So you guys hear 'upcoming handheld' and you think 'Sony Nintendo and bears, oh my!'.

It's not what you think. It's still amazing, but not what you think. For those of you who know of Linux, you'll be interested to know that it runs it. The handheld is completely open source, meaning that anyone can fiddle with the software and program new applications for it.

It sounds boring!
Au contraire. Actually, the handheld is far from boring. Being that it has the screen size of the PSP, a 600MHZ CPU and 128mb of RAM, it opens up an unyielding amount of possibilities.

The possibilities?
Well, it's really like a miniature laptop with two SD slots (SD goes up to 32GB currently, and with two slots you can have up to 64gb!). Because it runs Linux, it'll run fast, and because it'll be a stripped down version of Linux made for a handheld, it'll be even faster. You can browse the web, watch movies, listen to music. And at the same time, you can play games.

Play games? But what game companies are gonna support such a small project?
Its community of users. The handheld is said to be made for emulators - even a PS1 emulator. There was an older, similar handheld to this one some years back (called GP32 and GP2x), and its small community actually ported some PC games onto it.

How could it run PC games!? That's ridiculous!
While I'm no games programmer, I do know that things like textures and finer details can be brought down vastly in size because of the handheld's screen.

Enough of this! What are its features?
600MHZ CPU
128mb RAM
800x480 Touch Screen
TV Output
Gaming controls, including Dual Analog
Basic QWERTY keyboard
Wifi
USB Host (plug your devices into it!?)


It's a shame such a project will have a lack of advertising, thus it won't reap as much popularity as it could.

Official Site
Wiki Info (Provides much more useful information)
BluWiki (The most useful and up to date, with a gallery!)

They also have a forum where they show users their designs and the users can say whether or not it's good or bad. The community will heavily dictate its outcome - more so than the actual creators.

Image:



They have a prototype on their way that they're possibily showing at a gaming expo.

Haha, it's estimated to be around $330 US, and then there's shipping..

But I think it's worth it. Asus have these really small computers that are like laptops, but have their own simple little OS. The Pandora is cheaper and far more superior in my opinion.

Wasn't the PSP like $500 when it came out? This is really a bargain for what it offers. I'm excited!

Sounds, and looks pretty cool. Its gonna take me forever to save up for one, though. By the time I do, nintendo will have their next console out. So when is the pandora coming out?

According to them, Spring this year (In USA, I dunno what that is here in Australia). I predict a possible delay into the second half of the year.

gem is interested

Hey there, I just found there's another page that shows all the specifications and possible capabilities of the Pandora. It also has a good gallery.

http://pandora.bluwiki.com/