Pandora pre-orders go live
By Nilay Patel 
posted September 30th 2008 11:32AM
posted September 30th 2008 11:32AM
posted September 30th 2008 11:32AM
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PSP = 333mhz and 64mb ram at the max
Pandora = 500-600mhz defualt and up to 900mhz easy with 128mb ram
you do the math pandora will win
alright, Pandora has more power. But it STILL can't emulate PSP isos.
It's moments like these when you don't ask yourself what the Pandora's potential is. You ask what it can actually DO. It's an excellent emulator for everything other than the PSP. The thing is, the PSP can do all the other handhelds + has a huge library for itself.... and a higher build quality, slimmer package...etc...AND is a lot cheaper.
I was very excited about Pandora but given its price AND how low a used slim PSP with isos and emulators costs, I don't think it will be winning me over.
The PSP is cheaper because they make money off the games as I'm sure you are already aware. Most of us don't want to bother with hacking and potentially bricking our PSPs to run the software that we want on it. Sony doesn't want us doing that either, obviously, which is why they continue to fight against it with firmware upgrades. That was fine when we didn't really have a choice but now we do. I'd prefer to support the companies that are making open systems since that is what I am interested in and I'd like them to continue to make them. You can't compare the price point though. They have to make money off of the hardware. There's no way around that. If you are cool with your PSP then that's perfectly fine. I'm just throwing in my two cents.
Plus for $64 shipped, I can throw 32 GB worth of storage into this thing. Let's see your PSP do that? :)))
Alright, but again, what about the most important thing, THE GAMES?
With the PSP you have the entire ISO library of PSP games (some even better than the PS2 in quality) and MAME,GBA,SNES...etc
Whereas the Pandora will emulate the latter group in addition to PSone games that don't compare to those of the PSP in terms of quality, besides the fact they weren't made for handheld.
Pandora is "open", it's "free", it can do anything and everything... only I'm sorry but if it could do PSP then I wouldn't be debating with you. But it can't. And guess what, the PSP can do all the other systems as well.
Add this entire debate to the fact next-gen handheld gaming is just around the corner.
can a PSP emulate a PSP...hmm?
the pandora is likely to have a huge open source game collection quake 3 and maybe even doom 4 when it is released opensource right after rage goes on sale according to id
also the screen is of far higher quality than that of the PSP
* Add this entire debate to the fact next-gen handheld gaming is just around the corner. *
I wouldn't count on this one happening too quickly. The PSP just got going a year ago, maybe two. I don't see Sony, especially in the shape they are in right now, going back to square one and putting out a brand new, insanely overspeced handheld gaming system for a while. It'll be 3 - 5 years at least. They might update the PSP a couple more times with some minor revisions but it was way too far a head of it's time when it came out to make it worth making another one just yet. Ninty might come out with another handheld but theirs are always terribly underspeced and will be lucky to be as powerful as the current PSP. You'll be waiting longer than you think. Handheld gaming systems don't advance as fast as their console counterparts.
* ...only I'm sorry but if it could do PSP then... *
If all you want is a gaming handheld and don't mind hacking the firmware to do MAME, NES etc then the PSP is probably the way to go. You'll probably get most of the desired emulators and have PSP games to boot. Browsing the internet on the PSP is not pleasent and you're not going to be able to do OpenOffice type stuff, not sure about PDF viewing, music composition and whatever else we use computers for. If you can, the applications probably aren't very polished or are difficult to use. My point is that it can be used for more than just playing games. I personally think that is a nice bonus and worth the extra cost (for me).
Hi TareX,
I would just like to say that although the pandora does not emulate the PSP yet, that does not mean that it will not.
I hope u relise that it took people like DaX (major player in custom psp firmware) and many others in the psp scene that made the emulators and homebrew games / apps years to make the psp as good as it is today.
If you look at this list it gives you a good idea at the current emulating possibilities and abilities of the pandora as it stands now, and this is before the device is to be shipped.
http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?showtopic=41897
If you look at this list someone is actually going to attempt to make a dreamcast emu for pandora! Somthing that would never happen on the psp, its just not got the power needed.
also does the psp have a built in keybord? not yet and its been years and still nothing official about one, also the browser isn't perticurlarly amazing, but the pandora should be able to run firefox which is a much better browser.
And im not saying all this because I hate the psp cos i dont! i own 2 the original black one witch has a undiluted platinum mod chip in it, and a slim and light white one, both with the latest released DaX custom firmware.
I just think that the pandora has so much more to offer than my psps, i.e. bluetooth (this could be used with a bluetooth gps device), large resolution touch screen, built in keyboard, dual anolog controllers (which the psp soooo should have had) and the best for me has got to be the built in USB 2.0 host which means I can plug my own usb devices into the pandora e.g. my own keyboard and mouse along with any other usb 2.0 device as long as there are drivers for it (mmmmm :) external usb hardrive, mmmmm :) usb psx pad adaptor cable for my psx pad).
I have mine pre-ordered and i just cant wait.
anyone else as excited as me?
eeeeeeeee :D
Just because you happen to be the one person on Earth who thinks PSP has an indispensable library of games doesn't mean that the Pandora has no potential.
oh my God. When exactly did I say Pandora has no potential? Does everyone here go into "Brain Dead mode" once pandora is criticised?
All Pandora has is "potential". But until it emulates PSP, and emulates it smoothly, the PSP will remain a more capable device with a bigger library of games, including the PSP games which are the most important, and all in a smaller package for a much better price.
As for Firefox on Pandora... this is great, it is. But Pandora is first and foremost a gaming device, and till it can at least do PSP, it will be LARGELY deficient, and needlessly more expensive (till PSP is emulated).
Nobody said love for openness should be BLIND.
@tarex
$329 is too much ?
i agree with you that the psp is better for games , but you didnt factor in the mid-like qualities of the device. the psp is good for games and only games, which is fine if all you want to do is play games , but if you want to browse the web , im chat , watch movies or anything else the psp is rubbish.
it might not be the best portable gaming machine but it seem like it might be the best all rounder , and considering what you get for your money i do not think it is overpriced.
Well, you completely misunderstand the market if you think all it needs to be good for is games. Hey, I don't even play console/handheld games to speak of, and I'm considering getting one out of the next batch (or one of these second-hand). The Pandora team, somewhere along the way, seem to have realized the way to build a gaming machine is to build a general purpose computer with gaming controls -- while as a non-PSP/DS/etc. type, I don't really care about the gaming controls, it's the cheapest pocket computer with this processing power on the market.
For anyone less hung-up on PSP games than you, the versatility of this wins bigtime; you could buy a PSP and a netbook for twice this, or buy this and cover 90% of both. A lot of people like that.
@ Benson.
You see that last phrase, this is where you're wrong. You won't be "covering 90% of both a PSP+netbook"! Hell you won't be covering 10-15% of the PSP alone. If you want to consider the Pandora as a very capable MID, then yeah you're right it's a bargain and a good deal.
But as far as gaming is concerned, and I imagine that's the #1 attraction, it is far from a bargain. Internet? I have my smartphone for that. Movies? PSP can do that.
Down on paper, it boils down to this:
Pandora: Can do Firefox, but not a single PSP game.
PSP: Has a mediocre browser, can do PSP isos + GBA,SNES,MAME,...etc.
Again, if you plan to use it as an MID, then $329 is an amazing price to ask for. But I assume everyone owns an Internet capable device already (iPhone, Smartphone...etc), and if you want to supplement it with the biggest library of handheld games ever, get a hacked slim PSP off ebay for less than $200 and load it with all the ROMs, ISOs you can think of.
Come on people. How many times have you heard "Don't feed the TROLLS"?
I still don't find this thing practical. I'd rather get a Kojinsha tablet with the gamepad controls on the side. But I may be wrong. We shall see how it pans out.
UGH! Why is there so much cool stuff coming out! I don't know whether to buy this for portable webbing, games and mp3 player, buy a "Zune Nano" to replace my iPod, go all out to get an Android phone and replace everything...ahhh! My wallet aches.
Buy the pandora, sell your old nano, hawk the pandora on ebay, buy android then wait until new units and buy another pandora.
I ordered one, and as a hard-core GP2X fan I can't wait for the Pandora to get here!!!
What I like about the Pandora: The OPEN PART!! Yes, its open, folks .. runs an operating system anyone can hack for .. plus with the two SD slots, it means I can finally ship an app on SD and have the system behave like it should without fuss.
Plus, the on-board DSP is going to be a *lot* of fun to write music-apps for .. keep that in mind, its a ready-to-go musicians dream machine. Plenty of keys, plenty of power, and very, very portable...
One more silly "ABXY" key mapping!!
As if Xbox's wrong mapping wasn't enough.
there is nothing stoping you from remapping the keys... you might not be able to do that on a PSP but you will be able to do so on the pandora
And after that, feel free to swap the actual physical buttons, they're identical.
I can't convince myself to buy this on preorder, but if it takes off, I might seriously consider it on Round Two.
I'm thinking not only gaming, but as a possible replacement for my Palm Pilot.
Same here... Though I love my Lifedrive (yes, I still have it), Pandora looks incredible! I love the keyboard and controls, along with the expansion slots.
Damn... Probably going to have to wait for the second round on this as well... Want to make sure this does everything it says it can do. (Add PSP game support, and I'm there, until then... I'll stick with my Phat PSP, but that ain't the point now is it? P))
Same here. I'll also need to see where nintendo will be headed with the next DS iteration and how well homebrew shapes up for that. I really like the control that the touchscreen allows far more than a keyboard, no matter how much better the specs are for the Pandora. Basically, if a game is complex enough to need that type of hardware to support it, it usually means I'm just as happy to play it on my laptop or on a home console.
ordered one!
Same here
+1 from me. I like my gp2x, its not perfect, nor is the pandora at this moment, but it has hardware potential. Open source is the way to go.
The requested URL /pandora.html was not found on this server.
Same. Ah well, there is always next batch.
the thing is ugly, it looks like a "square" Nintendo DS, plus I do not see a bright future for this device. Once the PSP 2 comes out with all the shizzle, this thing will be crap.
errrm psp2? i dont think thats gonna be out for at least 2 years, they are milking the life out of the psp so bad that they release a new slim and light version with built in mic and because its made to play with the ps3 so much ull be in for a long wait there pal, you sony fanboys!!
PSP2 won't be out for a while. Heck, the PSP1 just recently started selling. It took Sony three years to start making a profit on it and it is just hitting it's peak now. They aren't going to put out another generation of hardware until the current one starts to suffer. If they are smart, they'll take a cue from Nintendo that a handheld gaming device can stay on the market for a good 8 - 10 years before it is horribly out of date and needs updated. Look how many attemps were made to overtake the Gameboy years after it came out and no one could do it. All of the newer systems were color and were much more powerful but always lacked battery life and most importantly, games. If Sony didn't have the spoils of over 10 years of dominance in the game console market, the PSP would've went the way of Gizmondo. I doubt that they'll make the same mistake twice. The PSP has at least 3 - 5 good years ahead of it. There would be no reason for them to come out with another one before then. Seriously, what would they accomplish by doubling the processor speed of their current system? Would the games be that much better that everyone will want to go out and spend another $250 on one? Besides, it'll be a while before Nintendo catches up in the hardware department. Their next handheld probably won't even be as powerful as the current PSP. Sony is going to do what makes them the most money so no PSP2 for several more years.
1. This isn't the final case. The final one is much curvier and more streamlined.
2. I doubt that the PSP 2 will be as powerful as this. You certainly won't be able to run Linux on it.
3. You might not want the Pandora anyway, as attempting to install shizzle on it will result in permanent hardware damage.
acer aspire one: $300
logitech controller: $20
hmmmm...
duct tape anyone?
Cool. Go ahead and duct tape that bad boy together and have at it. That's one more Pandora for some lucky guy out there who needs a little extra time to scrape up some more money for it. :)))
I'm using a similar setup right now actually (aspire one and a PS3 SixaxiS over bluetooth) but I have pre-ordered the Pandora because it was specifically built to do what I'm not forcing the Acer to do and is exactly the same price. ($330)
Ordered. Mainly for the Amiga emulation. But as a small web browser is should be great to.
I've owned a gp2x since its debut in Nov 05', and have been incredibly pleased thus far.. It still destroys the PSP for emulation capabilities, even without a decent GPU. The Pandora however, has such incredible specs that its graphic capabilities are comparable with the wii. There's an enormous potential here, and I'm incredibly happy to be on the pre-order list.
Don't worry about arm/x86 issues either, for the system is open-source, and many of the core applications will be open-source as well. With the use of libraries like SDL and OSG, porting a new game from PC to Pandora is as simple as recompiling for ARM. Now that's hot.
And for those DS fans out there, chances are you'll see a great emulator within the next 6-18 months, as Nintendo also went with an ARM architecture. I'm personally not a fan, but I can foresee side-by-side windows working well with the 5:3 touch screen. :)
gah, this is so tempting, but i dont have the cash for it, especially considering there aren't any final units yet.
@TareX: So that means the PS3 sucks because it can't emulate the XBox360? The Pandora isn't meant as a replacement to the PSP... Think about the legal issues if there'd be an PSP emulator for this machine.
If you want to play PSP games, buy a PSP... or try trolling elsewhere...
I just ordered one, and I'm not sure why. I don't play emulated or homebrew games. I'm not familiar with Linux, and I'm not a coder.
I think I'm interested in the CPU, for some reason. I owned a Dreamcast, and I have a DS that doesn't see much use. Maybe the idea of a handheld computer with a super long battery life and dual SDHC cards for the same price as a netbook is appealing to me.
I'm hoping someone will come out with something cool to do with the Pandora and the iPhone together.
Someone, tell me why I impulsively purchased this thing. I'm open to ideas.
You want to support the open source community, because you're such a nice guy. Plus you want firefox in your pocket!
This will make some people happy:
Ubuntu ( take 2 ) on the Pandora. And no, this is a different version than the one posted a few days ago. Unlike the one of a few days ago, that was running on swap, this is a optimized version ( can be seen several times during the video with 65% free memory and 45% free after firefox surfing ). Yes, Firefox!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I47F87FeLV8
xfce means xubuntu, no?
will this unit ever be able to run the first gen xbox games? halo? I just ordered the unit today. I hope it great! borrow, sell but do what you have to to get one of these bad boys! cheers!
Sorry but no it won't. It is about as powerful as the original X-Box but when you emulate another system, you need a much more powerful system to pull it off. It will do PSX and anything before that straight out of the box (once you download the emulators). I'd be surprised if someone didn't get N64 running at, at least, playable speeds sometime or another especially since the control scheme would work perfect for it. Dreamcast is probably a dream but you never know. Anything beyond that isn't going to happen except for maybe NDS since that is a fairly weak system.
I just pre-ordered one, I'm not sure exactly why, my reasons may be displaced but I am strangely drawn to this, and just blew me new digital camera fund in the process. I have long been facinated by EEEPC, gp2x and expensive PDAs. but I have never been able to justify one because it was either too big and impractical (EEEPC) to niche (gp2x) or had the potentials of both, but didn't have a good enough processor to run emulation or other apps I would want (PDA) Here is to hoping that this little beast can live up to all the hype
Pre-ordered! My early gaming days go back to the C64, and now I'll have one in my pocket...if that's all this thing did it would be worth it. :) But wait, there's more: Amiga & Genesis...plus Firefox, and USB/Bluetooth GPS potential...Order up!!!
They pre-sold 2000 units in six hours yesterday...looks like some people don't give a damn about PSP emulation. :)
I might just repurpose the Acer Aspire One for use as a normal computer after getting the Pandora up and running.
Can't wait to see what the build quality is like