2 New Blog Posts: 98% Success Rate! + Lightpipes

[quartercast]

Why don't you silkscreen this on the Pandora.

 

[juniorm33]

No, I'm not going to withdraw from wanting a Pandora over something like this, nor should I expect any sane person to. I'm fine it as it is infact, but there is nothing wrong with posting constructive critisism on a forum, is there?

I find that the response to anything that's not totally pro Pandora bizzar at the moment. As you say constructive critisism in a non offensive way should not be responded with what does it matter. (Especially as they say they've chosen based on a dodgy pole result) The OP team has made it clear many times their all about the little details.
No one ever mentioned it would functionally stop it being a good machine.
So the point is, IF it didn't delay the release could the silk screen be changed, could a better poll be done?

Personally I liked the idea of having first batch on there when the pics where first published, but as the discussion went on and other options where put forward, I preferred a couple of the others. That's what makes this project so nice. Well when the extremists don't get too involved.

 

[WhiteBat]

The only issue with the light pipes is that two of the spots on the right will always be dark.

there is actually 2 spare multicolor led's there that you can use for whatever you want.

 

[Vorporeal]

The only issue with the light pipes is that two of the spots on the right will always be dark.

there is actually 2 spare multicolor led's there that you can use for whatever you want.

Really? I don't remember anyone saying that... It would be awesome if it were true though!

 

[Trip]

The only issue with the light pipes is that two of the spots on the right will always be dark.

there is actually 2 spare multicolor led's there that you can use for whatever you want.

Really? I don't remember anyone saying that... It would be awesome if it were true though!

It was always the devs plan to be able to control at least some of the led's.
Mainly to show disk reading status etc. for the Amiga emulator

 

[WhiteBat]

i'll see if i can find the post. I do know that there are pads there so you can solder a led on if you want, but im pretty sure that it will have some on it.

edit: okay, it will have 8 programmable led's, but only 6 will be soldered on.

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/48272-mould-creation-time/
http://pandorapress.net/2009/09/11/two-of-the-first-105-snapped/

my bad

 

[Consequence_9]

edit: nvrmind ;P

 

[Monk]

Also very happy that the First Batch text is still there!!!

Me too.

Me three.

I can't believe nobody else is a bit disappointed with the final silk screening.

Fortunately, you don't have to - as you're posting in a thread full of bitter complaints about various poor aspects of the final silk screen design!

Personally, I wish they'd managed to find a very angular (roylty-free) font to do the "BT" in, to make it look more like the logo, or used BT in that pill shape that another customer produced (for example).

First Batch - while an excellent choice, it seems odd to state it was the result of a user poll. We've had lots of user polls (most of them about keyboards, but also the stylus and so on) and I can't remember the last one that OpenPandora acted upon - much less acted upon against their own best judgement.

ED - the wireless logo that some are suggesting might be better than the one you've used also has a dot with radiating lines going out from it. It just has fewer lines, so it is less densely packed/clearer - especailly at a small scale.

Personally, I'd leave the silkscreen as-is unless OpenPandora suddenly get the go-ahead to use the official Bluetooth logo - if that happens, having a new design on hand already (with BlueTooth logo and any other favoured changes - but NOT changing "First Batch"!) it could be quite easy to switch over to the alternate design?

 

[Pleng]

I personally think the silk screen looks ugly but I really don't care. I *think* I refrained from posting in the other threads on the topic of the actual design. What I would like to know though is weather the 'First Batch' is going to be printed only on the first 4000, or all 10,000 cases produced (making the whole debate a farce anyway)

I also LOVE this quote:

We also got some news from the moulds company. It looks they're finally nearing completion of the last mould which means we should see the final case moulds soon

I mean come on! How many times have we heard things like that?!

 

[iprice]

Without making a big deal of it, isn't BT already trademarked (and not by British Telecom)?

http://metals.zibb.com/trademark/b+t/29662658

Would it be safe to use "BT" on the Pandora?

 

[Monk]

I personally think the silk screen looks ugly but I really don't care. I *think* I refrained from posting in the other threads on the topic of the actual design. What I would like to know though is weather the 'First Batch' is going to be printed only on the first 4000, or all 10,000 cases produced (making the whole debate a farce anyway)

I also LOVE this quote:

We also got some news from the moulds company. It looks they're finally nearing completion of the last mould which means we should see the final case moulds soon

I mean come on! How many times have we heard things like that?!

Agreed on the 10,000 thing - but come on, they are SO nearing COMPLETION of the LAST mould! How cool is that?

( :lol: )

 

[Dead1nside]

I'm really not trying to diminish your huge efforts but I just don't think it looks good at all.
I am also aware that these things are subjective and a matter of taste.

What with the |0|0| on the A/V port?

That's the serial I/O logo. Not found much anymore nowadays, but check some old computers, it's there.
And we got A/V and Serial I/O on the port.

If you're going to choose the filled SD card icons, why not choose the filled BT icon?

We tried. It looks wrong beneath the wireless icon.

The one you've chosen seems slightly too large.

Did you look at it with the correct size? Resize the image on your PC that the pandora is 14cm wide.
It's not too big. Anything smaller might probably be vey small.

The wireless icon isn't my favourite either, the on with an antenna emitting the radio waves is more pleasing.

That wouldn't make sense, since the antenna logo emitting radio waves is the one for WiFi hotspots. WiFi enabled devices have a dot emitting radio waves, like we have here.

I could live with everything but the top-left hand side's icons - there's just something about that cluster that looks wrong.

Well, we're currently talking with the BT guys, maybe we CAN use the Bluetooth logo.
Their website is pretty confusing when it comes to licensing and costs.

As for royalty free fonts, how about the Liberation family from Red Hat?

Well, why not use Bitstream, the same one we used for the keymat? Wouldn't that be much more consistent?


The design methodogy isn't fluid, all these icons are different in the way they look, in how simplified they are - that's my main point. I was so impressed at how professional the keypad came out to look, I just don't want the silk screening to ruin the otherwise cool character of the device.

[/quote]

Thank-you for answering my queries directly, it's appreciated. It's growing on me more. I've resized it and I don't think it's terrible anymore, just not my preferred icon set. I think there's a great opportunity here to use some of the better icons that were presented by the community.

I don't have a problem with using 'BT' it just looked wrong. Now that I've resized the image it doesn't look as stark as it did.

Is all the silk screening text in your pictures using the Bitstream font? (I was unaware that Bitstream is royalty free).

I wouldn't want this to delay anything, I just felt so strongly about it that I felt I had to voice my opinion, if after all there was any chance to influence it (which normally there isn't).

Perhaps some extended consultation and another look through the original thread, there were some great icon sets there? On the other hand it seems from the response to my post that most people either like it or are indifferent about it.

Again, thanks for taking the time to answer my concerns.

 

[WizardStan]

First Batch - while an excellent choice, it seems odd to state it was the result of a user poll. We've had lots of user polls (most of them about keyboards, but also the stylus and so on) and I can't remember the last one that OpenPandora acted upon - much less acted upon against their own best judgement.

Agreed. The team themselves have made polls when they weren't sure, but whenever they were sure they went with their own choice and ignored the polls that sprung up unasked for. It reminded me at least that, while it is a community driven project, it is still a personal project as well: "You can help us pick the colour, but the shed door is definitely opening to the have the hinge on the right, no matter how many people think it should go otherwise."
To suddenly ignore their own judgment in favour of unrequested advice has a bad feel about it. Don't get me wrong, I've no complaints about the silk screening, I just think that if you're going to use a poll it should be handled in a slightly more official manner.

 

[RoboShmup]

I'm a bit disappointed as well. Not by much at all but still disappointed. It's sufficient, but I feel that it's possible to please more people.

Personally, I think all that needs to be done to make it more aesthetically pleasing is to make the silkscreened icons and text just a teeny tiny bit smaller. It is cramped and just a little too overbearing compared to the black negative space around it.

Just a little teeny tiny itty bitty bit smaller. Trust me, I'm an artist

 

[Tor]

When I looked at the silk screen photos (before reading this thread) I liked it all. I looked again now. I'm totally fine with it, the logos, the BT, the "first batch" is OK too. I'm glad the "1" option didn't win out, because that one looked completely out of place to me. I would rather have had nothing there instead of "1". But "first batch" is OK with me. In short, It Looks Good.

 

[GizmoTheGreen]

Looking good (makes a thumbs up)

(is still waiting for cragix super craaaazy video where he does african hump dance by a fire at night in the local woods)

 

[borgqueenx]

Looking good (makes a thumbs up)

(is still waiting for cragix super craaaazy video where he does african hump dance by a fire at night in the local woods)

browsing amazon.com to on his pandora!

 

[ben_dash]

and BT? everytime I look at that i'm going to think BritishTelecom..

If only the Pandora were yellow instead of black ;-)

The old yellow BT colour was much better than the new grey light blue colour scheme they have now.

---

Just to clarify, I don't care what the silk screen looks like, or whether there is one, as long as I can run XFCE with Wifi and Bluetooth

 

[benji_stein]

So did they leave the "USB HS 2.0" because they didn't see the other suggestions, or because it's trademarked in some way?
To be honest, I can't see any difference between these images and the originally proposed ones. No changes in fonts, logos, sizes, kearning - nothing.

 

[Sitwon]

I'm a little disappointed that they didn't go with Kagato's suggestion, but I'm glad they picked First Batch instead of the logo w/ 1 design.

With regards to the poll, even if you subtract all the fake accounts that were created that day, First Batch was still the clear winner. It sucks that the douchebag got his way, but are you going to punish the majority because of one bad apple?