Pandora Almost Done; Plays Quake 3, Mario 64

The Pandora handheld is almost done, combining the best of netbooks and handheld gaming units into one device.

If a netbook and a handheld gaming console got married and had babies, what would be the result? Probably Pandora, the OMAP 3-based handheld that combines the two platforms into one small, pocket-sized device. Looking part Nintendo DS and part smartphone, Engadget reports that the device is nearly done, and is currently capable of running Quake 3 Arena and Super Mario 64 flawlessly.

According to the official website, the device is 5.5-inches wide and 3.3-inches deep. Under the hood, the Pandora consists of the ARM Cortex-A8 600 Mhz+ CPU and a 430 MHz TMS320C64x+ DSP Core. On the graphics front, there's the PowerVR SGX OpenGL 2.0 ES compliant hardware, and a 4.3-inch LCD touchscreen with a native 800 x 480 resolution and 16.7 million colors.

But, as previously stated, this device isn't just a spiffy handheld gaming machine. In addition to the 43-button QWERTY keyboard, the Pandora provides S-Video output, dual SDHC card slots, USB 2.0, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g. The little rig also supposedly offers over ten hours of battery life, but we're betting that's only on standby. The operating system of choice is an OpenSource OS: Ångström Linux "with some Pandora-specific changes."

According to the schedule, the final testing with the FCC will take place on December 28. If approved, the Pandora device will go into mass production. A forum member of Engadget actually had the chance to preview a pre-production model, as seen in the video below.