What? No news? Dammit!

Well, the boards (200 AFAIK) are on the way to UK due to arrive next week and will be built then, no more news in that area.

BUT I wanted to make a big thank you post!
Not another of those boring "thank you for waiting"-posts (we are thankful, REALLY thankful, but I think I thanked you for that for quite a few times already... and I think you know we are thankful )

No, I wanted to personally say thankful for all the encouraging eMails, messages and words I (and the whole team) got from you during the last few days.

You might've seen there was some negativity on the boards - and sometimes, I had some harsh answers for them. If anyone feels personally attacked by them, I want to apologize. I was (well, am, to be honest ) really quite stressed.

These are no easy times for us:
Imagine you have thousands of people sitting in your back, waiting for their Pandora - you basically owe them a lot of money. You got a lot of work to do (like working on fixing existing issues, answer questions on the board, doing your normal real-life job for earning your food, try to get various companies on the phone to find out what's happening, etc.). This really is a heavy burden for you.
If you're in that state, every post that does sound a bit negative actually sounds way more negative, demotivates you and puts you in a bad temper... then, if you press the Reply-Button, you will most definately choose the wrong words for your post.

If that happens - please, don't take it personally. We're just humans - and sometimes, we're pretty much worn out, too

However, I was very happy to receive some encouraging words and find some encouraging posts on the board (I really like the "I could sell 10 in an instant if I would have them here" or "I would never part with my Pandora!"-ones - it shows the concept of our device really has worked well, so all that's left is speed up the production).

So, THANKS for your encouraging words! It really makes life easier for us - and motivates us to work on things even more.

I don't want to say that you should not post if your Pandora has any issues.
EVERY device has issues - especially new devices from small companies
Tell us what problems to have to encourage us what things we need to improve and take care in the future.
This will not only help making future units more reliable - it will also help making YOUR unit better. i.e. if any part of your Pandora like your LCD cable or a Nub fails sometimes in the future, the replaced one will be made better based on the feedback we get.
The best thing to help us is to drop an eMail to your distributor what you think is an issue with your unit. There's no need reporting the same issues over and over again at the boards - but it sure helps us finding out what can be improved.

Believe us: We are as eager as you speeding up production and are working together with the company, and seeing that they did 300 in the last two weeks is a good start after the stallment because of the nub issues.
It still is not as fast as we want it to but this is the main priority we're working on, that's something you can be sure about.


Oh - and I'll still do the happiness dance when production is finally going steady, as promised

So thanks for reading... no real news this time, but this really was on my mind and it did good just writing it down.

Let's meet at the boards and keep them a fun and happy place to post

Hardware Production


We were really pleased with the last 100 boards! Only a few failed for different reasons, but the nubs were working fine! So it seems the mechanical testing is a fine solution until the next batch of nubs will be produced with added accuracy.
170 more boards are already on the way to UK, so expect more units to be delivered soon.


Hopefully, now that the nub problem seems to be sold, the production will speed soon! As usual, we're working on getting there!
The next 4000 cases should also be ready soon - all of them have been produced and most of them are already painted. They should just arrive in time when we are passing the first 1000 units mark!


Software updates

Softwarewise, some nice things have happened: With Ginge (which should be ready for release soon), you can play GP2X games (even commercial games like Payback and Wind & Water) on the Pandora! While it still is work in progress, it already has pretty good compatibility. Thanks to notaz for that incredible piece of software work.

Also, Hotfix 4 Beta 1 is out. Thanks to the guys that tried it, I already fixed a few errors and will release a Beta 2 within the next days.
The biggest improvement is probably that HF4 is using IPKs for the update: This is the first major step to properly upgrade the system, via a package manager.
Another test I did worked fine: I installed the very first OS version on my Pandora, changed the config files to use our feeds and upgraded the system using opkg update and opkg upgrade - and 10 minutes later, I had a working up-to-date OS on my system!

Soon you will be able to update your unit by either downloading the latest HotFix and running it or by directly update the Pandora while connected to the internet.
The brave ones among you will also be able to use unstable feeds to get the latest changes to the system a few minutes after they have been committed! Of course, bug reports are welcome.



Help us improve the unit!


So, all in all, while things are not going perfect, we're still moving forward and getting there.
Basically, I could be happy with that - but there is one thing that makes me sad: And that is the current mood on the boards. There are some people who seem to try to bash the unit for whatever reason.
This is really demotivating and won't help anyone get anywhere - since it's no constructive criticism.


Yes, we know there have been some problems with the first produced units like shoulder buttons, nubs, LCD cables. And we are working hard to get them all fixed (and most seem already be fixed).
Yes, we know there have been slowdowns in the production - mainly because we had problems with the nubs (we couldn't magically fix them, this takes some time).

Please don't forget: We are not a big company, we are just some guys trying to achieve something. Something major - and I think we didn't do too bad so far.
We are NOT trying to cover or deny any faults, but are trying to fix and prevent them in the future.
According to most people we talked to who already received the unit: They love it and think it's the best device they ever owned.

So far, we only had about 50 RMAs out of 700 - while the boards currently make it sound as if almost EVERY unit is unusable.
Some people do claim that there are more broken units but the users do not want to ship it back to us since they are waiting for production to speed up.

I can imagine this might be true for some people, but not for all.

Please: Even if you do not want to return your unit right now, let us know if you have any serious issues like a dead nub or a failed LCD cable or anything else.
Why? Well, we're trying to fix all problems and prevent them from happening. But if we DON'T KNOW about these issues, we can't fix them. Telling us what fails will help us to improve the quality and increase the production speed.


Also, of course, if you have a Pandora and like it - spread the word! Show it to friends, colleagues, post on boards. Tell them the story behind it, that it's a device made by a small company, not by Sony, etc.

One thing you can be sure about:
If you encounter any real problems with your unit, we'll fix it for you! AND use the information to improve further produced units!

Let's all work together to improve the mood at the boards again. We all do share something: The love for niche products. Be it for gaming, for hacking, for coding - we all gathered to make the Pandora happen. For some, the Pandora is already reality - and for the rest, this reality is coming closer and closer!

Thanks to all guys that do support us - it's never been easy, but you keep us going!