is not the answer! I was one of the suckers who pre-ordered the Pandora and after countless RELEASE PROBLEMS AND LAUNCH BUGS, I demanded my money back. It could be a great device but the thunder is gone. They've taken far too long to release it.
I appreciate the work that the GP32X community has put in. We have some fine emulators that run on ARM processors now. My N900 runs DrNokSnes, Vgb, Vgba, iNES, DOSBox, Mastergear, ColEm, fMSX, Speccy and Quake3 NOW. I also have a great web browser and a phone. That's more than what the Pandora project can offer me today.
I believe the Pandora will be great and I'm getting one, I ordered last year. I already built applications on the Pandora SDK and executed the same on my N800 [app. compiled for omap2 though], there's a lot of synergy between the N900, the Pandora, and the BeagleBoard (which I also have). But the Pandora isn't much of a replacement for the N900. I'm getting the Pandora as an upgrade of my N800. The good thing about the N900 will (hopefully) be that, in situations when I'm forced to leave most of the gadgets behind, I'll be served well by the single N900. Although the main reason for gettting myself the N900 is to get a Maemo 5 device (or I wouldn't have much left to do on this forum! )
However: There's not much use preaching about the Pandora to those who have not ordered one already, because the second batch isn't queued for another 6 months (at least) yet. That's because the factories involved have slots you'll have to wait for. There may be a very few devices still available for ordering (due to cancellations among those too tired of waiting), but most of them are probably called for already.
Hmm, I pre-ordered a Pandora, scheduled for delivery in late November (well actually there was talk of early October iirc), 2008.
As the thing has still not materialised, I don't think it's a very good example to pull up to compare with N900 delays.
With that said, if it does indeed appear, it will probably be quite a nice hacking platform (which is why I wanted one in the first place). The big problem is that it's now more than a year late, and other things are about.
Anyway, good luck with it, I do hope we'll see some cross-pollenisation as they both use fundamentally the same SoC.
The Pandora looks so uncomfortable! What's the point in making such an ugly device? I would feel ashamed running around irl with something as grotesque as that!
It's a clamshell device (like e.g. the Zaurus c3000). Some like clamshells, others don't. It's also a gaming device, so it's got the extra buttons and nubs above the keyboard. The latter will always make it look a bit strange to non-gamers.
I'm a non-gamer, but I don't care too much about the nubs and all that. I look at the specifications and the size.
Waiting a month or so is hard when you want to have your device now. But remember some of us have been waiting since the 770 days, and others are still waiting for the next generation non-phone internet tablet.
I am confident the N900 will be worth waiting for. And if one is waiting, you've already decided that the iphone or an android phone is not what you want.
Not everything may be open and communication is not the most transparent with Nokia, but they have made a serious long-term commitment to the open source community that few others have been able to sustain.
My OpenPandora delivery has been delayed at least a year and counting. When I preordered, it looked to be the first to market with game-changing specs. Now it seems that everybody has an OMAP3 device and the Pandora is late to the party.
Ultimately, Nokia is developing a product with Maemo, they are not CONTRIBUTING to something, they are DEVELOPING something for themselves.
Uh... wow, you don't realize how wrong you are here.
Nokia's working on their own devices, sure... but by using open source to do it, they *are* contributing. Nokia employees contribute upstream to so many open source packages - many of the same ones that you're probably using this very second - that it's not even funny... and frankly, what you said is completely insulting.
In short, yes... not only are you wrong, but the sheer magnitude of how wrong you are is incomprehensible. Nokia's giving back to the software they are using just as much as the Pandora guys are... and *way* more. Don't believe me? Go look for @nokia.com addresses in commit messages all over the place.
It's the whole reason why Maemo isn't simply an internal Nokia project.
There is a better choice out there. I cancelled my pre-order, and I will never go near Nokia again.
But I want to let you all know there is another option out there, and it is BETTER. The open Pandora gaming handheld is finally getting very very close to launch. It is a clamshell gaming handheld, has larger screen like the NITs, it does not have cell phone funtions or 3G... but in the US tmobile 3g is a poor option anyway. Most everything about this device is even BETTER than the N900, it also runs a full open version of *nix... and is not controlled by a corporate entity. That is the BEST part of the pandora, a group of enthusiasts got together to get them built, not some company that doesnt care about customers and screws everyone over. Here are some of the specs:
...
You make some interesting points, and the Pandora really does look like a lovely device.
But these enthusiasts don't have the experience that Nokia has in developing a portable device. Both in hardware and software, and I fear that that is going to make the device less useful than the specs would like you to believe.
To give you an idea what I mean:
A few years ago I bought three linux based devices around the same time: A Nokia 770 internet tablet, an Asus WL-700gE Wifi router/NAS/download device and the GP2X gaming handheld.
I really liked all three devices, but all of these devices were buggy and had some hardware problem or another. But the Nokia 770 was in my opinion the most polished device of the three. The most important feature: a good portable web browser, was working correctly. For the Asus router I considered the NAS feature to be the most important one (otherwise I would have kept my normal wifi router), but that feature had some serious usability bugs (speeds problems, maximum file size etc. etc.). The GP2x also had problems with it's killer feature: playing emulators. The direction pad had a hardware bug (was fixed in later revision), and there were some screen problems for example.
I'm not saying that Nokia devices are perfect, but if you compare them to some cheap Asian alternatives you will notice that Nokia really does put effort in a lot of usability and durability aspects of it's devices.
The Pandora may be wonderful, but because of my previous experiences with linux-based devices, I want to see the device in action for myself first. I have confidence in Nokia devices, so for the time being, I'll buy those.
This is way off topic though, I wanted to present the pandora as an alternative. Someone had said I would still need to carry a phone, and asked why I would not just get the N900. I had explained why I would not do that, but I was not trying to start a great open source debate, I am certainly not qualified for that.
zero-
I was worried that phrasing would come back to haunt me if taken too literally.
I understand the fact that its 'open source', but the guiding forces within Maemo, are ultimately answerable to Nokia. Maemo as a whole is a product and not all of it is open, it must be liscened by another company to be put on another device (as a whole). As Nokia is a hardware manufacturer, I understand the motives for this. As I mentioned earlier, the problem may in part be that they work on the hardware and the OS. Even the name Maemo is trademarked by Nokia.
I am not trying to insult Maemo, any of you, or the work you are doing. I question Nokia and their motives, and the final outcome. I didn't really want to discuss this any more in this thread, but id rather not you go away thinking I am some baffoon calling Nokia the next Microsoft. I know how open source works, and that Nokia has contributed to the kernel and to debian, and that much of Maemo is in fact open which is where Mer came from, as a project to replace the proprietary parts (as I briefly understand it).
If you really want to talk about it more, please PM me, as this is again, very off topic.
Bernard -
That is a good point, and certainly one I can understand from a consumer point of view. It will be interesting to see how that is when it is released, however I will be happy with it either way, as it is something I want to get with a goal of eventually contributing to.
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