The Zephyr

[miky]

After I saw the Pandora's design, I had a lot of gripes about it. As the buttons share space with the keboard, they are all on one row, which is not optimal. It looks overly complicated at first glance. The screen hinge should lock very sturdily, because I wouldn't enjoy using the top screen on the DS Lite as a touch screen. It wobbles too much.

I didn't really like the keyboard design either. It seems overly complicated to have a modifier key modify a modifier key to modify keys to act as symbols that aren't displayed. I'm not sure if it's the final design I'm referring too, though.

Another thing is the ABXY configuration. I can't understand why they'd be oriented in such a strange, uncomfortable and incompatible way.

The real clincher for me was the price. $330 for a portable device mainly for games?

It was also missing a few things I would want in a portable. I've been learning a lot about electronics lately. This is the point where you'll probably call me a n00b, because I'm still a minor, but I set out to create a portable device with everything I could want, named the Zephyr (the west wind). I've made a few concept sketches, and here's one (sorry for the low quality, but I couldn't find my scanner):

The keyboard slides out, so the handheld is very simple, with only game controls laid out in a comfortable shape. If everything I want in it fits, these would be the main features that I will definitely include:

• Four buttons labeled 1, 2, 3 and 4 in a comfortable configuration
• Two analog shoulder buttons labeled L and R
• Two "thumb domes", thumbsticks without a stick, just a ball nested inside the face
• Start and Select buttons
• A "home" button to display a menu to exit and reset applications
• An AMOLED touch screen (perhaps not AMOLED, but I love those screens)
• An SD port, supporting SDHC and SDIO
• A USB port
• 802.11b wireless connectivity (might be cut)
• A headphone jack

These are features that I plan to include but might be cut because of price, which I want under $200, footprint, which I want somewhat small, and battery life, which I want reasonably long.

• A slide-out QWERTY keyboard that would provide full functionality for most Linux applications
• A microphone between the Start and Select buttons
• A webcam that pops out the top like a DS cartridge, and rotates to face towards or away the user
• Accelerometers inside with reasonable accuracy
• Bluetooth functionality
• TV output with an included USB cable

I haven't decided on specs yet, but I will probably use an ARM microprocessor, perhaps dual-core.

The firmware would be a build of Linux with a very easy-to-use API for programming applications and games. I might add support for GP2X and maybe Pandora applications, but it's unlikely.

This may seem very ambitious, and I admit that it is. But I am really serious about creating the Zephyr.

Any feedback?

Never mind, can I get this topic closed, because the kind of feedback I wanted was if people would buy it over the Pandora if it were selling right now, and that's not the kind of feedback I'm getting.

 

[TaG]

:unsure: Er.... Good luck?

Bit of an off topic....

 

[miky]

I was hoping for some feedback

And it is sort of about the Pandora. There isn't really a better forum I could see.

 

[JayFoxRox]

Good luck getting this design cheaper than the pandora *laughs*
The pandora doesn't feature a slide out keyboard because its patented by nokia. Also the right analog stick seems unreachable to me in your design

 

[astro]

:lol: andora1:
why are you here.

 

[FRZ]

Any feedback?

Looks like a psp with a slide out keyboard.

 

[miky]

With all the features on the second list cut, it wouldn't be that expensive, and I'll try to only add them if it won't be too expensive.

And keeping it under $330 won't be too hard...

Samsung, Sony, and lots of other companies use slide-out keyboards, and Apple is considering one. I don't think they all pay for licenses from Nokia. If they do, I'll find a way to make it work differently so it doesn't infringe on their patent.

The design isn't to scale. The thumbstick might be moved up and to the left in the final product.

It'll be shaped differently than the PSP, and it has a touch screen and cooler analog sticks. While the PSP is more like a capsule shape, mine will be a rectangle with sort-of curved-out sides.

 

[Exophase]

Wow.

You're probably going to get slammed pretty hard in this thread sooner or later. But you're in way over your head. It's fine if you want to dream about new handheld designs but if you actually think that one person, not an adult, can single handedly compete with the Pandora (which is going to be released soon) then I don't really know what to say to you..

I knew someone else who said the same thing, only he actually did have a lot of hardware experience and had enough sense to know what SoCs to go after, and naively thought that he could get someone to invest in him. He quickly gave up though, realizing that there was no way he could possibly pull this off. And his goals were much simpler than yours.

Fact is, it takes hundreds of thousands of dollars to launch something even on Pandora's scale, so unless you have that kind of money there's no way you can pull this off. Furthermore, it requires a great deal of low level electrical and computer engineering skills, as well as low level kernel hacking and device driver programming. You said you wanted to use an ARM, possibly dual core, but no one that I know of just sells ARM CPUs by themselves for use in other platforms. You would have to license an ARM architecture and fabricate it yourself, which is impossible for a single person to do unless you are extremely wealthy. Furthermore, you haven't mentioned anything about the other essentially components, such as video interface, sound, RAM, I/O, all of these are complex to design and would have to be fabricated with your CPU (most likely), then interfaced with other third part chips (again most likely). Of course if you get an SoC you wouldn't have to deal that, but if you already knew that you wouldn't have simple said it'd use an ARM CPU. But even with an SoC you still have to design a motherboard to interconnect everything and solder it on, and you have to do it in an especially small space which interacts with complex moving parts. Normally it takes at least a few years of amateur engineering experience to even be able to design a simple board..

You say that you want to build a cheaper gaming device than Pandora. First, Pandora is NOT primarily a gaming device - it's whatever people will want to use it for and the fact that there are many people who want to do more with it already here already shows this. It isn't a PSP. Second, if you're not Sony or Nintendo then making a "gaming" handheld means exactly one thing - an emulator machine. You'll never get major companies to develop anything for a minor independent handheld and the number of highly popular open source games that can be easily ported to such a platform is too low to hold anyone's interest. For that reason replacing the dpad with an analog stick is a huge mistake.

Pandora's price point may be too much for you, but why are you so certain you can sell for so much less? Unlike Sony or Nintendo you can't break big deals with hardware manufacturers to sell for very cheap prices, especially at the very low quantities you'd be asking for. Much less so could you sell at a loss, since you wouldn't have game licenses to bring back that money nor would you have that money to begin with. The best you could really do is a platform that's much weaker than Pandora. You could say you want to sell for almost no profit but you have to sell for substantial profit or you'll never be able to recoup enough money to make the second batch.

 

[miky]

I'm not planning to do this alone, I'm not planning to do it right away, and I'm not saying everything in my first post is set in stone. I hadn't researched ARM licenses yet, because I'm researching how I would be able to do it. I'll probably do it when I'm not a minor, when I've made a few other projects and have got into the business.

Also, I'd like this topic closed now.

 

[Chip]

Also, I'd like this topic closed now.

Good call