Finally it’s around the corner – the Open Pandora Handheld Console!! Please notice the word ‘Open’, it means open source.

The Pandora is a mixture between a PC and a gaming console. That’s why it has gaming controls (Buttons, DPad and analogue nubs).

It is fast enough to emulate many other systems, run a full desktop, access the internet via FireFox and play games such as Quake3.

However, it is not as big as a netbook. Believe it or not, it will fit in your pocket. It’s a bit bigger than the Nintendo DS.

The screen is an impressive 800*480 resolution LCD and the battery life is a sensational 10+ hours.

But the most interesting part is probably that it isn’t designed by a large company, it was designed by the suggestions and requests of hundreds of people on the gp32x forums. Over several months those suggestions were fine tuned in to what you see today, a completely new open source handheld.

And yes, the Pandora is running an OpenSource OS: it’s basically Ångström-Linux with some Pandora-specific changes. The source code is here: (git.openpandora.org).

Technical specifications: (I only list down a few that are important)

• 256MB DDR-333 SDRAM
• ARM® Cortex™-A8 superscalar microprocessor core
• Weight: 335g (with 4000mAh battery)
• 43 button QWERTY and numeric keypad
• Dual analog controllers
• Full gamepad controls plus shoulder buttons
• 800×480 resolution LTPS LCD with resistive touch screen, 4.3″ widescreen, 16.7 million colors (300 cd/m2 brightness, 450:1 contrast ratio)

the rest…

This is definitely the best handheld ever made, even if compare to PSP and iPhone, it still wins.

PSP spec

iPhone spec

Currently it’s still under BETA phase, therefore only those who are lucky can buy the handheld for testing.

The thing that excited me is the development cost – absolutely free, well, depends, but it surely doesn’t need to purchase bloody licences that cost you thousands bucks before you earn a single cent. Something that’s worth looking at!!

This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 2:50 am and is filed under Hardware. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.