Pandora's Design

[zaffercharles]

Was this directed at me? Well either way, I'm responding.

Just anyone who'll listen

People are already saying it's far too cluttered.

Yeah, but not at the back, eh?

Are they really that crucial that they couldn't be remapped to something else? Oh, and I just saw the five others you mentioned. Funny, they somehow got Tony Hawk to work fine on a Gamecube pad... :rolleyes:... And I know Tomb Raider worked fine on Saturn, as well. The point I'm tring to get across is the idea that a lot of these uses are cases of familiarity as opposed to actually making you unable to play these games.

I don't want to bicker about whether or not they're playable with anybody. I already know I'll be able to get by without too much trouble. Hence the lack of any type of angry rants on this but it makes perfect sense to me to have them. I'm just trying to make the most of this thing . (oops)

I also don't understand how four shoulder buttons is suddenly going to appeal to a mainstream consumer market. Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but there isn't a single handheld yet made that has had any more than two shoulders. That's such a weird argument to make, I've never understood it... It doesn't really make sense.

Well to me, you've kinda just answered it yourself right there, no other handheld has them so it's another bonus over anything else. Do you think it will be detrimental somehow? other than cluttering it which I just can't see at all myself if done right.

It might be worth mentioning that I'm not saying this for any reason like "N64 will miss out," because that's absolutely ridiculous reasoning (although thank you for the straw man argument). N64 could benefit from extra shoulders as well, seeing as mapping the C buttons to an analog stick can be dreadful in some games. I'm not being ridiculous here and arguing my head off because of my specific wants (or really arguing my head off at all), I'm talking from the perspective of overall need and usability.

Me too, we probably will never agree on this but it doesn't mean that we have to fight over it. I'm enjoying the talk on it. And my post wasn't directed specifically at you Y, just anyone really who shared your view and that may bring 64 up- it has been done to me in the past.

The main issue with having four shoulder buttons would be how cramped it would make the back of the system. We already need space for ports, unless you would like a headphone port on the side, or something else weird. The alternative, of course, is the standard front/back setup, but that will make the console thicker. By the way, that was me bemoaning the talk of a GP2X volume switch-style shoulder, but if you go back and read the actual post, I said don't use that particular example, because it's basically the worst example you could use. If they were going to put on the shoulder buttons like that, the best reference would likely be a PS2 RetroCon pad, as it uses a similar idea of parallel buttons.

Yes, well true. I couldn't remember the name of it and I have a few other things to do other than look around for specifics (no sarcasm intended) but switching up and down rather than left and right, taking as much of the height possible, they needn't be taking up any kind of port space at all.

Another alternative would be to make the console thicker and bevel the back so the second set is on a lower level behind the first. Almost like a trigger setup. This way, you would use the middle fingers to hit that set, and it would contribute to more of a grip.


I posted a pic long ago of a similar type of design, when I assumed it would be more traditional- here, just for the sake of it here it is again, the buttons are drawn wrong- they would be long enough in this type of setup to accommodate your whole finger if really finished, and I'm NOT suggesting that the whole design be changed, OR that this is a good design for the console. Just that something like this for triggers could be done without cluttering or taking too much space up on the console, if for some reason they didn't want to make it like the PS2 RetroCon:




Back to sleep for a while methinks

 

[Yrx]

Back to sleep for a while methinks


I kind of like this. MWeston, feasible?

And I think I'll stay up and be an idiot, lol. (Stayed up all night, 8 AM here)

 

[zaffercharles]

Jus' hibernating again, Y it's 14:40 to me.

Glad you like- and maybe I'll try to do a better, more up to date sketch based on this idea then? why not it can't hurt

 

[Balzac2m]

Hi, that design is exactly what I kust wanted to explain would be nice.
It would make Pandora wider (I like big butts...), but it'd give a really usable extrabutton and even more grip.
And thinking of all the shoulderbutton stuff I wonder why nobody came up with an analog shoulderbutton like the Dreamcast has. I bet developers could use it, even though I don't believe in DC-Emulation, homebrew or remapping is still there. Imagine playing racing games using one shoulder button as gas pedal.

 

[Yrx]

Hi, that design is exactly what I kust wanted to explain would be nice.
It would make Pandora wider (I like big butts...), but it'd give a really usable extrabutton and even more grip.
And thinking of all the shoulderbutton stuff I wonder why nobody came up with an analog shoulderbutton like the Dreamcast has. I bet developers could use it, even though I don't believe in DC-Emulation, homebrew or remapping is still there. Imagine playing racing games using one shoulder button as gas pedal.

I'm Yrx, and I approve this message.

But seriously, if those triggers were analog? Awesome. And the extra width needed would make it easier to grip, too.

 

[chris_r]

I just got my pandora flyer in the post and I didn't realise how small the thing is, and yet how big the screen is. The size is only marginally bigger than my ds.

I think with a few improvements this could be great, which kind of contradicts what I said when I had only seen the pictures.

Definitely make the keys and buttons the same colour as the casing. It kind of ruins an otherwise sleek design.

Make the Shoulder buttons bigger, like the gp2x would be great. I dont think we seriously need an extra 2 shoulder buttons really.

But after seeing this I would love love LOVE for the screen to be tablet style, so that you can flip it over and use it without gaming controls. With a screen that big and sexy and high resolution, it's just begging to be used as a pda.

 

[zaffercharles]

What do you guys think, about giving the backside of the console near the shoulder buttons a slight taper so that there is a slight angle (very slight!) when you place it onto a table? this would allow a little extra room for the triggers/shoulders while giving a more comfortable angle when using the keyboard no handed.. also if I'm right it would sit nicely in your hands, giving a little more ergonomic comfort and stability. I really need to draw what I'm talking about it is all too vague I shall post something up when it's done, if only for the fun of doing it. I can accept failure

 

[MWeston]

Back to sleep for a while methinks


I kind of like this. MWeston, feasible?

And I think I'll stay up and be an idiot, lol. (Stayed up all night, 8 AM here)

I remember that picture from a while back. I thought it was kinda neat actually.

Those extra buttons will make the Pandora really fat. Sure they are recessed, but the logistics dictate that some extra depth in the plastic would be needed to accommodate the sharp angles. It could be hard to mold as well. Having four shoulder buttons sounds interesting, but I just don't see it happening. This question has come up many times on the forum and the response seems to be the same: very few games need it and those that do have no trouble with a simple key re-map because they are not high-usage action buttons.

Stuff like that seems to go well in a controller design with lots of big curves and grip pads, not a hand held design trying to be portable. When was the last time you shoved a PS2 control in your pants for quick on the go gaming at a friends house? Wait don't answer that. I don't want to know if you have an answer to that!

As I see it, those buttons would take away a fair bit of battery space too. Another important goal here is long battery life. I'm not going to speculate on battery life because it will be a while before we have all of the power management tricks under our belt, but more capacity = more hours away from the charger.

 

[chris_r]

What about the flippable tablet style screen MWeston. Is that a realistic consideration?

 

[zaffercharles]

MWeston: I apprecieate your response. And I understand there would be no room 'inside' for the mechanics of two extra buttons that aren't essential. The last thing I will do is post one more sketch, well two options actually, just for the pleasure it would give me to put some thought into this dilema if nothing else.. and then I will drop the whole subject. Who knows, perhaps the next sketch could be feasible and you'll like enough to actually consider, maybe not

 

[namco]

I voted meh but would change it to It's OK if that curvy design that was posted a while back was implemented.

2 shoulder buttons are fine, we have enough buttons thanks!

So the next thing (and most important instead of this 4 shoulder buttons malarky) is the touchscreen problem. I'm with a lot of folks on this, the design for the touchscreen is going to cause a lot of problems and would mean that such a useful feature won't be used as much due to the way the screen is.

Is there any other possible solution to this without having to worry about the hinge, cost or posible patent probs??

 

[Yrx]

Why does everyone act like you can't use a touchscreen while holding it by the bottom part? It's not like it absolutely has to be vertically oriented. That's just how it works out on most devices.

Now I'm picturing a vertically oriented laptop... lol

MWeston, I kind of figured it would end up being like that. What about just a simple layer on the underside that doesn't go along the entire machine, and has open triggers? This would still make it thicker (if this is a real concern), but it would be simpler to manufacture than a curvy design, and the extra thickness would have more of a grip. You might even be able to fit a bigger battery in the extra space. Not that I'm horribly concerned either way, but the trigger idea just seemed sort of cool there.

 

[craigix]

For the touch screen remember this machine is SMALL you can fold it out flat and then use the screen quite easily. I'm hoping we can have a lot of the'basic' interface (think EEE) finger based for quick ease of use.

 

[seen12]

I'd like to see a wifi antenna port on the the Pandora, I'd love to be able to upgrade the antenna to some kind of High-Gain and/or directional antenna. It's just a small change but very useful. You could ship it with a small little nub antenna, and sell up grade antenna in your retail shops.

 

[Yrx]

I'd like to see a wifi antenna port on the the Pandora, I'd love to be able to upgrade the antenna to some kind of High-Gain and/or directional antenna. It's just a small change but very useful.

lol, Cantenna. :lol:

 

[realyst]

I don't mind the look. Though the rounded corners Eolair proposed did sorta differentiate this from the DS and maybe even more pocket friendly.

My thoughts:

-Those of you saying "I'm not buying now!" are idiots. Go away. Seriously, wtf? You were all drooling over the specs and now it's the "bling" that puts you off? So what if it doesn't look like it was shat from the holy anus of the Crystal Goddess. You want an apple PC or an iPhone, go get one. Lemme know when Apple decides to let you use it.

-Keep the rounded corner idea.

-Need backspace key and tab key, though I'm wondering if it'd just be easier to map those to L and R trigs.(L for backspace and R for Tab, keeps it intuitive as L would go "back" and tab would go "forward")

-Keep the LED charge light visible when closed. Clamshell is a great idea, though, for the whole "I don't wanna harm my screen" factor.

-All small keypads suck, so I don't mind this one. Is it great? Meh. Are any of them great? Meh.

-Powercord in the back: better idea. But front ain't bad, so long as you don't put it on the side.

-Shoulder buttons could stand to be a bit thicker. They look a little beady.

-Keep the color coordination thing in mind, as others have said. Black keys on white device is something out of 1980. Black on black is better. Something stylish like (very)dark blue on black ain't bad and metallic on black is fairly cool.

-No volume wheel. keep the slider: much better, more accurate, less ugly.

-------------------------
-I'm worried about the touchscreen thing. Sure, you can hold it by the screen, but the hinge better be real powerful. That said, all ideas all have problems of their own

-The heavier base(I'm assuming that's where the battery is) will cause cramping if you just hold the screen portion for too long. Not sure what the solution would be, though, as swivel hinges make me nervous.

-There was a clever idea to make the monitor "rotate" from the top half so that you would effectively open the device, rotate the lcd, and close the device again with LCD pointing out, but I fear that would be bad if any pressure were put on the lcd when closed, causing it to rub against the analogue buttons and such.

-Rotate up and slide over design would have a big problem: the rails would make grasping the controls painful unless the controls were put in on two side "wings" ( a la sidekick) and the keyboard recessed. In other words: complete redesign and gods know what patent issues.

I'd like to see a wifi antenna port on the the Pandora, I'd love to be able to upgrade the antenna to some kind of High-Gain and/or directional antenna. It's just a small change but very useful. You could ship it with a small little nub antenna, and sell up grade antenna in your retail shops.

Problem with that is law.

Many countries don't allow the use of standard antenna connectors unless they're brand specific. This is to prevent people from making their own amplifiers and the like, possibly interfering with other carriers, etc...

Cisco, for example, reversed the threading on their connectors solely: a small change but one that makes other antenna connectors not work on it. It isn't for profit purposes either: the US FCC as well as the Canadian CRTC both have similar provisions for antenna. This is why you can't screw in a D-Link antenna into a 3Com router, for example without some adaptor which could be seen as illegal.

 

[Karel Jansens]

Why does everyone act like you can't use a touchscreen while holding it by the bottom part? It's not like it absolutely has to be vertically oriented. That's just how it works out on most devices.

Horizontal touch screen + keyboard works very nicely on my Psion Series 5mx. And even on the much bigger Psion Netbook the touch screen and the keyboard don't exactly fight each other.

 

[seen12]

[/quote]
Problem with that is law.

Many countries don't allow the use of standard antenna connectors unless they're brand specific. This is to prevent people from making their own amplifiers and the like, possibly interfering with other carriers, etc...

Cisco, for example, reversed the threading on their connectors solely: a small change but one that makes other antenna connectors not work on it. It isn't for profit purposes either: the US FCC as well as the Canadian CRTC both have similar provisions for antenna. This is why you can't screw in a D-Link antenna into a 3Com router, for example without some adaptor which could be seen as illegal.
[/quote]

Thats a real disappointment, I hope the the built in wifi is good, or at least the antenna that ships with it is the unscrew able kind, the maker of the Pandora cant' be held responsible for what you skew in.

 

[tuxdev]

Looking at this render, I see space for two more shoulder buttons above the current ones. I imagine that using both your index and middle fingers would be awkward, so there has to be some tactile cues to prevent gamers from pressing the wrong button when only using index fingers.

Perhaps:
1. Make the buttons concave, so that it's harder for fingers to accidentally shift to the other button.
2. Make the secondary buttons slightly smaller.
3. Put a bump on the primaries, like the F and J keys on a QWERTY keyboard. Can probably be done easily by adjusting the part of the mold that does the button labels, but I really don't know enough about the process.

I actually rarely play any games that use 4 shoulders in any way, I'm just throwing the idea out there for those who want it.

I'm very excited about this, voted "Love it". I'm a developer for SuperTux, and highly interested in officially supporting Pandora.

 

[Alex.]

Looking at this render, I see space for two more shoulder buttons above the current ones.


Those are too small already, and you're proposing making a second set above them, slightly smaller? I think you overestimate its size, if you'll have a zillion tiny buttons all cluttered over each other it'll be very frustrating to play anything that uses them.

Balancing simplicity with usefulness is the key here, and it seems like the designers got that right.