The powerful, WiFi-enabled Pandora portable gaming device will ship before the holidays for the UK equivalent of $360, said distributor and co-developer Craig Rothwell in an interview with Pocket Gamer. Looking somewhat like a mini-laptop, the hinged handheld is built around a 600MHz+ ARM Cortex A8 series processor along with a discrete media co-processor, reportedly making it capable of "good PC emulation" or of consoles as advanced as 32-bit, as well as delivering an alleged 10-hour battery life. This Linux-powered device with 4.3-inch WVGA screen was originally conceived by contributors to a forum dedicated to a previous open-source portable, Game Park's GP32, whose thousands of suggestions and criticisms helped tweak the final design. Rothwell, who was the official UK distributor of the GP32 and successive GP2X, promises an initial run of 3000 units, although it is likely that those will be sold out prior to shipment.

[Via Engadget]