The New Dawn Of Homebrew Coming Soon ?

[alanparker05]

The only way i would even consider getting this is if it can fully emulate dreamcast and possibly the nds because if they don't use the extra horsepower to emulate newer systems then the psp looks like it has the advantage in usability

[masterchief929]

They already have an Emulator that was running FF7 at full speed off of raw cpu power, and they have a video of quake 3 running full speed. whoever says this is not going to be a good homebrew system is a RETARD!!! yes, the build quality seems like it might be questionable, but i am still planning on getting one just for the amazing specs.

[osgeld]

ive not seen the video of quake 3, i have seen the video of quake 2, which does not really require all that much power to run in linux ...

neither does ff7

i keep looking at this thing and wondering why? i found a deal on a 7 inch sub notebook, it has a 1.2 ghz cpu (a crappy but just as powerful) intel 3d chipset, bigger touch screen that swivels into a tablet, 1gb of ram much better storage solutions, and doesnt look like its going to fall apart in 6 months

for only ~400$

if i were in the market right this second i would by that over the pandora, its underpowered for the price, it looks badly constructed, ive always felt it was badly designed (ie the keyboard looks like a nightmare to type on, and the controllers look like an afterthought)

drop the price in half, and make a commercial game base then it would have something to really go on, now its just a awkward sub micro notebook with the "console" tag slapped on it

[gutbub]

$330? That's a bit steep for something I expect to do things on that I can already do with other systems or my PC. It looks cool, and seems great for homebrew, but I just cant see enough people blowing that kind of dough on this. For $330 I could buy a lot more than one system, that doesn't even have commercial support. If it's not commercial, that means it won't appeal to the masses. Less people= less developers= less lifespan.

[uberjack]

I think if history has taught us anything, it's that power (and often cheap cost) isn't everything. The PSP is popular as a homebrew attraction for many reasons - it's relatively fast, light, quite programmable (thanks to the psp sdk folks), supported by the powerhouse Sony, very attractive, and more importantly - ubiquitous - it's everywhere.

I'm no expert at what makes a good programming platform, but it's not just speed, because good programming can make up for the latter -- NJ's CPS2/Neo-Geo emulators are a prime example of this. The PSP's power is largely untapped by most developers, including myself - the Media Engine, due to its difficulty of mastering is unused by the most.

It's fairly easy to make a small form-factor laptop with older technology (which is what this unit seems to be), but that won't make it a successful product over time. The unit needs to be lightweight, dissipate heat efficiently, have a useful and extensible programming devkit, be of some value by itself (and not just as a result of its extensibility -- meaning that it should include some decent tools and applications), and, as shallow as it makes me sound, be attractive. I'm not sure if this system meets any of these requirements, not to mention possessing good looks

Let's face it, if hacker-targeted handhelds were profitable (or even popular), you'd be seeing a lot more of GP2X in run-of-the-mill stores (not that I have anything against the GP2X). All said, however, I do find the idea interesting, and I wish whoever is backing and/or developing for Pandora good luck.

[pkmaximum]

I was considering for a long time getting one of these, that until I got my EEE 1000h that I see portable enough to run all the emulators that this can ever live up to, web browser, hell it runs windows... that explains enough =)

[Dull Blade]

ive not seen the video of quake 3, i have seen the video of quake 2, which does not really require all that much power to run in linux ...

neither does ff7

i keep looking at this thing and wondering why? i found a deal on a 7 inch sub notebook, it has a 1.2 ghz cpu (a crappy but just as powerful) intel 3d chipset, bigger touch screen that swivels into a tablet, 1gb of ram much better storage solutions, and doesnt look like its going to fall apart in 6 months

for only ~400$

if i were in the market right this second i would by that over the pandora, its underpowered for the price, it looks badly constructed, ive always felt it was badly designed (ie the keyboard looks like a nightmare to type on, and the controllers look like an afterthought)

drop the price in half, and make a commercial game base then it would have something to really go on, now its just a awkward sub micro notebook with the "console" tag slapped on it

I would call it poorly constructed either. i know for fact all you've saw of this console is a few mock ups and a couple poorly lit pictures, none of us have gotten a hold of this yet.

On their official site they say it handles quake 3 with ease

I dont think you understand that it intentionally doesnt have a commercial library...

As for the comments about getting a micro pc that 'better' for a higher price; this console is designed specifically for homebrew and emulation. There is alot more to a cpu than clock speed. Ask you self this could a 133mhz pc with 16mb or ram could emulate a ps1 better than a ps2 at a higher resolution and better fps? you'd think not, but the DC could do it with bleem. Apply the same logic to this situation... you cant really compare the specs to that of a pc.

[Da_ALC]

I would call it poorly constructed either. i know for fact all you've saw of this console is a few mock ups and a couple poorly lit pictures, none of us have gotten a hold of this yet.

On their official site they say it handles quake 3 with ease

I dont think you understand that it intentionally doesnt have a commercial library...

As for the comments about getting a micro pc that 'better' for a higher price; this console is designed specifically for homebrew and emulation. There is alot more to a cpu than clock speed. Ask you self this could a 133mhz pc with 16mb or ram could emulate a ps1 better than a ps2 at a higher resolution and better fps? you'd think not, but the DC could do it with bleem. Apply the same logic to this situation... you cant really compare the specs to that of a pc.

Indeed!

These mini-pc's are not designed to run games whatsoever beyond solitaire and maybe HOMM 3, you wont get much joy out of them. And emulating on them is always going be slower due to hardware design.

Mini PC's are design for taking on holiday to get online, write emails and send pictures to yer family. And thats about it.

Look at the average battery life on them in comparison to the Pandora.

Also with it running Linux AND having USB Host, the drivers for almost everything are already there, and plenty of software. So your basically going to be able to do almost everything with the Pandora that you can with a mini-laptop.

Also, those of you with PSP's and anybody that has ever seen one, love the nice big bright screen on it.
Where talking twice the resolution in the same screen area with the Pandora, thats a hell of a step up (plus touchscreen, brilliant), reading e-books and viewing websites will be clear as on this.

Personally im looking foreward to getting Red Alert 2 running on this baby and having network games. Playing RA2 with a touchscreen/ graphics tablet is awesome.

[noname1]

if this thing can run windows xp and World Of warcraft i would be very interested altough the screen is a bit small.

[chipan]

I would call it poorly constructed either. i know for fact all you've saw of this console is a few mock ups and a couple poorly lit pictures, none of us have gotten a hold of this yet.

Thats because the real ones doesn't exist... but I think the quality does not matter cause the crappy design is there

On their official site they say it handles quake 3 with ease

Yes, the official site wants to sell it... It would be dumb to talk about his lacks.

As for the comments about getting a micro pc that 'better' for a higher price; this console is designed specifically for homebrew and emulation. There is alot more to a cpu than clock speed. Ask you self this could a 133mhz pc with 16mb or ram could emulate a ps1 better than a ps2 at a higher resolution and better fps? you'd think not, but the DC could do it with bleem. Apply the same logic to this situation... you cant really compare the specs to that of a pc.

Are you saying a SOC is more powerful than a higher clock speed and features CPU with dedicated sound and graphical hardware?
Let me tell you I've played lots of ps1 games with bleem on my old pc... an old p166 with a 3dfx graphics card, not too far from a dreamcast.
The first reason why this kind of devices seems to be powerful than a similar pc is because this devices have a tiny and quite optimized Operating System that doesn't overhelms the CPU with extra tasks and the software is compiled with a determined architecture in mind (that means less compatibility in exchange of an high speed boost, but since all units of the system are the same thing, if it works in one of them it will works in all of them).
But the pandora's OS is in a very early state (lacks tons of drivers) and this will make pandora slow, unstable and quite chunky until It gets optimized (If ever does happen).