Screen for P2

What size diagonal (in inches) should the P2 screen be?

  • Less than 4"

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 4"

    Votes: 6 6.9%

  • 5"

    Votes: 59 67.8%

  • 6"

    Votes: 18 20.7%

  • 7"

    Votes: 4 4.6%

  • More than 7"

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    87

How much height does that add to the the device when it's closed? Because even just 1 cm in that dimension could make the difference between pocketable or not.

The only dimension in which I think the P2 should be allowed to be larger than the P1 is its width.

Getting rid of the hinge taking up vertical screen space would be nice, but I don't know if it would be possible, mechanically. If it is possible without bad side-effects, I'm certainly in favor of that - it would help a lot to allow for a more square-ish screen aspect ratio.

Your paper model looks nice, but it would look even nicer with a lid-filling screen. If you don't want to use the extra area, fine, just keep those pixels black then. If we could somehow get an AMOLED screen, those black pixels wouldn't even cost any power consumption.

Or do we really want those speakers up there besides the screen? I don't care where they are - small speakers sound like crap anyway, so you either use headphones, or you don't mind the crappy sound. I would be fine with one mono speaker (it's not like you'll get any stereo separation from such a small device anyway, right?), in any spot. Maybe even have it on one side of the base (e.g. the left), with a microphone on the other side (e.g. the right), so that you could hold the device like a phone (with the lid closed).
 
Mr_Loon said:
Or you could compare :

<picture>
Click to expand...
Not easily I couldn't!

Perspective, foreshortening and unhelpful camera positioning make that photo almost useless from the point of view of size comparison.
 
comradekingu said:
How about using a 16:10 screen and moving the speakers to the main case?
Click to expand...

That is a sensible idea, well worthy of consideration, but discussion relating to speaker placement / size / stereo /mono would probably be better if kept for another thread.

_wb_ said:
How much height does that add to the the device when it's closed? Because even just 1 cm in that dimension could make the difference between pocketable or not.


The only dimension in which I think the P2 should be allowed to be larger than the P1 is its width.
Click to expand...
It adds 1.2cm to height and 0.8cm to width, it still quite happily fits in my pocket. I can understand where you are coming from with wanting to keep P2 a small as P1 but looking at the poll most people seem to value screen size over pocketability, or surely we would have seen more votes for a 4" screen?

Your paper model looks nice, but it would look even nicer with a lid-filling screen. If you don't want to use the extra area, fine, just keep those pixels black then. If we could somehow get an AMOLED screen, those black pixels wouldn't even cost any power consumption.
Click to expand...
Thankyou, glad you like the model :)


I agree a lid filling screen with almost zero bezel would be nice, but is that a realistic goal? I don't know enough about product design to say if this would be possible for a small team / design budget.

Binky said:
Not easily I couldn't!


Perspective, foreshortening and unhelpful camera positioning make that photo almost useless from the point of view of size comparison.
Click to expand...
As mentioned above compared to P1 it adds 1.2cm to height (back to front) and 0.8cm to width (side to side) the 1.2cm it adds to height is about perfect for an additional row of keys on the keyboard, a row of keys + spacing on P1 is 1cm.


From a personal perspective I'd like to see that extra 1.2cm for an additional row of good sized keys, this would be a bigger gain to me than the loss from the increase in size.


Lets not get too side tracked though, I appreciate that it would be foolish to aim to make P2 with a 4:3 screen just because that's what I (and a few other old timers) think would be best when the majority of users are looking for 16:9. However what I'm trying to show here is that if it turned out that the best screen available was a 4:3 5" screen which was readily available in small batches, a good long term option, had a good price, excellent image quality etc. Then it would not have a huge impact on the overall size & design of the device. We are talking about the odd cm here and there.
 
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Mr_Loon said:
comradekingu said:
How about using a 16:10 screen and moving the speakers to the main case?
Click to expand...
 
That is a sensible idea, well worthy of consideration, but discussion relating to speaker placement / size / stereo /mono would probably be better if kept for another thread.
Click to expand...
I don't think the speaker placement is an unrelated discussion -- if we want to put other things than the screen in the lid (speakers, cameras, extra buttons, whatever), then that puts important constraints on what type of screen we can have. I thought we had a consensus already that the speakers should move out of the way. We can discuss elsewhere about stereo or mono and where exactly they should be put, but in this thread I think we can assume that the speakers are not in the lid, or at least not in a way that takes away potential screen area.

Mr_Loon said:
_wb_ said:
How much height does that add to the the device when it's closed? Because even just 1 cm in that dimension could make the difference between pocketable or not.


The only dimension in which I think the P2 should be allowed to be larger than the P1 is its width.
Click to expand...
It adds 1.2cm to height and 0.8cm to width, it still quite happily fits in my pocket. I can understand where you are coming from with wanting to keep P2 a small as P1 but looking at the poll most people seem to value screen size over pocketability, or surely we would have seen more votes for a 4" screen?
Click to expand...

Looking at the poll, most people seem to want 16:9. With that aspect ratio, it's perfectly possible to fit a 5" diagonal in the current Pandora lid.


I think most people want the screen as big as possible without increasing the size of the device. Your proposal makes the screen not as big as possible and increases the size of the device.

1.2cm may not sound like a lot, but it makes the device nearly as wide as a 7" tablet, while also being a lot thicker. It would still fit some pockets of course, but the difference would be quite noticeable.

Mr_Loon said:
Your paper model looks nice, but it would look even nicer with a lid-filling screen. If you don't want to use the extra area, fine, just keep those pixels black then. If we could somehow get an AMOLED screen, those black pixels wouldn't even cost any power consumption.
Click to expand...
Thankyou, glad you like the model :)


I agree a lid filling screen with almost zero bezel would be nice, but is that a realistic goal? I don't know enough about product design to say if this would be possible for a small team / design budget.
Click to expand...

I'm not talking about zero bezel, just have the same amount of bezel left and right as what there is on top and bottom.

Anyway, I don't really see that many advantages to 4:3 for a Pandora successor. For emulation of retro platforms that use 4:3, the P1 is good enough - more recent games and applications should work well enough with wider aspect ratios.

I think it makes sense to be at least as wide as the Pandora (5:3) and maybe even a bit wider (16:9).

It would be really annoying to have a 4:3 screen, waste the lid area to the left and right, and then have black bars on the top and bottom  :eek:   because you're scaling the screen to 800x480 to use something that was designed for the P1.

Or imagine playing back a 2.40:1 widescreen movie on a 5" 4:3 screen. That would really suck.
 
These:

_wb_ said:
I think most people want the screen as big as possible without increasing the size of the device. Your proposal makes the screen not as big as possible and increases the size of the device.

1.2cm may not sound like a lot, but it makes the device nearly as wide as a 7" tablet, while also being a lot thicker. It would still fit some pockets of course, but the difference would be quite noticeable.
Click to expand...
Better than I've been able to put it :)
 
_wb_ said:
I don't think the speaker placement is an unrelated discussion -- if we want to put other things than the screen in the lid (speakers, cameras, extra buttons, whatever), then that puts important constraints on what type of screen we can have. I thought we had a consensus already that the speakers should move out of the way. We can discuss elsewhere about stereo or mono and where exactly they should be put, but in this thread I think we can assume that the speakers are not in the lid, or at least not in a way that takes away potential screen area.
Click to expand...
OK, I'd like to see the speakers in the lid as sound quality from the internal speakers is very important to me, if P2 could sound as good as the 3DS then I'd be very happy. I'd also like to see a webcam & microphone in the lid. Having speakers & webcam & mic in the lid makes the use of a 4:3 screen entirely acceptable from my perspective, in terms of the overall shape of the device.


Not sure where this consensus was formed that speakers should not be in the lid, have you got a link to the poll / thread in question?

Looking at the poll, most people seem to want 16:9. With that aspect ratio, it's perfectly possible to fit a 5" diagonal in the current Pandora lid.


I think most people want the screen as big as possible without increasing the size of the device. Your proposal makes the screen not as big as possible and increases the size of the device.


1.2cm may not sound like a lot, but it makes the device nearly as wide as a 7" tablet, while also being a lot thicker. It would still fit some pockets of course, but the difference would be quite noticeable.
Click to expand...
Fitting a 16:9 screen with a 5" diagonal in the current Pandora lid would not be possible if current top & bottom bezel sizes were maintained (it's close but no cigar if you do the measurements).


A screen with a 5" diagonal and 4:3 aspect ratio is bigger (12 square inch) than a screen with a 5" diagonal and 16:9 aspect ratio (10.68 square inch).


Comparing the papercraft model to my Nexus 7 & my Pandora the papercraft model is much closer in size to the P1 than the Nexus 7. If you want a bigger screen & an extra row of good size keys on the P2 keyboard then something has got to give size wise. 

I'm not talking about zero bezel, just have the same amount of bezel left and right as what there is on top and bottom.


Anyway, I don't really see that many advantages to 4:3 for a Pandora successor. For emulation of retro platforms that use 4:3, the P1 is good enough - more recent games and applications should work well enough with wider aspect ratios.


I think it makes sense to be at least as wide as the Pandora (5:3) and maybe even a bit wider (16:9).


It would be really annoying to have a 4:3 screen, waste the lid area to the left and right, and then have black bars on the top and bottom  :eek:   because you're scaling the screen to 800x480 to use something that was designed for the P1.


Or imagine playing back a 2.40:1 widescreen movie on a 5" 4:3 screen. That would really suck.
Click to expand...
The advantages and disadvantages are of course of a personal nature, from my perspective the extra screen height would be useful for web browsing, word processing, retro gaming & most general computing tasks, (larger or more text on screen) & also for allowing an extra row of keys on the keyboard.


The space would not be wasted as it would leave room for good quality internal speakers & mic & webcam.


Movie playback would be better than on P1 as the picture would be larger in both width & height, I fully admit that 16:9 is better for movie viewing but I don't imagine I'd do a lot of that on P2.

Please appreciate that I am in no way trying to say 'you are wrong' just that my personal tastes / usage scenarios / worry about the impact of 1.2cm extra height differ from yours. 
 
Last edited by a moderator:
1280 by 800 would be 8:5, would be a good size for 1024 by 768 oldschool graphics and has a slight possibility of being available.

That diagram only makes sense if your content has a fixed shape and your space-for-putting-screens-in doesn't.
 
In my humble opinion:

16:9 screen in either 1280x720 or 1920x1280.

Speakers in the hinge (where the light pipes are now) or the base.

4:3 is a joke - pretty much a guaranteed failure on a modern device.

Sound quality through on-board speakers is always limited due to speaker size.  Weighing between the two, I'd rather have more/better screen and worse/smaller speakers than the other way around - so long as the headphone audio still rocks.

Your opinion may vary.
 
Grench said:
Shenmue said:
Binky said:
I'd also rather have a large mono speaker than two small stereo speakers.
Click to expand...
Actually you don't need any speakers.  Earphones are just as convenient these days.   :D
Click to expand...
Mmm... I'd like to have -something- for speakers.  They're very handy for casual game playing in a quiet room.
Click to expand...
I rather play with mediocre speakers than with excellent headphones.

Of course I got my living room stuffed with boxes in every corner.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
pandora2ds-OkOKZ9bh.jpg
Meh, Pandora 2DS is the way to go...

L1 and R1 are a bit hard to reach, though

http://picpaste.com/pandora2ds-OkOKZ9bh.jpg
 
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