Pandora cases start arriving, production enters 'so close you can smell it' stage
By Darren Murph 
posted November 25th 2009 10:10PM
posted November 25th 2009 10:10PM
[Thanks, Andrew]
posted November 25th 2009 10:10PM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
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....Is that a LEGO in the picture? Swear to god there's what I would call an '8x2 flat' LEGO brick in there....
Also, when did this registration nonsense start? It's incredibly annoying....
@urza9814 Trolls need a way to keep debunkers out.
I am an early adopter, ordered a few hours into the pre-order, I have two coming since I know I will love one so much... The wait is fine, all those games that I want to emulate already exist. It will make my whole emulation collection portable.
evoking the Phantom... nicely done sir.
Erm, that should be "Hellollo World", yo .. pay attention, Engadget coolster types ..
LOL, their only that far along, surprised their still in business.
If their only that far along, their going to miss another Christmas!
That's not one, but two Christmas now.
Engadget doesn't have a "Read" link any more :(
How is 330 expensive? Think about how expensive the ipod touch is - $200 for 8 gb. How is this any different? Same mobo and capabilities. Yes, it is $300, but you have the ability to add whatever SD cards you want, and put whatever applications are built for it, which means in the linux world anything that gets ported, including android, and xbmc, or mer. This platform has a lot of different possibilities. And is being heavily developed already, Palm Pre, Always Innovating TouchBook, Nokia N900, Moto Droid, Ipod Touch 3g, and Iphone 3gs. So it is just a matter of time before the linux tweakers start throwing everything on it.
@bqp11167 It's sure alot of money for... absolutely nothing.
So, wait a second now..shipping in October...hmm...it seems that to be the end of November now, and they are JUST NOW getting the parts in for these things? Hmm...seems to me that some commentors where right about its vapourware-ness. Give it a year, maybe someone will get one on their doorstep....only 3 years late.
It will arrive after your Phantom Game Console with Duke Nukem Forever pre-installed on the holographic drive!
For all of you people commenting on how there are other devices that can run the same emulators as the Pandora (at least, at the same speed), you're totally wrong. The Pandora beats out the PSP easily in terms of power. Also, it has a major advantage over the 3GS, even though they use the same chip. Apple reserves part of the hardware for the OS, making applications run slower (and this affects emulators more than anything else). The Pandora also has a much better control scheme than any other handheld device.
On top of all of that, it runs Linux, meaning there is already a large amount of software that can either run on it right now or can be ported without much trouble. It can run all sorts of office/productivity apps, media apps, and more. Best of all, you don't have to break your warranty installing patched firmware or jailbreak your phone to do it - all of the functionality is right there and easy to use. It's a developer's dream come true.
@Vorporeal
The iPhone uses some Samsung SoC. They just have the same ARM core. I don't think the Samsung chip has all the features the TI ones do.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's more powerful... But what does that mean in practical terms? What emulator will it manage that others cannot? And is that new emulator worth the major price difference? I mean, what we're really talking about here is a *future* hope that it will emulate newer consoles like the PS2, Xbox, or even the current generation (unlikely at this point).
But in practical terms, emulating a couple extra consoles over the other options (PSP, WiZ, Dingoo, etc.) isn't worth paying more than twice as much as those other options.
In terms of value as opposed to practical usage, it costs way more than the competition and only does a small amount more for that price jump.
And that's even assuming they honor the deal and send you what was advertised. You're trusting some unknown, random dudes on the Internet who could, honestly, just up and disappear and leave you empty-handed.
Pandora just has too many rough edges for me to throw over $300 at it sight unseen. If you want to do so, then enjoy it. I'll stand back, wait, and see if it's worth all the hype or if all you guys who try it out and alpha test it for the rest of us get what you paid for.
...access the internet via FireFox...
no thanks. I am a Firefox anti-fan.
@artist
Then I've got some great news for you! Don't like Firefox? Don't use it. This is part of what is expected to make the Pandora so great: if you don't like one piece of software and would rather have something else, go right ahead and install that something else. People have been talking about getting Chrome running on it. Opera will probably make an unofficial appearance eventually, possibly even Safari, if we're lucky. If your browser of choice is open source, that makes it pretty easy; it's just the closed source ones that are causing problems.
So you don't have to use Firefox, or Abiword, or any other default programs if you don't want to: if there's something you would prefer, comment on it and you might be pleasantly surprised to find someone from the growing community willing to help get that running.
Deal is off if you think Internet Explorer is the alternative in your Anti-Firefox existence, however.
Its a great idea, but by the time they get this thing out, it'll be obsolete, because some large company in Korea with come out with a slicker more capable device.
Exactly, or more likely, a Chinese company will clone the hell out of it, make some minor improvements, and then sell it for about 30% less.
@ZeroCorpse
Exactly how many Chinese cloned electronics do you know of that have had improvements over the originals?
Now how many Chinese cloned electronics can you think of that are noticeably worse than the original?
Which number is bigger?
I'm better off buying a netbook.