For those that don't know: The Pandora handheld was designed by a team of gp2x enthusiasts to offer full speed emulation of many Pre PS2 consoles. Its essentially a nintendo DS screen with the bottom part consisting of a keyboard, d pad and two analog nubs for N64 or ps1 games. Their website is here: http://www.openpandora.org/ What bothers me is that the first batch of 3,000 plus orders from 2008 still hasn't been fulfilled yet. They just started shipping in May of 2010. If you go to their website, it says the 2nd batch is sold out which means if you ordered today, it could be months before it arrives at your doorstep. I'm guessing 6 months time? Or longer?? So for $350 euro it just doesn't look worth the gamble. I really like the layout and the full speed emulation but by the time the Pandora arrives it would certainly be out of date hardware wise? I understand its made by hand by enthusiasts for enthusiasts and I'm fine with the price tag if that meant I'd have one within a week, which isn't the case. What do you all think? And if you are one of the lucky very few who have one post also!
It looks very, very pretty. But all that organizational bullshit brought it down fast. Also, what if it malfunctions? Who will give you customer service on your 350 dollar brick now? But it does look very, very pretty. If something like this were mass produced, or had 100% guaranteed quality, and I didn't have to wait 2 years to get mine, I'd get one immediately.
actually they got 2 weeks delay not much more. It's not like they lied on times or such. This is mass produced, just the first batch are small to make sure there are no defects. also no malfunctions reported on all the units shipped so far.
At one point i was following this little handheld because i was considering to buy one myself. I know theres been a long wait but the team have really done well as karsten has pointed out there was only a small delay. People that have gotten their hands on one so far have claimed its a good piece of kit. I've only heard of one guy having an issue with a dodgy case but the team quickly fixed the issue for the him. As for emulation its a little sketchy. N64 apparently is a mixed bag from some games running at full speed, to slow, to even slower and finally to some not even working at all. The Dreamcast emulation last time i checked ran at a really low fps not sure if its improved yet. Earlier on last year I watched a few video reviews and there seems to be a few more now. You might find them interesting! http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pandora+handheld+review&aq=1
If the wait is really only two weeks at this point thats not bad at all. I'll have to keep track of their forums to see if the shipments continue. I'll check out those videos too. Hopefully as it gets in more hands the software development will be optimized and we'll see faster dreamcast emulation.
Is it essentially an x86-based PC, or does it have some other processor in it? When I saw the mock-up for the first time, my first thought was that it was an ideal Diablo client. Forget about emulation, running DOS or Windows games natively on the thing would be pretty cool in my book. Handheld Morrowind would just make the whole day melt away.
According to the site: ARM® Cortex™-A8 600Mhz+ CPU Wouldn't hold your breath for decent DC emulation.
It was dead before it touched anyone's hands. The PSP homebrew scene is just too big, and the hardware itself too cheap to compete, so what you have is an open source solution competing with an unintended grey market one. TBH they should have made something like this back in 04 when the PSP was nothing but rumors.
I agree with Shadowlayer tbh. The PSP has that much homebrew and emulators already ported for it now and the price difference puts a huge swing to the PSP. The Pandora does have two anolog sticks though so if you really think its a must for playing PS1 games. As already pointed out the chances of the Pandora being able to run Dreamcast games full speed are going to be pretty slim.
Everything I've read about it indicates it's a small manufacturing run of a device for enthusiasts, never intended to compete with PSP or anything like that. Hard to compete with Sony if you're only making 3000 of them. From a practical standpoint most people would be happier with a PSP if all they want is a few emulators for older machines, but that's a different thing altogether.
So tempting! edit: Actually in US currency comes to $435 for the refurb, yikes. Thanks for the link though
