Things I do not want to see again in a P2


thatgui

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Apr 2, 2009
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just as the title suggests:

  • Shoulder Buttons that take up the whole "case edge":
    Having the shoulder button taking up the whole edges leeds to a lot of accidental presses on my side, either while the Pandora is in my Hand or in a bag.
  • A hinge that offers me only two positions, fully opened and fully closed:
    I don't know why, but 95% of the time I use my Pandora with the screen angeled ~120-130°, just fels more comfortable to me. Which gets annoying as the "paint-friction-effect" is almost gone on my Pandora, so even small vibrations lead to the screen flipping back - I have to use an index finger to stabilize the screen
  • A volume wheel
    I often use the Pandora muted as I'm too lazy to fiddly out head/earphones but I do not want to disturb anyone. But sometimes I just forget that I muted her, so Pandoraclock is wakeing the hell out of me, but I don't hear it because I forgot to turn up the volume. If I don't forget to turn it up again, I'm often in the situation that I have to play a soundfile so I can find a suitable "loudness" so my wife does not throw my Pandora out of the window if it wakes me up in the morning.
  • No "Nub Dancing" and autocalibration
    While autocalibration is a nice idea it is just annoying if the nubs think its time to recalibrate in the middle of a (boss)battle
  • flimsy battery cover
    I already taped my battery cover so it doesn't wiggle a lot because two of the "noses" and one clamp are already gone (all in all I opened the battery compartment maybe 15 times).
  • "Battery contact mechanism"
    Looking at how often people had to give the advise to put a piece of paper between the battery and the battery-cover I guess we can safely assume that this part needs some redesign
 
A volume wheel I often use the Pandora muted as I'm too lazy to fiddly out head/earphones but I do not want to disturb anyone. But sometimes I just forget that I muted her, so Pandoraclock is wakeing the hell out of me, but I don't hear it because I forgot to turn up the volume. If I don't forget to turn it up again, I'm often in the situation that I have to play a soundfile so I can find a suitable "loudness" so my wife does not throw my Pandora out of the window if it wakes me up in the morning.
Oh, i certainly don't agree with that. I hate the digital sound controls or the slider of the DS. I love having a real volume wheel. I want this to stay. It's great for precision.  

"Battery contact mechanism" Looking at how often people had to give the advise to put a piece of paper between the battery and the battery-cover I guess we can safely assume that this part needs some redesign
Agree: in the new design the battery should "lock in" some kind of frame to avoid moving when placed, and the cover should be just that, a cover and not a battery holder.  
 
In the list I would add:

- A fake USB2.0 port (not supporting 1.1 USB) -> this clearly needs to disappear and be replaced with a real USB port. whether 3 or 2.

- a one-way microphone -> this caused many issues with Linux applications since it;s not standard. Hopefully the Pandora successor will have a proper stereo microphone that can be used as expected. 
 
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quote++ for volume wheels being desirable

Digital controls are worse for SQ, and (to me) less convenient
 
Oh, i certainly don't agree with that. I hate the digital sound controls or the slider of the DS. I love having a real volume wheel. I want this to stay. It's great for precision.
Do you realy "hate" digital sound control, or how they are implemented in certain popular devices ? I for myself don't like how they are implemented in a 3rd generation Ipod and several Samsungs phones , but I like it on my Sansa Clip+. I agree on the DS - Slider its just an annoying misdesign, but I doubt that you can achive some special level of precision with a wheel.
 
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just as the title suggests:

  • A volume wheel
    I often use the Pandora muted as I'm too lazy to fiddly out head/earphones but I do not want to disturb anyone. But sometimes I just forget that I muted her, so Pandoraclock is wakeing the hell out of me, but I don't hear it because I forgot to turn up the volume. If I don't forget to turn it up again, I'm often in the situation that I have to play a soundfile so I can find a suitable "loudness" so my wife does not throw my Pandora out of the window if it wakes me up in the morning.
  • No "Nub Dancing" and autocalibration
    While autocalibration is a nice idea it is just annoying if the nubs think its time to recalibrate in the middle of a (boss)battle
Volume wheel is great to have, should stay, but I would not mind a small extra buzzer for alarms in PDA use.

I second removing autocalibration. Should be "calibrate when you feel like it". Better to pause a game, fix drifting, then resume game. Of course the technical details could make this impractical or even impossible.
 
Please keep the hardware volume controls.

I agree with the rest of the list and would like to add :

Please lose the unergonomic design which leads to hand cramping after periods of extended use.
 
I like a volume wheel because it's nicely continuous (I hate those digital volume buttons where the volume is a number between 0 and 10 when the level I want is something in between, e.g. 1.5). Also I like that it works all of the time, even if a misbehaving application is keeping the CPU busy while blasting noise through the speakers, and a button implemented in software just doesn't react.

The only downside is that you don't have software control over it, and it can collect dirt and cause crackling (happened on my Rebirth unit).

I would be really interested in an analog volume wheel whose value gets read by some microchip and gets used as the sound volume by default. This would have the advantages of both worlds. You could still have a software override on it (useful for alarms etc), but in the normal case (no override) it would still respond immediately and accurately. If you don't like a wheel, you can assign some keyboard shortcuts and use that instead. And perhaps you could even use the volume wheel as a scroll wheel or whatever you want.

Other than that I agree with thatgui's and ekianjo's comments.
 
Please keep the hardware volume controls.


I agree with the rest of the list and would like to add :


Please lose the unergonomic design which leads to hand cramping after periods of extended use.
maybe is just me but i never get cramps and i like the design very much in that sense and the weight balance is just right.
 
I like a volume wheel because it's nicely continuous (I hate those digital volume buttons where the volume is a number between 0 and 10 when the level I want is something in between, e.g. 1.5).
Where is the problem ? Instead of 10 steps, implement 20 ? And this does not need to end here, you can play around with, maybe a logarithmic increment is better than a linear or play around with button pressing times (short button press => small step, long button => big step, continious button press => accelerated stepping up, pressing both => mute, etc).This gives a lot more options than a wheel that maybe gives you a lot of "steps in between" (that you do not really need most of the time) and thats only as precise as your finger movements, and that leaves you clueless on how high or low the volume already is if nothings comes out of the speakers.

Also I like that it works all of the time, even if a misbehaving application is keeping the CPU busy while blasting noise through the speakers, and a button implemented in software just doesn't react.
How often does this happen ?
 
How often does this happen
It happens once and you are forever wishing that you had hardware volume control. I selected my current laptop from the list of candidates because it featured "hardware volume control". Unfortunately this apparently means it has buttons that control the volume through software, so my laptop is muted most of the time so I don't get caught out with it suddenly making noise that I can't turn off. It happened to me once: never again.A potentiometer is a ridiculously cheap item, and easy to wire in. Compared to the total cost of the Pandora you can basically consider it a free feature. If you don't want to use it, ignore it, and stick to software volumes. There is no downside to having it that I can think of, and many benefits.
 
I think the volumn wheel is a ok design. Not liking it, not hating it. Adding a mute switch could solve that.

Pandora's shoulder buttons are not the best thing in the world, so maybe a bit improvement is needed.

I agree with you on the hinge part, I don't know how ED's going to do it, but have a look at the 3DS would give him some ideas.

Nub dancing is kinda strange, since no other modern devices have this. Maybe we could use some more "modern" nubs.

I think P2 can have either a slide and lock cell phone battery cover, or a flat cover with screw holes.

How about a deal like this? Every p2 comes with a free piece of toilet paper (with the face of someone you hate printed on) for pushing the battery in place? I think people will jump all over the place with this feature. Everyone loves free things, right? In all seriousness, this is more of a design decision to make things easier.

Features I would love to get rid off are:

The weight of the half with the screen causes Pandora's center of gravity a bit off to the side. It makes holding pandora in positions other than sitting up straight more comfortable. (if we are to use capacitive screen, it would be even heavier with all that glass) One solution would be, make Pandora's screen wider, but shorter. However, 16:9. or even 16:10 screens are inferior unless are used for reading or watching videos. Another situation would be, improve the hinge so that the top half will stay at a lot more angles.

That power slider/switch is dated. No one uses this design anymore. Replace it with a single power button would make everyone's life easier.

Those extruding bits within the case make assembling and dissecting pandora such a pain in the neck. We can safely get rid of those.

PS: I guess there's no need to adress issues with pandora's keyboard and wifi chip.
 
just as the title suggests:

  • Shoulder Buttons that take up the whole "case edge":
    Having the shoulder button taking up the whole edges leeds to a lot of accidental presses on my side, either while the Pandora is in my Hand or in a bag.
Isn't that what the "lock" position of the power-switch is for?
 
I agree with you on the hinge part, I don't know how ED's going to do it, but have a look at the 3DS would give him some ideas.
Once again: They would've already taken such a 3-position hinge like the DS has for the original Pandora, if it was available at all. Nintendo has an exclusive manufacturing contract and there were no others available, which means they needed to design such a hinge themselves (expensive, special tools are needed) or take a simpler one that's already available. It is questionable if this would be affordable for the P2 with all the planned changes on the base design and manufacturing process...
or a flat cover with screw holes.
Only if we can get metal inserts, otherwise just flush that idea down the toilet. Screws that are directly screwed into plastic are not meant to be used regularly, it would likely break even faster than the current cover design.
But definitely get rid of the auto-calibration in the nubs - F-Zero X is a PITA to play if you hit straight against the wall at every turn past the first lap.
 
How often does this happen
It happens once and you are forever wishing that you had hardware volume control. I selected my current laptop from the list of candidates because it featured "hardware volume control". Unfortunately this apparently means it has buttons that control the volume through software, so my laptop is muted most of the time so I don't get caught out with it suddenly making noise that I can't turn off. It happened to me once: never again.
Don't get what the big problem is here - it happens rarely as it seems and it boils down to one benefit, which is only a benefit in a rare case.
A potentiometer is a ridiculously cheap item, and easy to wire in. Compared to the total cost of the Pandora you can basically consider it a free feature. If you don't want to use it, ignore it, and stick to software volumes. There is no downside to having it that I can think of, and many benefits.
I guess incorporating two additional inputs isn't a big deal either (cost and board layout wise) so I don't know were that should leed to.Youf suggestion of just ignoring it lacks the convenience factor => I have to open the Pandora to change the volume and probably need to utilize one of the time/space consuming input methods (nubs, finger/stylus) as there probably is no room for giving two keyboard keys a second/third function.
 
Don't recall ever having issues with the triggers the way they are.. the buttons are shift and ctrl so they don't really do much when idle on the desktop.. Also if you slide your power button into hold mode(left) it prevents key presses from the keyboard/shoulder buttons from registering. 
 
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Don't get what the big problem is here - it happens rarely as it seems and it boils down to one benefit, which is only a benefit in a rare case
Actually it isn't rare. The Windows start up sound plays before software controls become available: every time you boot your laptop it will start playing audio that you cannot mute for at least several seconds.It's also not the only benefit: add as many steps as you want, the scale is still digital, and there's something very jarring about audio that changes in steps instead of continuous. It's also impossible to fine tune, as was mentioned. When wearing my headphones, my Pandora's volume wheel is almost muted; on my laptop I only need the audio at 4%. Digital volume means the step from 4% to 5% is huge, even on a logarithmic scale. It's less of a problem on something open source like the Pandora where I could change the code so it implements fractional steps when that low, but why? What benefit does digital add that analog can't? You provided your one case where you mute the sound and then don't get woken up by an alarm, but I absolutely do not want software changing my volume without my intervention and would prefer it to not even be able to. If I want the audio muted, it should stay mute. If I want it blasting it should blast until I tell it otherwise.

Is it really such a chore to give the wheel a little flick before going to bed?
 
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