Well, talking about pleasant surprises
Got an UPS email on the 26th, an email form Pandora Ltd. on the 27th and a nice white box with the goodies today (the 28th). I guess someone's been nasty and broke the 2 months rule eh?
I'm going to repeat the stuff you all probably read n2 before but, anyway, things needs to be said.
Hardware:
- Case finish looks awesome. Love the matte finish.
- Lid is sturdy, hinge moves smooth but tends go fully open when shaken a bit.
- When the lid is closed the gap is not even. Why is there only one rubber stop installed?
- Left sholder button is a bit squishy, but it seems to improve when used a bit.
- Nubs feel as smooth as silk. Never expected that. Really a great job.
- Right click on the D-pad is not as confident and clicky as the other three positions. Needs a bit more force to register.
- Keyboard works well. I need to adjust to the Fn key position though. Is it normal that the Pandora key seems to do nothing in both MiniMenu and XFCE?
- The shiny surface of the keys makes the alternate function lettering (blue) difficult to read in office (TL) lighting due to reflections of the lights above.
- Feedback from the power-on button is confusing. Nothing changes for a while if you move the slider to the right while Pandora is sleeping so I find myself pushing the slider a few times not knowing if it has any effect. I guess the answer is you need to keep the slider in position for about a second?
- Screen appears sensitive and accurate to the touch but, I admit, I have no comparison (don't have a smartphone or similar).
Software:
- Configuration was a breeze. Few things to enter and you're set to go. Great work, can't say anything about it.
- When you've chosen MiniMenu as your default menu and you enable WiFi then there's no popup window when networks are found. Ergo, you cannot connect to a (new?) network using MiniMenu. This confused the hell out of me until I changed to XFCE.
- I missed an application (Pandora game perhaps?) that is able to make a sound without the need of loading extra content from an SD-card. But I know internal NAND is sparse so I can understand any decision to leave it out.
- Starting software in XFCE doesn't give you any feedback that it registered the request. So I often end up with multiple instances of the application I want to run. Is it possible to assign one of the leds to show NAND read/write activity?
So there it is, lot's of really good stuff and a few things that I probably just need to adjust to. All in all I'm really pleased with the Pandora so far. But I do have to say though, in all fairness, that the planning has been a disaster and I would not have put up with it were this a project of some multinational. I frequently referred to the Pandora as 'sunk expenditures', that says enough I guess.
I hope you enjoyed this little review. What I would like to do next is: Get Java running, try to get JOSM (the Java OpenStreetMap editor) working and configured and perhaps provide it as a PND package (depending on how well JOSM performs on the Pandora). Any tips to keep in mind in advance?
My main questions up to now:
- Where can I see the firmware version/revision?
- Are new Pandora's shipped including the latest Hotfix?
- Can I install the latest Hotfix even when that Hotfix is already installed?
I'm going to repeat the stuff you all probably read n2 before but, anyway, things needs to be said.
Hardware:
- Case finish looks awesome. Love the matte finish.
- Lid is sturdy, hinge moves smooth but tends go fully open when shaken a bit.
- When the lid is closed the gap is not even. Why is there only one rubber stop installed?
- Left sholder button is a bit squishy, but it seems to improve when used a bit.
- Nubs feel as smooth as silk. Never expected that. Really a great job.
- Right click on the D-pad is not as confident and clicky as the other three positions. Needs a bit more force to register.
- Keyboard works well. I need to adjust to the Fn key position though. Is it normal that the Pandora key seems to do nothing in both MiniMenu and XFCE?
- The shiny surface of the keys makes the alternate function lettering (blue) difficult to read in office (TL) lighting due to reflections of the lights above.
- Feedback from the power-on button is confusing. Nothing changes for a while if you move the slider to the right while Pandora is sleeping so I find myself pushing the slider a few times not knowing if it has any effect. I guess the answer is you need to keep the slider in position for about a second?
- Screen appears sensitive and accurate to the touch but, I admit, I have no comparison (don't have a smartphone or similar).
Software:
- Configuration was a breeze. Few things to enter and you're set to go. Great work, can't say anything about it.
- When you've chosen MiniMenu as your default menu and you enable WiFi then there's no popup window when networks are found. Ergo, you cannot connect to a (new?) network using MiniMenu. This confused the hell out of me until I changed to XFCE.
- I missed an application (Pandora game perhaps?) that is able to make a sound without the need of loading extra content from an SD-card. But I know internal NAND is sparse so I can understand any decision to leave it out.
- Starting software in XFCE doesn't give you any feedback that it registered the request. So I often end up with multiple instances of the application I want to run. Is it possible to assign one of the leds to show NAND read/write activity?
So there it is, lot's of really good stuff and a few things that I probably just need to adjust to. All in all I'm really pleased with the Pandora so far. But I do have to say though, in all fairness, that the planning has been a disaster and I would not have put up with it were this a project of some multinational. I frequently referred to the Pandora as 'sunk expenditures', that says enough I guess.
I hope you enjoyed this little review. What I would like to do next is: Get Java running, try to get JOSM (the Java OpenStreetMap editor) working and configured and perhaps provide it as a PND package (depending on how well JOSM performs on the Pandora). Any tips to keep in mind in advance?
My main questions up to now:
- Where can I see the firmware version/revision?
- Are new Pandora's shipped including the latest Hotfix?
- Can I install the latest Hotfix even when that Hotfix is already installed?