Pandora's Design

[LordFu]

I didn't read the thread, but I really like the design, personally.

Does this mean that there will be dual SD slots? That would be nice, IMO. USB Host will be great. Why no other company has included USB Host as a supported feature on a portable, I'll never understand.

If it's about the size of a DS Lite, it will be perfect. I questioned the wisdom of Nintendo's design until I actually bought one. It seemed goofy, but in use, it's great.

Thanks Pandora team! Now, hurry up and manufacture some. Double quick, lol.

Edit: Oh, and BTW, I want one in black/silver. I hate white/bright colored gadgets. Just a personal pet-peeve, I guess.

 

[yaustar]

Keyboard needs to be fold out or slide out, it looks like one of those toy computers you buy for three year olds.

Hey, Rico is back!

 

[Goity]

Keyboard needs to be fold out or slide out, it looks like one of those toy computers you buy for three year olds.

Hey, Rico is back!

Yeah, but only to moan about this disappointing creation.

 

[___]

I can't believe how worked up people get about this whole thing. It really isn't that bad and also it's still just a render and not the real thing. The size is really nice. It's not very big at all. Keyboard was to be included from the beginning on and the layout of the keyboard, buttons and analog sticks has not been finalized as far as I know. This is just to give an idea of how it might look later on. It's not even the real dpad they intend to put on it, so stop whining so much and wait how it will turn out.

I didn't like the design either at first as I also had a slide out keyboard in mind. But come to think of it, it's really protecting the screen better like this. Only thing I wonder about is if the touchscreen won't feel a little awkward.

 

[zaffercharles]

Not for the sake of it x, but I totally agree with you. The way to fix fps is 2 shoulders each side. . . and I don't care how many times people tell me to shut up or 'they said no' it's obvious and simple. I think many potential buyers who don't even know about this would expect it in this day and age.

 

[zaoin]

I like the general design. I don't like that this superb machine will seem a wanabe ds for many people.
I would like not so "squarish". More tapwave zodiac.

What I really don't like. No international keyboard. Only english. That's very limited. : :blink:

Please add a few keys so everybody could write à, á, ..., ü, ç, ñ, etc...

 

[evilwallpaper]

Not for the sake of it x, but I totally agree with you. The way to fix fps is 2 shoulders each side. . . and I don't care how many times people tell me to shut up or 'they said no' it's obvious and simple. I think many potential buyers who don't even know about this would expect it in this day and age.

I dont think there would be enough room on the shoulders for another button, the best place to put them would be on the back of the console where your other fingers would be as you hold it. They would have to be sunken in to the case to avoid them being pressed when the console is standing on a surface.

 

[zaffercharles]

Look at the design, there's plenty of room, if you make one large button each side, that see-saws up and down, voila!

(how many times have I posted that around today?!)

 

[Alex.]

Why do you want 4 shoulder buttons? I understand the need for 2 for FPS (for strafing), but what are the other 2 needed for, specifically in FPS games?

Speaking of shoulder buttons, the existing ones need to be thicker, they look like little beans from the renders I saw. Make them about the same size as the GP2X's, and make them wrap around the case's corners a bit.

 

[Shiny]

I hope they plan on making the keyboard keys convex or something.
With the current design, it seems like you'd have a hard time feeling where one key ends and another begins.

 

[zaffercharles]

Why do you want 4 shoulder buttons? I understand the need for 2 for FPS (for strafing), but what are the other 2 needed for, specifically in FPS games?

Speaking of shoulder buttons, the existing ones need to be thicker, they look like little beans from the renders I saw. Make them about the same size as the GP2X's, and make them wrap around the case's corners a bit.

I'm more amazed that nobody else here apart from X sees it..
say you're playing a fps- you have:

switch weapons up/down
jump
fire
alt fire

You want to have at least 4 easily available buttons for that, without taking your hands off the analogues. You'd still have to choose your preference with 4.
And PSX- what a waste to not put them on, like how much would it really cost to make it right?
And like you say, if they were thicker with an alternating click up/down, it doesn't take too much space and gives much more proffessional sheen to the thing. Analogues with a lack of buttons is a damn shame and even if you guys here don't care I think that the broader potential customers would..

 

[atomicthumbs]

Don't worry, colors and the keyboard itself are not fixed yet.
We are still looking for a good, reliable and easy-to-use keyboard. The one in the rendering is inaccurate.
Same goes for the DPad There needs a lot of testing to be done to make it perfect

We will be having a logo design competition pretty soon. Something to think about.

Time for me to recruit people from the Computer Graphics class.

 

[prairiefire]

I think this will end up as a pretty good design. Initially, I wasn't sure but I just spent the last two hours constructing a mockup to scale and not only is there great screen real estate but the button position and pad and analog nubs are easily accessible and the thickness feels right in my hands. I initially had a worry about hitting the keys accidentally when using the game controls and i must say that your thumbs are going to be arched when using the game controls and thus won't be sliding across, touching the keys. I would imagine that the start/select/menu keys will be used for starting/stopping applications but for speed i be the delete key will be used for pausing games (so as to not sacrifice time to pause during a game).

You guys should try this (making a mockup). Unfortunately, i'm back in Ontario (in the country) with dial up access and so it will be a few hours (maybe a day or two) before I can get pictures of the mockup online (and this old computer may not allow that to happen either). If MWeston or anyone else would be okay with putting a cut-out template (that is to some scale, we'll do the scaling and printing on our our side) for the layouts on all surfaces (or at the very least the keyboard/button face) then you'll have a better opinion on the placement and ease of use. It's pretty much impossible to gauge how this will feel from just your imagination. You should try it.

Also, that being said, I think that there could really be issues with the touchscreen ease of use when playing a game on this or just holding it while using the touchscreen in general. I agree with Alex on the shoulder buttons, it would be nicer if they were more gp2x like. I like the low-profile keys on the keyboard to further reduce the chance of accidentally hitting a key.

Great work guys!

p.s. I think i'd prefer the black the best (with the grey analog nubs!)

 

[whiskthecat]

I'm more amazed that nobody else here apart from X sees it..
say you're playing a fps- you have:

switch weapons up/down
jump
fire
alt fire

You want to have at least 4 easily available buttons for that, without taking your hands off the analogues. You'd still have to choose your preference with 4.
And PSX- what a waste to not put them on, like how much would it really cost to make it right?
And like you say, if they were thicker with an alternating click up/down, it doesn't take too much space and gives much more proffessional sheen to the thing. Analogues with a lack of buttons is a damn shame and even if you guys here don't care I think that the broader potential customers would..

You guys are forgetting that the analogues have click buttons built into them. So just press left stick in to jump, leave strafing on all the time, use left shoulder for alt fire, and finally press right stick in to switch weapons.

 

[IcantDeleteThisAccount]

You know that all the people who complain about the design will probably be the same people buying this too. Personally I see the potential in this design. Playing Ps1 and N64 portably excites me, the idea of also being able to have a little portable hand held device I can chat it up with folks online through MIRC, AIM, MSN, ICQ so and so on. You know some one will port Pidgin over... & Firefox portable? Man.. It really has a lot of potential. I look at this, and I say to you folks working on it.. Wow.. I can't wait to get one though I'll probably wait a year just to allow more people to develop for it and for the bugs to be worked out of the initial firmware but I'll be getting one for sure... Just you wait.

Oh.. There is going to be a proper resolution on this device if you decide to do composite out, 640x480? Hell, if I can hook HDMI or Component up I'd be happier with that since I could get a proper resolution from my HDtv but I'm not expecting HD from a handheld before I get flamed for asking. Thats just unrealistic.

 

[cappuchok]

Why do you want 4 shoulder buttons? I understand the need for 2 for FPS (for strafing), but what are the other 2 needed for, specifically in FPS games?

Wouldn't know about FPS games, they'd probably just need the two, but for PSX emulation I'd really prefer four shoulder buttons (possibly implemented as two "GP2X volume button"-style see-saw buttons.

 

[zaffercharles]

Wouldn't know about FPS games, they'd probably just need the two, but for PSX emulation I'd really prefer four shoulder buttons (possibly implemented as two "GP2X volume button"-style see-saw buttons.

tHAT'S WHAT i WAS TALKING ABOUT, sorry!! caps h34r:

but up/down rather than left/right see-sawing and a fair bit bigger!

I just had to answer you cap, I'll stop on and on about it now. Nobody could replace DaveC but you'll all be thinking I'm his new apprentice sooner or later


Dave, not much to say on this? in general I mean not the shoulder issue

 

[Ayla]

About the volume control, I would prefer a wheel like the old gameboy. It's a lot more accurate.

 

[Gr.Viper]

Can keyboard actually fill the whole area - not trapezium? Rarely used keys like some punctuation marks could be placed in corners.
Or get a < and > on each side - leaving space for Ctrl below.

 

[Squidge]

About the volume control, I would prefer a wheel like the old gameboy. It's a lot more accurate.

I'd say this way is a lot more accurate, you can see at a glance what the volume level is before turning it on, and always make sure it's at your preferred level. With a wheel, you have to turn it all the way to zero, before you can measure where it is.