afaik, warranty is only 1 year
 
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