Pandora Update - Back from Hell | OpenSource Handheld News

Pandora Update - Back from Hell

Wow, that were some 1,5 weeks in Newcastle, building Pandoras - and meeting Craig and Fatih again after all these years. And Michael for the first time ever! Okay, and it wasn't hell - but I liked the sound of it, so I used it as blog title

(BTW: We hid a group picture somewhere...)

We had a lot of work to do. It took as a couple of days to setup everything, check out everything is okay and start building the units.
While it was A LOT of work, we also had some fun, listening to Planet Rock radio (and the ever-repeating Autoclass-commercial that really makes you go crazy if you hear it 20 times a day) while assembling the Pandoras, checking the boards for first reports on the units so we can react to anything that was going wrong as soon as possible - a wise decision, as this lead to us improving the building quality and quality checking more and more.

While the first units had some problems (you probably can see the reports on the boards - we had one with broken WiFi, a few with bad L and R buttons), we reacted immediately and improved the building process and the quality check for the rest.
We now check every single button, the controls, the touchscreen, WiFi and the speakers.

After figuring all these steps out, we managed to build 200 units within three days - which is quite a good quota as we were only three guys on that weekend (some people and community guys helped before (THANKS!), but not on that weekend.

So far, roughly 500 units have been delivered (or are on the way to the customers), while there are already some more finished and need to be tested. Of course, there are also some broken units which we need to check. If we can't fix them, they go back to Texas to be fixed. New boards are already on the way, so by the end of this week, we should probably have 700 - 800 units delivered!

That's the story so far - what about the future? When can YOU expect your Pandora?

As we now found a proper way to build the units and testing them, Craig hired a fixed team (three persons) to build the units - starting this week.
Craig will take care training them and testing the units, to keep the good quality.

The case itself is fine, it's not 100% perfect (well, I guess there is NO device which is 100% perfect), but there are no major flaws or problems. Therefore, we already ordered the next 3000 cases - this time (of course) without the painted buttons.
While we don't know yet when we'll get those cases (we'll make no guesstimates anymore with the chinese company), we're now ready to continue anytime!

And how were the receptions of the very first Pandoras?

Well, most of you followed the boards - receptions were very different. Most do love the device - but some are not content yet because there's not much software yet out there (for sure) and some have problems with their units (most of them got the very first units, that might have bad L/R buttons).
If you really have problems like hardware defects or completely unusable L/R-Buttons, feel free to contact us. We'll do anything to fix your unit.

So all in all we're pretty happy - more and more software if popping up (just got a version of the PSX emulator that is ready for a first release soon) and while most emulators aren't optimized yet, you can be sure a lot more wil happen. And the hardware turned out really good - and it's really nice reading how you guys like it and what you're already doing with it!

Thanks a lot to all you users who did bug reports - within the next days, Hotfix 2 will be ready for you which includes numerous small fixes!

And when will Batch 2 be ready?

Well, let us first finish Batch 1, okay? The lead time for electronic parts is terrible these days. We already ordered the parts for Batch 2, they will be ready in about September. Preordering will probably start within this month. The price will be a bit higher (we think about 349 USD), as we couldn't afford to build the unit otherwise, but we'll still try to keep it as low as possible for you.

We'll inform you here as soon as the preordering starts!

For more information and downloads, click here!

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