Pandora Gaming Handheld Close To Shipping [Linux-based Emulating Gaming Handheld Coming Soon]

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We first covered the saga of the Pandora gaming handheld last year. The small device, being backed by an open-source team and community, has had a long three year development cycle, and it’s now coming near the end as they’ve begun taking pre-orders for the device as the first models are coming soon.

The Pandora handheld came around in about 2007, and it’s being developed with the ‘help’ of internet forum memberships and they’re attempting to incorporate several open-source ideas into the device. There is something definitely sort of homebrew rustic about the device, and I can’t help but cheer for the underdogs.

Their website dubs the Pandora as the “most powerful gaming handheld”, and if you compare the specs to the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS, then yeah, it edges them out. It includes a 600MHZ processor, 256MB of RAM and PowerVR graphics. While these specs might edge out the six year-old Nintendo DS and the five year-old Sony PSP, they aren’t really impressive today. In fact, aside from the graphics, the Nexus One has more powerful specs.

The Pandora is more of a UMPC than a dedicated gaming handhold. It runs a conventional desktop Linux OS, and the computer can play video and music files like you’d expect from a full OS. The gaming solution is a bit… semi-legal. It will include a series of common console emulators (they say from the Sega Dreamcast, to earlier, so all your old favorites).

After three years of development, the team has begun accepting e-mail only pre-orders. As they explain, the project is at an early age, and they are estimating the first deliveries of the first pre-orders any time from now to December 2010. We contacted OpenPandora on current pricing, and they haven’t gotten back to us at press time.

Edit: OpenPandora still hasn’t gotten back to my e-mails, but TFTS commentator fischju says that the Pandora has been out for pre-order since November, it’ll cost $330 and that the first units will ship in March.