Pandora hits some production snags, will miss the holidays
By Paul Miller 
posted December 11th 2009 12:24PM
posted December 11th 2009 12:24PM
Concerned for a long-suffering Pandora pre-orderer in you life? Well, you might want to keep them away from sharp knives and their dormant SD card full of rare ROMs for the next few weeks. The device has seemed tantalizingly close in recent months, but new word from the front lines means that we won't be seeing the final devices ship out until well into the new year. Luckily, the list of tweaks sounds pretty minor, including an adjustment to shoulder button action perfection that we can all get behind, but we suppose it also serves as a sobering example of just how hard it can be to actually get good hardware (or even the crappy stuff) built. Cough, CrunchPad, cough.[Thanks, Steve]
Update: Seems things may not be as serious as previously assumed, but until we see these things shipping en masse, we still aren't getting our hopes up too high. It's a personal defense mechanism, is all. Thanks, atomicthumbs!
@cloud858rk
I know what you mean, but I'm talking about the likes of the Odroid gaming system etc... it doesn't have to be a smartphone. All they have to do is use the right hardware. I don't know maybe I'm upset this has been delayed for so long.. I had so much hopes for it. There is a slew of new technologies, SOC's like Tegra, Omap advancements, and innovations coming out next year the likes of which we had never seen in the past decade. The lines between game system, phone, PDA, and laptop are truly becoming blurred. Add many open source OS to the mix and you get the idea... convergence heaven.
Droido, or whatever that Android-powered console without all the ludicrous, extraneous hardware is called, Has a more powerful processor, the same video hardware(sadly), and is already shipping.
Basically, the competition is real.
@(Unverified)
You mean the Odroid, the thing that looks like a Wonderswan and has terrible controls?
@atomicthumbs That keyboard looks awful, and is never going to ship.
@atomicthumbs
Dude, don't say that. You're supposed to be defending the Pandora from people that judge it as "ugly" and "terrible" without trying it. Don't hypocritically judge another console in the same way.
http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?/topic/50806-media-reports/page__view__findpost__p__784740
How long has it been now? I'd buy a Droid and just get the emulators
I pre-ordered the Pandora. I am a little disappointed it's taken this long to get here - not as disappointed as Craig and team, I'm sure - and two months was an old joke well before January of this year.
It's great to see something that's 99.9% the final product. I'm glad to hear the Pandora team is tweaking that final .1% of the hardware to perfect it, even with the tiny additional delay it adds.
There may be devices that have as much or more power than the Pandora when I have it in my hands, and for some people that's a let down. For me, the specs as they stand now are still very exciting.
QIII on a hand-held? Yes, please. An OpenGL ES accelerated console that I don't have to jailbreak to program for? Sign me up. Many games that have been ported for Linux are already up and running on the Pandora, as are many emulators, and I can use desktop apps on it as well. Movies and music should play on it with no issue.
I expect a very active and enthusiastic community, and one that grows over time. If I have questions about development, I expect that I'll get help from the owners of the project, or from the developers like Pickle who've worked on it a lot already, and already have some docs about getting up and running developing for the Pandora.
Is the device for everybody? No, though I expect that by the 2nd batch anybody could use it. (I expect some of the software to be a bit rough around the edges for us first batchers, but I think we all expected this when we pre-ordered.) For those who it is aimed at, I believe there's a great deal of excitement.
As far as boot times and what have you, those are fair comments, but I expect the software to improve greatly over time. There is software development happening as we speak for it, but since all the drivers are up and working, I think the main push has been to perfect the hardware. There are a lot of things that can improve the bootup time of the Pandora, and Linux in general, and I expect once software suspend is properly working - the way most of us will "shut down" that the bootup times will be addressed as well.
Personally, I'm glad someone still wants to get these things right. I've seen quite enough rushed-to-market, half-baked crap.
I was thinking of a pandora or a n900... the latter is already in my pocket, sorry openpandora you just didn't make the cut
@(Unverified)
Have fun doing some serious gaming on that
I can wait for it (besides, I'm most definitely in the 2nd run of production on these things since I ordered just last week, since the second batch is said to be go right after the first, we can then perhaps anticipate the 2nd batch in a month after the 1st?). If a few things need to be tweaked, then so be it - this system is going to be awesome.
+1 for USB tho, I can charge it off a couple NiMh batteries if the juice gets too low; usb data card (for this, though, I'm waiting for Wind in Canada) - for Skype? Possibilities are endless!
BTW for all you nutjobs that are saying this device isn't as powerful anymore or etc., well - we call you nutjobs for a reason.
good News for you DrPepper! Preorders for the second run have not yet happened and won't until the entire first batch ships. You will most likely be around 3800-3900 but should not have to wait too long. I should be around 3000 or so and none shipping by Christmas was my cancel date but I have decided it's just too close to quit now. Now if in January it's looking more like another dreaded 2 months, we'll I'm done then. Here's hoping that I NEVER cancel!!!