Post picks and first impressions of your shiny new Pandora here!


Thanks for posting these. I can only assume the other 540 people are busy using their Pandora :)
 
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Thanks for posting these. I can only assume the other 540 people are busy using their Pandora :)
Often I am yes :)


I have to admit one of my favorite tools on it is the SD Card Host app. It allows me to manage the content of my SD card, my music, PNDs and ROMs directly from my PC, with high speed, without potentially wearing out my SD card from repeated reinsertions. It just works. When you're done, it closes the USB connection and re-mounts the SD card and its new PNDs on the fly.


Re: HF4

Pretty sure it's not. Mine's from the same lot and I noticed some differences when I installed Hotfix 4 so I assume it was at a previous version out of the box.
I guess I'll be slapping that on tonight. Any recollection of what you noticed was different?
 
Nice, very nice! Its good to see that in everybody's impressions or reviews there are subtle differences (good or bad), but the large majority is an overwhelmingly good overall vibe from all the users!
 
My thoughts after a few days:


Well, by now I have had the pandora half a week. I have more or less carried it with me the whole time - Not on the whole time, but, you know, whenever you have ten minutes to kill during the day, you just naturally bring out your pandora, eh? The instant-ish on/off into low power mode is excellent here, combined with the fact that it resumes exactly where I left off - So if I am in the middle of a level in Super Mario World when I turn the pandora off and leave the train, I will still be there 5 minutes later when I'm seated on the bus.


It is an excellent conversation starter, as confirmed in my workplace today. Granted, I work with geeks (lecturer at university computer science department), but still. Together with my slightly older HP 9810a, I can now outconfuse just about anyone :)


Controls: Superb. The DPad is excellent. I endured the GP2x stick, and actually got quite proficient at wrestling it into the approximate direction I wanted, so it is proven that my standards for what is acceptable is shamefully low, but this plays in a different league altogether. I haven't tried any fighting games yet, which really are the acid test, but this is indeed up there with the very, very best. People tend to tout the Snes or Saturn pads as the best there are, and, well, compared to the SNES and Saturn controllers lying in a box behind me, this wins hands down. Granted, those are by now old and worn, so the comparison is not entirely fair, but still. Buttons (shoulder and face) are very good, after I reseated the foam pad of my right shoulder button. My B button has a somewhat different feel than the others, and I suspect it is the same thing as a few others have reported, so in the future I'll probably open it up and "remove a little bit of excess plastic", as others have described. But that would be mostly a cosmetic (or whatever the tactile version of that is - Feeletic?) thing, because it triggers just as well as the others. The keyboard works well enough - I haven't used it very much yet.


Is it not bad that I had to open it up to fix that foam pad? No, it is excellent, and this is why: Every production of gadgets have errors. Some have less errors (something that might be achieved with automatised assembly lines and test jigs, and profit margin enough to simply toss any unit that fails at any test), some have less, but all have errors. The important bit is what happens when errors appear - is it 1) "Tough shit - you bought it", 2) "Send it back and we will fix it. Eventually. Possibly. Unless you've fiddled with it. And then we will send it back to you. Eventually." or 3) "Ok, that sounds like it might be that error. Try this procedure". Now, granted, I would be a card-carrying member of the "If you can't open it, you don't own it" mob had I not disassembled the card to see if there was any nifty electronics inside, but to me number 3 is by far the most preferred reply, and I would probably prefer 1 over 2. I hate forced downtime of something just because the company who built the thing assumes that all their customers are incompetents. To me, this approach of actually trusting that the end user is capable of solving simple things is Very Important.


The rest of the physical aspects seem solid and as expected. My hinge stays open in almost any position, my LEDs light up, my switches switch and my connectors connect. I haven't quite figured out the wifi bit yet - Something is not working, but I haven't had time to look into it yet. My WiFi router has proven to be a bit choosy before, so there is a need of some testing.


The system (XFCE) is...well, I have been a casual linux user for a decade now, I've used XFCE before (on an old laptop with slackware on it), I use Ubuntu and Fedora gnome setups daily and have dallied in a bunch of others. So to me, it feels very comfortable. By this, I do not mean that it works exactly as I would like (yet...), but it responds to my gentle proddings in ways that makes sense to me - When something irks me I know where to start looking for a solution, and what degrees of freedom I can expect (This is in total opposition to Windows systems, which always seems to hide its tweaks in the place furthest from where I'm looking). We have a friendly relationship, XFCE and I, and we strive together to overcome any misunderstandings we might have :) It is a small wonder to me to be able to pop up an Abiword, a Geany or a Dia on that tiny-but-excellent screen.


But we're not here for the word processing, right? We're here for the games. And here, it already excels. I have tried a few of the homebrew games - PandoraPanic is brill in a mad way, Gianas Return is a trip down to the computer club in -89, where the (un-)original Giana was played daily. Just now, I remembered that I really must check that jewelswapping/rpg hybrid thingy that I don't remember the name of right now with decent controls, and decent controls reminded me that W&W might be playable through Ginge? Is it? If so, that is effing brilliant, because that was really a wonderful, wonderful game that one had to struggle to control through that GP2x stick...but I digress. More about that later. Emulation: I have been playing a lot of Super Mario RPG (Snes) these last days, finally with controls that work and at the expected speed. Before that, I started a campaign in Bahamut Lagoon (Snes) and one in Shining Force II, just to get a feel for them. I'll get back to them later. A bit of casual SMB3 (Nes) is never wrong whenever one has a few moments to spare, and I've started up Fuse just to see the nice power-up screen resolve from my childhood. And of course - We all have different parts of the gaming history that is really, really important to us, right? Some of us get mad glee at the first level of Super Mario 64, or get all nostalgic by Last Ninja or Manic Miner or whatever. Anyways, for me, to see the intro, from Aeris in the back alley, zooming back and up and seeing all of Midgar, and then back in, to the train and the terrorists/resistance fighters jumping off and running into that mako reactor...On that screen, in my pocket! And even though there are still slowdowns at the battle intro screens, it is actually, really, playable on this device, on the train or whatever...Pure bliss. Worth the ticket, alone.


Every emulator is not yet super-polished, just as all parts of the OS are not (dialogs that are higher than the screen spring to mind), but that is software. Software, in accordance to its name, changes and adapts and gets better. Already, it is great. In the near future, it will be brilliant.


So, are there no negatives? Well...Yes, of course there is. The fact that a face button is ever-so-slightly iffy is of course a negative point, as is the fact that I haven't so far gotten the wifi running. I could pick on the fact that I haven't yet been able to figure out how to write "Å i åa ä e ö" (not that I have really tried, but...). Little things. If I'm not careful when I hold it, the base corner might rest a bit uncomfortably against the palm of the hand. Given another viewpoint, other things might be negative - It doesn't run windows! It has only one screen! It has a keyboard!


But, for me, this really is the closest yet to The Perfect Gadget.


This does not mean that it would be the perfect gadget for everybody. I'm the kind of guy who has a LG GW620 handset, precisely because it has a physical keyboard, and who wants Android and not iOS (or, heavens forbid, windows phone whatever) for the exact reason that it allows me to open a terminal and do "df -h" to check the filesystem or that it allows me to write my own apps. Not that I write any apps, mind. But I'm allowed to, even encouraged. That is a very different mindset from someone who wants "the seamless experience" of an iSomething, or the big-name gloss and AAA titles of a Sony PlayLatest. That is the mindset of someone who wants a Perfectly Realised Object. That is not the pandora. The pandora is a Box of Possibilities.


All these little things. Seq24 is packaged as a PND, so if I get hold of a small USB-MIDI-interface, I might bring my favorite sequencer with me whenever inspiration strikes! Or, that might be Atari ST DR T's...But I can run that too, under Hatari! And, of course, those RPGs that I never got to finish because I got kids (they are a timesoak. A wonderful timesoak, but still) - I can play them on the commute! And I just now looked at the pandora and remembered that there is a microphone on there, and suddenly my mind starts "Hey, that would be nifty for...". All these "Wait, why don't you try..." things pop up, over and over again.


This turned out a lot longer than I thought. Guess I'm just a happy customer :lol: . Or, more correctly: A happy user. There is an important distinction there - The person I am prefers to be the user and operator of his gadgets.
 
YEEAAAAHHHH! My Pandora arrived!


Okay first things first, I downloaded all the things I figured I'd be needing a head of time, the hotfix and codec pack where the first things waiting for it when the package got up the stairs. I tore into it, examined each and every item in the box, It's crazy cold here in New York so when I finally laid hands on the Pandora it almost felt like it was made of metal!


Anyway, I fiddled with the battery cover totally forgetting that when the battery makes contact it instantly turns on, but I went a head and handled my first boot requirements, and made a quick test of Minimenu which felt pretty intuitive, I may use it on occasion but still being a full on linux noob I figured I should immerse myself in Xfce. The battery was at about 49% so I had time to mess around and show it off to the family before connecting the adapter. The finish feels great, the device is solid and while somewhat hefty, gets lighter with use. It's pocketable but maybe you dont want to put it in your pants pocket because it's a bit much but a jacket pocket for sure... maybe I might try a hip holster or something. God this screen looks awesome! The usual issues exist; the right side still isn't flush, the bezel bend is there but I could care less because looking at my HP netbook I notice similar issues like the creaking when I squeeze the edge of it's lid or the fact that even it has a bezel thing going on. I tried out the buttons and the shoulders dont feel too bad... the right might be a little off though. Where the left clicks solidly, the right feels like it'd rubbing against something. The X button feels like it's got something under it but is responsive... and lastly while it seemed to work perfectly in the first few minutes out of the box my left nub has gone faulty. :( so I'm probably going to end up having to return it for repairs, unfortunately.


In the meantime though, I installed hotfix 4 and it instantly asked me if I wanted to connect to one of the numerous wifi signals in my area but I had to reboot first so I did that and installed the codec pack then changed my desktop image and connected quickly and without issue to my router. I havent tested any speeds but considering how easy it was at this point already I don't anticipate and issues. Tried a couple of web browsers, Arora is okay, Midori is nice but I can't log into the forums with it because I can't see the Sign-in (or else this post would have been typed on the Pandora). I was hoping to post pictures and maybe a comparison to my netbook but the nub issue kind took some of the wind out of my sails.


I'll going to finish charging it up and try out a few games then maybe read up one what can be done about the buttons safely. If nothing can be done for the nub then pictures will have to be taken when I get it back from Craig. Despite that it's mind blowingly awesome to finally have it in my hands... for the time being.
 
Can you explain in detail the nub issue? It will be the first faulty nub we have ever seen from this new batch, what's it doing?
 
Figures mine would be the first.


Okay, I started off rotating the cursor and if kinda felt slow in the diagonal directions in the beginning then I started noticing a little of the crunchy/gritty feeling that was mentioned back in the beginning. Eventually it started getting very slow moving down, the cursor crawls. I have to wiggle it back and forth the get it down to the bottom of the screen. Moving left and right it feels fine and up seems okay.


While the right nub feels like it floats beautifully the left has a feeling of resistance especially when I push it in the down direction.
 
Figures mine would be the first.


Okay, I started off rotating the cursor and if kinda felt slow in the diagonal directions in the beginning then I started noticing a little of the crunchy/gritty feeling that was mentioned back in the beginning. Eventually it started getting very slow moving down, the cursor crawls. I have to wiggle it back and forth the get it down to the bottom of the screen. Moving left and right it feels fine and up seems okay.


While the right nub feels like it floats beautifully the left has a feeling of resistance especially when I push it in the down direction.

Have you tried resetting it incase it just calibrated wrong?
 
Yeah a couple of times. I'm going to shut it down and turn it on again and see if there's any change.


EDIT:


Forgot it was still plugged in when I turned it off and it instantly restarted, that seemed to fix it... though while rotating it it started to feel a little sluggish again in diagonals. the feeling of resistance is gone, maybe it was just my imagination and the gritty feeling could have been the feeling of it against the edges of the nub housing maybe(?)... fiddling with it more it feels like the sluggishness builds up over time, maybe it's just a Fxce thing?


EDIT 2:


Started up Minimenu to see if it feels the same in Abiword. While moving the cursor in figure 8's it starts to get a little sluggish so it might just be a calibration thing. The nub rest in Fxce didnt seem to change anything at all when I tried it.
 
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Yeah a couple of times. I'm going to shut it down and turn it on again and see if there's any change.


EDIT:


Forgot it was still plugged in when I turned it off and it instantly restarted, that seemed to fix it... though while rotating it it started to feel a little sluggish again in diagonals. the feeling of resistance is gone, maybe it was just my imagination and the gritty feeling could have been the feeling of it against the edges of the nub housing maybe(?)... fiddling with it more it feels like the sluggishness builds up over time, maybe it's just a Fxce thing?


EDIT 2:


Started up Minimenu to see if it feels the same in Abiword. While moving the cursor in figure 8's it starts to get a little sluggish so it might just be a calibration thing. The nub rest in Fxce didnt seem to change anything at all when I tried it.

Some things on the nubs:


They autocalibrate, so they need a few seconds of normal movement before they work.


If you start to wiggle them around at the beginning, they get confused :)


If you just move the mouse around slowly, it might not get all directions properly from the very beginning, but should after moving it a bit around (usually after a few seconds).


Of course, if you only move to two or three dircetions, it can't calibrate.


So to see if it was calibration:


First slowly move them up, down, left, right and repeat that until it works properly in every direction.


Also try disabling mouse acceleration in the XFCE4 settings - that probably doesn't work too well with the nubs :)
 
It's very nice, I don't see any cracks or broken buttons. The X button is a bit 'muffled' compared to the others but it's just as functional. It feels more sturdy than my DS Lite...


The emulators are great, but for games which they aren't compatible with, often they completely freeze the system making me force reset it, not having access to the "kill"-menu. Is this normal behavior, and is it damaging?
 
Awesome review, Moxie. Just one thing about your button problem, though: you might want to give it a week or two of regular use before you try to fix it yourself. Apparently people have had their keys begin to behave normally over time if they just left it as it was.


Heh... It's sorta funny cool to see Craig and ED jump in to try to help the customer with the supposedly faulty nub. :p
 
Some things on the nubs:


They autocalibrate, so they need a few seconds of normal movement before they work.


If you start to wiggle them around at the beginning, they get confused :)


If you just move the mouse around slowly, it might not get all directions properly from the very beginning, but should after moving it a bit around (usually after a few seconds).


Of course, if you only move to two or three dircetions, it can't calibrate.


So to see if it was calibration:


First slowly move them up, down, left, right and repeat that until it works properly in every direction.


Also try disabling mouse acceleration in the XFCE4 settings - that probably doesn't work too well with the nubs :)

Thanks Craig and ED for the super quick response!


I'm willing to say at this point that I feel a lot better about the nubs and don't think there's any problem. I guess I was probably being overly sensitive in making sure it was working properly. How often do the nubs auto-calibrate? is it just at start up once you reach the desktop? Because the sluggish feeling seems to happen randomly through out use. It's like it will scroll smoothly one second and then if I change directions it chugs, if I push again it speeds up.


Anyway I'm still getting used to it. trying to figure out where things go, I'll probably due a post on my final impressions with actual pictures tomorrow. I've still yet to mess with music and video, and only just now figured out how to personalize my desktop (*Shakes fist at Nand*) so there still quite a few things to look at before I really cement what those impressions actually are. But despite my alarmist reaction my early impressions are very favorable.
 
Because the sluggish feeling seems to happen randomly through out use. It's like it will scroll smoothly one second and then if I change directions it chugs, if I push again it speeds up.
I just wanted to drop in and mention that that was pretty normal on the old type of nubs, and I still get it on mine on occasion. Once you get used to using the nubs for mousing, though, you'll find that it won't seem to happen as often.


Depending on how much got revised, nubs-wise, I would imagine it wouldn't be a huge stretch of the imagination that the new nubs might do this normally, too. :p
 
When I first got my unit, my left nub was doing some of the things described here. After a few hours of use it went away, and I didn't have another problem until it died a few weeks ago. I didn't try to calibrate, or change any settings. I just used it for awhile, and then it worked fine.


Chris
 
How often do the nubs auto-calibrate? is it just at start up once you reach the desktop? Because the sluggish feeling seems to happen randomly through out use. It's like it will scroll smoothly one second and then if I change directions it chugs, if I push again it speeds up.
It seems to do it constantly, from my observations. If you spend a lot of time not moving the nubs, or maybe moving them hard in one direction but only slightly in other directions, it will auto-calibrate over a period of time until that slight is now full. It's kind of odd how it does it, and I only have a vague idea from black box testing.


When it does, this can make one or two directions, even diagonals, seem extremely sluggish compared to other directions. When I start to notice it doing this, I just nudge the nubs in all four directions and around in a circle for a second or two, and it auto-calibrates back to full.
 
will someone whom has there pandy see if this game will run. its a 2d mmorpg and could be my fovorite game if it works on pandora. it will be hard on the little screen but it isnt completely point and click. it called "Stendhal" http://stendhalgame.org/ it relies on a java runtime environment.
 
Thanks for the really great review Moxie! I'm itching at the idea of getting mine, I feel like I'm gonna jump out of my skin!


Also thanks Alpha2, sorry your nub doesn't seem to work quite right (maybe) but I hope everything works out ok...


Lastly, thanks to Craigix, ED, and the rest of the community who step in there with instant support! You don't get that anywhere else, and it's quite refreshing and welcomed!
 
will someone whom has there pandy see if this game will run. its a 2d mmorpg and could be my fovorite game if it works on pandora. it will be hard on the little screen but it isnt completely point and click. it called "Stendhal" http://stendhalgame.org/ it relies on a java runtime environment.
It starts at least. I get to the title screen but I can't (legally) connect my Pandora to the internet from here. I'll try again when I get home tonight.
 
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