Some Pandora Questions


christo930

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I was looking at the faq and I had a couple of questions.

The faq says the battery will be lithium polymer battery at 4000mah. Is it a single cell ie 3.6 volts (14.4watt hours). It also says the battery is expected to run the device 10 hours with basic usage (presumably no wifi or usb connections), so I guess this will only have 1.4 watt draw at the stock cpu speed and no other power draw like wifi etc? Or is it a 2 cell 7.2 28.8 watt hour?

QUOTE

Will there be some sort of package manager?

Yes. The specifics are not yet finalized, but there will be an easy package-based software installation system.


This would seem pretty neat to do right from the machine, but can you just put the card in a writer and unzip the package in the wanted directory the way you do it on gp2x, or will it be more like a linux pc system where software needs to be installed as opposed to just dropped in a directory on the sd card?

What browser will it come with and will it work with youtube and other video sites? IS there any features of the browser like the way the iPhone deals with websites with zooming and such?

Is the screen good enough for book reading? As an example, I do not consider the gp2x's screen appropriate for ebooks. It is simply too hard on the eyes. The GP32 (original) is good enough. Would it compare favorably with the screen quality in an ipaq? I can read for hours and hours on an iPaq, but not for 5 minutes on a gp2x.

Does having the 3d hardware make 3d emu's faster? I've heard that mame doesn't run 3d games any faster with the video turned off. Basically the emulated machine is what is generating the 3d graphics and outputs to the host what is essentially a bmp of the screen. Is it possible to write an emulator in such a way that the emulated machine can take advantage of hardware on the host? I know ULTRAHLE did it, but at the price of compatibility. Has this been perfected and now works fine or does it not really matter if the host has 3d hardware or not?


Is there any new information on when it will be available?

Chris
 
christo930 said:
This would seem pretty neat to do right from the machine, but can you just put the card in a writer and unzip the package in the wanted directory the way you do it on gp2x, or will it be more like a linux pc system where software needs to be installed as opposed to just dropped in a directory on the sd card?
No system 'requires' it, but it's recommended. It will be perfectly possible to drop stuff on an SD card, albeit you'd have to upgrade them by hand.

christo930 said:
What browser will it come with and will it work with youtube and other video sites? IS there any features of the browser like the way the iPhone deals with websites with zooming and such?
Probably a flavor of Firefox. Youtube videos will be watchable, not certain for other sites. Firefox 3 has full page zoom.

christo930 said:
Does having the 3d hardware make 3d emu's faster? I've heard that mame doesn't run 3d games any faster with the video turned off. Basically the emulated machine is what is generating the 3d graphics and outputs to the host what is essentially a bmp of the screen. Is it possible to write an emulator in such a way that the emulated machine can take advantage of hardware on the host? I know ULTRAHLE did it, but at the price of compatibility. Has this been perfected and now works fine or does it not really matter if the host has 3d hardware or not?
I'm no expert with emulators, but often not the GPU is the bottleneck. Emulators should be able to use OpenGL ES for 3d without fearing lack of portability/compatibility.
 
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christo930 said:
This would seem pretty neat to do right from the machine, but can you just put the card in a writer and unzip the package in the wanted directory the way you do it on gp2x, or will it be more like a linux pc system where software needs to be installed as opposed to just dropped in a directory on the sd card?
if its anything like ubuntu's, there will be an option to add custom repositories - like packages on a sd card, or usb harddrive, or samba shares over the network even.
and as sinbad mentioned, you can always go the manual route.

christo930 said:
What browser will it come with and will it work with youtube and other video sites?
there will no doubt be a port of firefox, we dont know what the 'official' browser will be tho.
as for flash: http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=41844

christo930 said:
Is the screen good enough for book reading? As an example, I do not consider the gp2x's screen appropriate for ebooks. It is simply too hard on the eyes. The GP32 (original) is good enough. Would it compare favorably with the screen quality in an ipaq? I can read for hours and hours on an iPaq, but not for 5 minutes on a gp2x.
according to craigix:
"The screen is the same 800*480 LCD as the Archos WiFi uses, so if you want to see the Pandora LCD in action take a look at an Archos next time you are out buying gadgets :)"
ive never seen one, so i can't say personally, but anyone who's used an archos seems to think they have a great screen.

christo930 said:
Does having the 3d hardware make 3d emu's faster? I've heard that mame doesn't run 3d games any faster with the video turned off. Basically the emulated machine is what is generating the 3d graphics and outputs to the host what is essentially a bmp of the screen. Is it possible to write an emulator in such a way that the emulated machine can take advantage of hardware on the host? I know ULTRAHLE did it, but at the price of compatibility.
yes. i dont know about mame, but every n64 and psx emulator ive ever used has hardware 3d acceleration as an option, and it makes a huge difference. ultrahle's compatability issues were due to the inaccuracy of high level emulation. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrahle
"High Level Emulation had its drawbacks. At the time of release, UltraHLE was only able to emulate approximately 20 games to a playable standard. The software only emulated and simulated the calls that were required for specific games; it was required to adapt the software for games that used different parts of the N64 hardware."
 
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