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See the original image at engadget.com —

Pandora pre-orders go live

engadget.com — We still don't really believe it, but the Pandora pre-order page is now live and accepting orders for the open-source gaming handheld.

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  • matthewjhughes, on 09/30/2008, -6/+22WANT!

    Let's just hope it's not like the gizmondo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gizmondo
    • scrag10, on 09/30/2008, -0/+11But nobody actually wanted a Gizmondo.
    • HOTM, on 10/01/2008, -1/+3Lets hope it doesn't stream ads into my device? Yes. Lets hope that.
    • Izzie, on 10/01/2008, -0/+7No need for hope, it's not like the gizmondo.
    • linagee, on 10/01/2008, -3/+8Does pandora play my favorite music? Oh wait, wrong pandora. Please check for name clashes next time you name a product!
      • TotalHalibut, on 10/02/2008, -0/+3Does Pandora open a box and unleash evil upon the world? Oh wait, wrong pandora. Please check for name clashes next time you name a product!
    • CCmachined, on 10/01/2008, -0/+2the GP2X was a rampant success. the Gizmondo was Fail... and guess what, twas commercial...
    • Elranzer, on 10/01/2008, -0/+1The Gizmondo was not open. This is more like the Game Park 32 and GP2X.

      I wonder whatever happened to the other GP32 successor, the widescreen XGP.
      • Dubbsacc, on 10/01/2008, -0/+2It became "The Wiz" I believe.

        http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/26/gamparks-gp2x-w ...
      • CCmachined, on 10/04/2008, -0/+1GamePark(GP) made the GP32.
        A few from the company didnt like the direction the company was taking, so they split off from GP and formed GamePark Holdings(GPH).
        GPH released the GP2X, with many improvements over the GP32 (better CPU & GPU, more buttons etc)
        meanwhile, GP was developing the XGP. As far as I know, GP went bust before they could release the unit. They skipped a generation (aka gp2x and such). Mistake.

        The Wiz is GPH's latest console, the actual successor to the GP2X.

        The Pandora was from a group of guys from the gp2x & gp32 communities who were running a store selling GP2Xs and other gadgets and such who had a vision - to release a different console with the same spirit as the GP32/GP2X, but to excel in the few areas the GP32 and GP2X were muchly flawed (lack of WiFi, AA battery inneficiency - 4-5 hours, few buttons, plus improving on the hardware - both the gp32 and gp2x were fairly dated hardware when they came out, Pandora is fairly cutting edge now.)
    • Gloony, on 10/01/2008, -0/+1I hope the first 3000 haven't run out yet - I just ordered mine!
    • Andrwmorph, on 10/01/2008, -0/+1The GP2X is amazing as long as you don't have a launch version with an almost unusable analog stick (like me)!
    • jonathangerlach, on 10/01/2008, -0/+0Maybe I'm just speaking for my self but i'm not sure if anyone would feel comfortable rubbing the glowing nipples of this device.
  • Jacksniper, on 09/30/2008, -3/+15Really looking forward to reviews of this thing. But most certainly want.
    • Sean23, on 10/01/2008, -2/+3I was thinking about getting an Ipod touch, but maybe I'll just wait a little bit.
      • Izzie, on 10/01/2008, -0/+5If you don't preorder one of the first 3000 units batch, you'll have to wait until 2009 for the second batch.
      • Ryosen, on 10/01/2008, -0/+42009 is only 3 months away....
      • Izzie, on 10/01/2008, -0/+1who said early 2009 ? could be anywhere between 3 and 15 months from now (the first got delayed 6 months for various reasons including part being unavailable).
  • lastrite, on 09/30/2008, -2/+32This definitely is not a Gizmondo . . . Pandora is a completely opensource community driven handhold, people will be developing emulators/ porting games onto it well after it's production stops.

    Playstation emulation is already full speed without using any 3d hardware acceleration, some predict Dreamcast can be emulated full speed in the near future :O
    • Tobriand, on 09/30/2008, -0/+10I'm not sure anyone ever said in the near future regarding Dreamcast emulation, and certainly not full speed.

      I believe the current prediction is that Dreamcast would push the system to it's limits, and that in order to get playable framerates, you'd need to write an emulator basically from scratch.

      That said, I recall the person of brought (unplayably slow, but nonetheless) dreamcast emulation to PSP mentioning that he'd rather like to try porting it to Pandora as and when he gets hardware. But it remains to be seen whether the results will be playable or merely a really impressive techdemo.
    • Izzie, on 10/01/2008, -0/+4Actually, dreamcast emulation has been discussed earlier on gp32X forums and it's not on the menu.

      Oh and you're totally wrong, developing / porting emulators is close to being done *before* production starts. That was the whole point of shipping dev units months in advance.
      • lastrite, on 10/01/2008, -0/+4I'm aware many of the emulators will be available at launch . . . what i'm getting at is that there will be continued support from within the community even if a limited quantity are only produced.


      • Izzie, on 10/01/2008, -0/+3All 3000 units have been pretty much sold on the 1st day of preorder, so this shouldn't be a concern.
        Knowing that the devs are the same guys producing the thing and that they have been around for quite a while (at least since gp32) and will be using the pandora themselves, I'm confident.
      • Ogedei, on 10/01/2008, -0/+2I think the point is that it's open source so perhaps at launch the devs are the same guys who produce it. but after launch, it will have an open source community of crazies who want it to be cool cause they love to code, love to play games and have a cool geek toy to do both on.

        Og.
    • PJBovoNox, on 10/01/2008, -3/+1Bear in mind that none of the people pre-ordering have actually properly seen a finished device. They're just fanboys.
      • Izzie, on 10/01/2008, -0/+1what part of "pre-ordering" didn't you understand ?
  • aliance, on 09/30/2008, -2/+7I must say this a very exciting device, I look forward to getting one, it has a very strong development team behind it and great hardware, it wont be a disappointment :)
  • Septimus, on 09/30/2008, -2/+8Pre-ordered. Hope I managed to get one this round.
  • Kyo765, on 09/30/2008, -2/+6pre ordered one too!
  • gbrendel, on 09/30/2008, -3/+4I preordered as well. This thing is a tinkerer's dream. Just imagining the possibilities of this thing is getting me excited. I'm sure I'll start developing for it, too. Especially now that I've invested so much money in it. :-) I honestly hope they sell all of the preorders soon. This thing is going to be great!
  • Ortwin, on 09/30/2008, -3/+14A handheld a year keeps... the wallet empty... Oh well, I just couldn't resist pure awesomeness. Will probably be best friends with my lovely Openmoko phone. :)
    • Puffles, on 10/01/2008, -1/+5Aww, the thought of their friendship makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. ^_^
  • acegi, on 09/30/2008, -2/+18pandora has a huge potential and they're not in the same market nintendo and sony are.

    It's in a market of its own (no full open-source handheld market competition!), and a lot of care has gone into it as it is made by people who play games themselves.

    Godspeed, pandora.
  • NeilHonky, on 09/30/2008, -2/+5sweet sweet stuff.
  • Vorporeal, on 09/30/2008, -3/+10I put in my pre-order as well. The first batch hasn't sold out yet - if you order one now, you'll get one from the first batch, which is going into production as we speak and will be shipped on November 28th (according to the site).

    GO ORDER IT NOW!

    www.openpandora.org has all of the pre-ordering links and information.
  • OddyOh, on 09/30/2008, -2/+8Pre-ordered! 8bit entertainment is where it's at! I know Pandora does more (waaay more!), but that's all I want at the moment! :)
    • SteveMax, on 10/01/2008, -0/+2For 8-bit emulation a GP2X is more than enough. Even 16-bit emulators on it are pretty good. Pandora's strength will be on Amiga/Atari ST and post-SNES consoles, besides perfect SNES/Mega Drive emulation.
  • zodttd, on 09/30/2008, -2/+26I'm working hard on psx4pandora as we speak. This handheld rocks!
    • eklem, on 10/02/2008, -0/+3Put in my order yesterday, looking forward to the psx4pandora! Also spent an extra 10£ for E12 Developer Fund Donation.
  • gplpark92, on 09/30/2008, -2/+11its not the games i want, its the portable audio/video and full-blown (not "mobile" mode) internet, with a full-blown proper operating system. QWERTY, DUAL SDHC's (64GB max) and with 100hrs of music life?! sold.
  • mechanizeddeath, on 09/30/2008, -3/+2Pre-Ordered! Now I just need to wait until late November! Then gaming greatness shall commence!
  • MarWillis, on 09/30/2008, -2/+4I have been looking in to getting a Ultra Portable like and Eee PC or and Aspire One. What would be the benefit of this over those? It seems like for only a little more (or about the same price for the 8Gb SSD Aspire one), I can get a mini laptop that runs all of the emulators already plus PC games and office programs. The Ultra portables are also faster, have more ram and a larger screen.

    I do see on the specs that this is a bit smaller and has a nice battery life. Both of these are nice. Is this the big draw for this device? Is this about the size of an older DS?
    • Ortwin, on 09/30/2008, -1/+2Yes, it is indeed about the size of the DS phat. It also has full gaming controls and vastly superior battery life than most of those netbooks. (At least 8 hours, probably more, depending on usage.)
    • icurafu, on 09/30/2008, -1/+0It's a completely different market. rememeber that those UMPCs are many times more heavy, have less battery power, but probbly 2-3 times more performance for games and webbrowsing.

      I have a umpc,,,, the fujitsu U810 which I love, but it's not as good for gaming as the Pandora I just preordered is. I play some windows mouse only games on it, but I would never load emulators on it, because of the controls.
    • acegi, on 09/30/2008, -0/+12pandora pros:

      -ultra-light, ultra portable (original DS size)
      -CPU performance comparable to EEE
      -gaming control
      -Incredible battery-life. (10 hrs full load)

      cons:
      -need to buy flash memory seperately (no hard-drive)
      -ARM based CPU (meaning no x86 compatibility and thus no windows)
      -no software compatibility with other OS out there. Everything will have to be recompiled for Pandora. It might take a while till you get fully functioning word processors and office programs.
      • olafcore, on 10/01/2008, -0/+6no windows, yes linux
      • Izzie, on 10/01/2008, -0/+6Those cons can be pros:

        - I already own several SD cards
        - I don't want windows because it suxx
        - It runs angstrom linux, debian is on its way, has already compatibility with ARM deb packages, and ubuntu has already been succesfully used on a pandora. So I'm not concerned about this either
      • Elranzer, on 10/01/2008, -0/+1Widescreen... can be a pro or a con. It makes older games (NES, SNES, etc) look like crap. This is a problem on the PSP as well. But I guess you could deal with black pillars on the left/right too.

        The GP2X is 4:3 so doesn't have this problem.
      • SteveMax, on 10/01/2008, -0/+2The problem on the PSP is the 480x272 resolution. Most old consoles run at 190-240 horizontal resolution, so you have three options:
        - Run it on a very small box, but at 1x1 and good image;
        - Run it with black borders on the sides, with the artefacts that come from stretching the image to a non-native resolution;
        - Run it full-screen, with deformed and stretched graphics.

        On the Pandora, you will run those at full double-res (for example, 256x192 --> 512x398). You still will have black borders on the sides and on the top/bottom, but NO artefacts from the resolution change. You may even add a high quality resolution filter, such as 2xSai, to increase "perceived" resolution.

        Widescreen isn't a problem at all, at least if the emulator is programmed right.
  • Aithic, on 09/30/2008, -3/+4@MarWillis

    The Pandora features a clam shell design and will fold up to fit in your POCKET. Lets see a PC do that! Like you said, it's about as big as the original DS. PS1 emulation on the Pandora is at 100%, if you've ever seen or tried an emulator on a Eee PC, you'd see that it runs pretty slowly. The Pandora will also be able to run office programs and the like, and it will be able to emulate early PC games as well. The one you should get depends on what you want out of your investment. If you'd like to run emulators as a first, and have decent PC functions as a second, buy a Pandora. If you'd rather run PC functions well as a first, and have decent emulation abilities as a second, opt for an Eee PC. Personally, I'd go for a Pandora, but I'd wait until after the first batch comes out to finalize my decision.
  • iRRVi, on 10/01/2008, -9/+2Pandora wins my money. Its a 15 - 0 match, and the competition is down for the count! Who will win?

    Too late! the order is in!

    yeeeeaaaaaah...anyways, got mine...Got Pandora?
  • dha07030, on 10/01/2008, -4/+36I wonder if this device could run advanced PC games like a FPS with really great graphics that might or might not take place on an island.
    • yugiohdan6, on 10/01/2008, -9/+2oh just say it... "but can it run crysis!"
    • akshay626, on 10/01/2008, -0/+9i dig you up for originality
    • Vodd9, on 10/01/2008, -0/+5It won't.
    • CCmachined, on 10/01/2008, -7/+2run Crysis? no, it most certainly wont xD
      128mb of ram, and a ARM processor. emulating x86(PC) simply won't give you enough horsepower. the GPU is very powerful for a handheld (most powerful in the world if im not mistaken) but probably would only run it (if the cpu was x86) at like 2-5 fps on low...
      • Disease, on 10/01/2008, -1/+4Just like the rest of us!
      • Vodd9, on 10/01/2008, -1/+5thx dude, man i could have never guess myself, ur a genius!!!11
  • ramsinks.com, on 10/01/2008, -12/+6Who's really going to dev for it since that market already has a leader?
    This will probably be the last time you ever hear of this. (first and last unfortunately)
    • lastrite, on 10/01/2008, -1/+5Erm no.

      http://wiki.pocketheaven.com/Emulators_on_GP2X

      The pandora backed up by the very strong GP32X Community . . . 'a community that has the most concentrated amount of amateur coders that no other Homebrew scene can boast and yes more developers than even the mighty PSP and DS Scenes.'
      • Frozo, on 10/01/2008, -1/+3Yeah, I hear what you're saying... but as an open-source community, the money just isnt there for a large portion of programmers out there. Sure there may a few classic apps, but be honest now... we're talking niche here. I hope I'm wrong, because I'd love to see something like this flourish, but I'm afraid that the future is limited for a device like this.
      • ramsinks.com, on 10/01/2008, -0/+1O ya! I forgot about the 1995 games!
    • Izzie, on 10/01/2008, -2/+6I've been closely following the pandora project for quite some time now, and ramsinks doesn't even know what he's talking about.

      The pandora is playing in its own niche market, is a unique piece of hardware, with a very active community supporting it, is opensource and running angstrom flavour of linux and is compatible with ARM deb package. All that points to a long lifespan.

      Oh and btw the devs are the ones actually making and selling the pandora.
  • mytCbumps, on 10/01/2008, -12/+14Fugly!
  • snowblind113, on 10/01/2008, -2/+10DS on roids
    • Dylson, on 10/01/2008, -7/+3Accept it only has one screen. Completely irrelevant.
      • Totz83, on 10/01/2008, -0/+12Accept dictionary? Completely relevant
      • Jektal, on 10/01/2008, -1/+6ACCEPT THE FACT! You can't change it man, it's only got one screen! Stop living in denial! The man's always trying to constrain us into one screen!

        Like the comments before, this is completely irrelevant.
  • GeorgeStone2, on 10/01/2008, -19/+22It will end up being a paperweight. Sorry.
    I'll see you at -100 diggs.
    • chewbacca77, on 10/01/2008, -3/+5Why? It sounds like it'll only be a paperweight if you don't like games.
    • GeorgeStone2, on 10/01/2008, -6/+1Or if you like good games.
      There's a reason developers spend money creating games, it's because they need the best of the best.
      Will you ever see a crysis like game from the homebrew scene? Will you ever see anything like GTA4 from the homebrew scene?
      No. Tetris remakes and old "classics" (read:Were better when we played them as kids. Now they seem outdated). That's all this thing will have.

      The idea is great, but there's not enough people willing to work for free to make anything half decent.
      Why make something for free when you could charge for it?
      • acegi, on 10/01/2008, -1/+3Pandora is not a handheld console and is not competing in that market.

        more like a ultra-portable PC with gaming control. I don't see PC getting any less useful in near future.
    • chewbacca77, on 10/01/2008, -0/+4True. if there's not money in it, people won't develop for it. But what about the classics?

      There are 2 types of games. Good ones and bad ones. Unfortunately, people buy and play bad games because they are new and they can have good graphics. Good games are never outdated. Period. People will be playing Super Mario Brothers till the end of time. If you question weather or not people actually still like old/retro games, just look at the sales of Mega Man 9.
  • shithitinthefan, on 10/01/2008, -9/+9Excuse me Pandora while I go jack it over my technically superior Atari Lynx.
    • TotalHalibut, on 10/02/2008, -0/+1Wow, you really don't know ***** about hardware do you?
  • scabbers, on 10/01/2008, -6/+7It will probably fall apart like the GP2x, and be discontinued even faster.
    • Izzie, on 10/01/2008, -0/+7The gp2x not living up to its expectations is one of the reason the dev community decided to make the pandora in the first place.
      And I guess the gp2x falling apart could be a consequence of the pandora coming alive.
    • Elranzer, on 10/01/2008, -0/+3Then what's this about the GP2X Wiz??

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GP2X_Wiz
  • teotbote, on 10/01/2008, -1/+13I feel out of the loop here, but this is the first I've heard of this thing. A quick search tells me that it's basically a cheap laptop running Linux and has built in gaming controls. Am I right? I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but I already have a laptop with all the emulated consoles and roms I could ever need.

    Serious question... what exactly is going to distinguish this device from what I already have besides easier portability?
    • butch456, on 10/01/2008, -9/+4It will do nothing for you that a small laptop can't. If anything it will give people bragging rights amongst their hipster loser friends as well as people that frequent gaming forums around the world.
    • Izzie, on 10/01/2008, -0/+12Besides small size and reduced weight, you get gaming controls (both analog and not), longer battery life (in the 10 hours range), touchscreen, ready to be tinkered with (as in modding the hardware), active community, etc.
      • teotbote, on 10/01/2008, -1/+5Thanks. It sounds cool, for sure. I think I'll be waiting for the price to drop, though. It seems a tad expensive for what it is at the moment.
      • Izzie, on 10/01/2008, -0/+4I forgot to mention that on the downside of cool, it doesn't have an ethernet connector or any wired network ability out of the box that your laptop certainly has, but has wifi and bluetooth for wireless.
      • CCmachined, on 10/01/2008, -0/+7its the most powerful handheld in the world!
        4.3", and capable of running things like quake3 with ease... and costs LESS than a laptop. what do you want exactly? ^.^
    • Godmil, on 10/01/2008, -0/+12Have you heard of the GP2X? It's been on the go for years and is a really nice handheld that was great for emulation and homebrew and had a really good development community... The problem was the designers/manufacturers didn't understand what made a good "gaming" handheld, so it had a less than perfect joystick and suffered lots of little design flaws (none were show stoppers, but everything could have been better).

      The distributors of the GP2X were so infuriated trying to convince the designers to make it better that they basically decided to make their own handheld and consulted all the top coders/moders in the community to make it perfectly designed for gamers, the result is the Pandora.

      Knowing the people who contributed to each bit of the design, I can't see this device being anything less than perfect. I'm going to order one next week, provided there are still some left :(
      • Izzie, on 10/01/2008, -0/+3According to what cragix said on the forums this morning:

        Today, 08:32 AM
        We are figuring out exactly what to do today if indeed it is going to pass 3000. Let's see what happens today.

        Today, 08:45 AM
        You can still order, we might be making some kind of statement on the sales tomorrow, there is a lot to sort though today.
      • lastrite, on 10/01/2008, -0/+2"We sold 2000 Pandoras in 6 hours even with the server totally besieged. Truly astonishing. Thank you all for supporting this project, all the emails, all the comments all, all the phone calls, all the news posts, everything.

        Today we moved to a somewhat faster server which is why things were off line during this afternoon.

        We are quickly looking in to if it is possible to increase our planned first batch to 4000 units."
  • LeviTheSmith, on 10/01/2008, -3/+1Please get me one
  • Salamonn, on 10/01/2008, -11/+4Hmm.. Interesting, but now PSP - the best!
    • Izzie, on 10/01/2008, -4/+3It hurts to be you
    • CCmachined, on 10/01/2008, -1/+3MUCH more powerful than PSP.
      PSP has 32mb of ram, this has 128mb, and everything else is 2x or more better...
  • crownedgriffin, on 10/01/2008, -8/+3I'm not excited. It doesn't look like it does much more than my hacked PSP.
    • Godmil, on 10/01/2008, -1/+8Touch screen, dual analogue controls, seeminly up to 64Gig of storage memory, better screen, 4X the ram, more than 2X the CPU speed, Bluetooth.
      The GPU isn't as good (the PSP is a powerhouse in that respect) but nearly every other features is supperior to the PSP.
    • Izzie, on 10/01/2008, -1/+7Where exactly is the keyboard on your psp ?
      Does it fit in a pocket ?
      What about 10 hours of battery ?
      Is it compatible with ARM deb packages ?
    • lastrite, on 10/01/2008, -3/+4My PSP lasted 3 months before I sold it . . . the screen is ridiculously bad, the analouge stick is poor and the commercial games are uninspiring.
  • mcleaver, on 10/01/2008, -4/+5It looks like a gaming console from a long-gone era... a sequel to the Sinclair?
  • Obamaisourhope, on 10/01/2008, -18/+3All you suckers who buy this must be dumb as bricks.. enjoy your ugly paper weight..

    ***** morons
  • whyphilosophy, on 10/01/2008, -9/+1Wow. How good can this product be if they say "Digial" and analog controls. Digial? Really?
    • Izzie, on 10/01/2008, -0/+3Clearly it will be good, because they focus on the product itself and not on searching typos.
  • smacksaw, on 10/01/2008, -11/+5Will it blend?
  • ryanhayn, on 10/01/2008, -7/+3I'd buy, but I'm afraid my short attention span will turn this into a dust collector like my DS + R4DS.
  • Izzie, on 10/01/2008, -3/+5Direct link for pre-orders: http://openpandora.org/worldmap.html
  • ParanoydAndroid, on 10/01/2008, -4/+7Is anyone else worried that this "Pandora" is a little ... boxy ...?
  • vilago, on 10/01/2008, -7/+2doesn't pandora have a music server where you can discover new music? since when do music websites create video games? just my HO
    • grruso, on 10/01/2008, -0/+3This is not related to the Pandora music service.
    • Tigergrape, on 10/01/2008, -1/+3Same could be said for Pandora's Box, the 1980s band Pandora and even Adrian Mole's love interest Pandora.

      Not everything is made by these music server guys...
    • vilago, on 10/02/2008, -0/+1gee sorry. jesus one mistake and i get eaten alive by digg
  • NikoK, on 10/01/2008, -5/+8I'm sure it's going to be amazing, but it looks so ***** ugly.
    • serif69, on 10/01/2008, -0/+5That, my friend, is the outstanding idiosyncrasy of open source.
  • Greeggorr, on 10/01/2008, -3/+4I want this!
  • Vodd9, on 10/01/2008, -8/+5Personally, I think it would be wiser to wait a few months than to oder it really soon. The prices will go down over time and it's not even sure wether they will be able to fully emulate the Dreamcast or N64. Another reason is that you won't see emulation for either the PS2, XBox or GameCube anytime soon (it's not even possible with current desk computers).
    On the other hand, you can easily find a used PSP at about $120 (my brother found one at $100), which is able to emulate the PS1 and about every console that came before it.

    I argue a lot more against the Pandora, but very few people will read my post in the first place, so I don't feel like bothering.
    • CCmachined, on 10/01/2008, -1/+4does the PSP have dual analogs, touchscreen, 64gb of easy storage (two SDHCs)? No. much better than PSP.

      plus the CPU, RAM and GPU and connectivity (USB host, USB device port, WiFi, Bluetooth, TV-out) are all 2-4 times faster.
      • Vodd9, on 10/01/2008, -0/+2dual analog is a luxury at best and touchscreen isn't needed for any games so far (and I doubt there will be much) and the PSP already has a reader for memory sticks. And can you provide a source to back up your claims that the stuff you listed is 2-4 times faster?
    • Izzie, on 10/01/2008, -1/+4The psp emulation of the psx is sloppy at best and analog is not fully supported on the psp, it's also grossly illegal and requires actions that may brick your psp and forgetting about further upgrade (which includes new protections from sony againt illegal use of their hardware).
      • Vodd9, on 10/01/2008, -0/+2Unbricking a PSP is readily available. If you don't have the time or resources to do it yourself, there's plenty of people offering their services via Kijiji or Craigslist to do it for you.
  • WickedEdge, on 10/01/2008, -7/+4It looks like an oversized glorified Nintendo DS.
    • CCmachined, on 10/01/2008, -0/+6because it has a clamshell? fail to notice the many, many extra buttons and controls? or the much superior touchscreen (800x480) plus the fact it will be the most powerful handheld in the world...?

      edit: oh yeah and the 64+ GB of storage you can add with two SDHCs. take that sucky 256mb DS carts.
  • Jimbeeer, on 10/01/2008, -1/+4These look so damn cool. I can't actually think of a single real world application that i can't already do with my iPhone, Archos 605, DS or PSP. But it doesn't stop it still looking so damn cool.

    I'm really in two minds on whether i should buy one or not. Supposed to be saving for a bloody wedding so the missus would kill me if i came home with yet _another_ gadget.

    I sat on the order screen for 40 minutes this morning just staring at willing myself not to buy it. It's a terrible addiction. I just hope it sells out rapido then the decision isn't mine any more. Felt like White Goodman looking at a pizza slice.

    Must. Buy. Gadgets...
    • CCmachined, on 10/01/2008, -0/+1it can do anything those handhelds can (aside from call and play games specifically made for that platform ahem) plus more... well, dont worry, not everybody needs a hacker handheld ^^
    • Izzie, on 10/01/2008, -0/+2You definitely don't need a pandora, you obviously already have too much useless junk in your possession. Let those who actually wants or need the pandora get one and do something about your consumerist addiction. ^^;

  • dengzhi, on 10/01/2008, -8/+2but does it run Crysis?
  • Izzie, on 10/01/2008, -0/+3only 3000 Pandoras in this batch. No more until 2009. First come first served.
    (probably all gone already, and openpandora.org is currently done from digg effect)

    direct links for preorder:

    Germany: http://www.gp2x.de/shop/index.php/cPath/34
    The rest of Europe: http://openpandora.org/retroeuro.html
    Turkey & The Middle East: http://www.pandoratr.com/
    North and Sound America, Australia, Japan, Korea and elsewhere :http://gbax.com/pandorax.html
  • groovadelic, on 10/01/2008, -0/+2If your credit card is getting denied and your in the U.S., make sure you put "000" for the post code. (Took me about 10 tries before I realized that)
  • gamelord12, on 10/01/2008, -0/+5I just heard about this thing for the first time from this article, and after checking the Wiki page, I can say that this thing kicks ass. The price point is a bit too steep for me at the moment, but hopefully it's still being sold in another year or two. These guys need to market this thing better (read: there is no marketing at all for it in the US).
    • Ortwin, on 10/01/2008, -0/+2No need for marketing if you are only able to produce 3000 in the first run and those sell out instantly... ;) There is also no budget for classic marketing. These guys spend all they've got on actually making the device. The only way this project can grow is word of mouth and I bet it won't have any difficulties at that...
  • chuckiej, on 10/01/2008, -7/+1Pandora is a radio station website - not a video game console.
  • CSwaterloo, on 10/01/2008, -1/+1I think I'm more interested in the GP2X Wiz. Even though the hardware doesn't top the Pandora, it looks sleeker and has a more affordable price point at 180 USD. Plus it can still play AVIs and run emulators for my retro gaming on-the-go.

    Starts shipping October 8th 2008 hopefully
    Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GP2X_Wiz
    • Izzie, on 10/01/2008, -1/+2that's what they said about the gp2x, and it was definitely a deception for me.
    • acegi, on 10/02/2008, -0/+2well, the whole gp32x community is moving to pandora so it might become hard to find softwares written for it....
  • SpaceNinjaDino, on 10/01/2008, -0/+2I preordered two yesterday. I've been looking forward to this device for months. It's essentially my next laptop. I wanted something ultra portable and the EEE/Wind/Inspiron Mini 9 are cool, but not portable enough for me.

    This thing is more than a game machine, it'll run Firefox and other essential apps.
  • irondragons, on 10/01/2008, -0/+1I like my handhelds like I like my women...
    • Godmil, on 10/01/2008, -0/+4black, smooth and able to fold in half?
      • gzmask, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1dual analog sticks are the melting points my friend
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