Wither Pandora?

[unknown1]

Just came across a link to Pandora, which I hadn't seem in a long while:

http://boards.openpandora.org/page/homepage.html

Then I saw the price of this ugly thing: $649!!!!

I think they would be better off using an iPod Touch as the base unit and adding on the controls and running it on custom software. It would cost way less and look nicer too. Of course the Apple Haters will decry this as a vile abortion of technology...

[persia]

They should stick to radio or 3 m tall blue people.

[som99]

Ive been following the OpenPandora development since the Gamepark GP2X era and yes the Pandora is pricy but the journey have been long for the devs and Everything from design to production has been payed from their own pockets by talking loans at banks.

When the OpenPandora Project started there where NOTHING on the market that could do what the Pandora would do, A handheld system with full QWERTY keyboard and dedicated gamepad Controls and touchscreen for all retro gaming needs. It was a Dream come true when announced but the sad part is that development took about 1-2 years to long time so when released it was not as top notch harware as it was supposed to be, but there are some great coders porting/coding for it so it has a quite decent repo.

The cost of doing things like this in europe in small scale is high that's why the price is so high.

I have lots of love for the pandora Community/devs/creators so my input would be to colored by my feelings for the OpenPandora.

This Project was made for a Community that love Retro gaming not the masses, look around the Amiga World it's not like small scale hardware wether it is for classics or NG boards are cheep.

So it's a niche Product made for retro lovers who love to code and play retro games.
The OpenPandora was early with MANY emulator ports for handheld also if you check the repo they got pretty much emulators for all systems out there Worth mentioning from TI99, Atari, Amiga to new stuff like N64/PSX/Dreamcast and even newer like PSP, Nintendo DS etc... all that in your pocket and also a computer in your pocket with desktop Linux experiance was something Amazing when the Project started.

I love it and I Think it's Worth every single dollar but that's because I love what it is and was there from start.

To know more about all bumps and problems doing this machine read the old blogs from start to finnish, it was a logn ahrd road. The OpenPandora is no chinease cheap crap without love and thought put into it.

Gamepark took Another route after making the quite good GP2X (it had faults but I liked it) and did the GP2X Wiz and from the GP2X lovers who wanted Another route came the OpenPandora.

Edit: Read the wiki about it to learn some more, also @unknown1 - they started the development long Before ipads, no ipads to use then...

Also for the phones/pads as you mentioned would be cheeper, they did that to... Made by the OpenPandora people "icontrolpad 1 and 2":



as said the openpandora is not for everyone just as the X1000 aint for everyone and loads of people think that is to expensive...

[unknown1]

@som99

Great reply, thank you.

[ferrellsl]

The advent of cheap ARM-based tablets flooding the market has made the Pandora a bit irrelevant.  Game emulators for all the old retro-consoles have been ported to Android and work quite well.  And with 3D hardware support via Mali or Tegra, these systems look even more attractive than the Pandora which is beginning to show its age.  Quite a few tablets can also be flashed to run Linux or dual-boot Android and Linux too.  And if that's too technical for some users, they can always run Linux in a chroot environment on top of Android.  You can find a Tegra-3 based tablet for quite a bit less than $200 USD and many of them support keyboards. Pandora was a cool idea 3 years ago and I wanted to buy one but they always sold out before I could place my order.  These days, I'm glad I didn't get one because the support and upgrades I get for my Asus Transformer Prime have been well worth it.

[Tripitaka]

Then I saw the price of this ugly thing: $649!!!!

Whatever else you think, fair enough. Ugly? really? I have to disagree on that, I think it is rather charming.

[Tripitaka]

as said the openpandora is not for everyone just as the X1000 aint for everyone and loads of people think that is to expensive...

I rather like them both.

The Pandora is a great way to get all that old PC/Amiga/Atari/console goodness in a portable format that can plug into my telly. Great space saver. As for Android emulators, meh, it starts to get a bit too messy for my liking when I need to add a proper gamepad and keyboard. Sometimes it's just a whole lot easier to say screw it, I have a stack of consoles I can sell so I don't much care about the extra cash it costs. Still, it's £428 in UK cash for the latest model and that's a good way towards a 3D digital printer.

At the end of the day I have a lot of respect for the product and if I was a richer man I'de buy one but my priorities just don't quite allow me to do it. Hmmm.... I guess it is just like the X1000.