Look: I'm a fan. Really. The nubs are the best on the planet. The keyboard and buttons all work fine. Its functionality is unequaled. Which is why I wish it didn't have just a couple of really serious design problems.
If it was just 1/4" thinner, and didn't look and feel like nasty cheap plastic (yes, I'm aware how hard that had to have been to design; no, it doesn't matter), I believe it would be a much better thing and they would sell several times as many units.
It is made of exactly the same plastic as everything else, PC-ABS. Oh you mean it isn't shiny and finger print attracting like your iPhone? That was a design choice backed by the forum. Making plastic look like an iPhone just involves polishing the moulds. The plastic would be the same.
Also, how would we make it 1/4" thinner?
You seem to be doing the usual 'just do this' 'just do that' approach we see in here all the time. Unfortunately you can't just do 'this or that' as often the technology does not exist to 'just do it'.
You're confusing putting a PC in a small case with putting a PC AND *good* gaming controls and battery life in to a small case.
Your accusation that the case is 'rubbish' is just going to show you have no idea of how cleverly it is engineered, how it is as small as it can be (tolerances of fractions of mm) this misapprehension is discrediting the rest of your posts, not to mention irritating the people who spent the good part of a year designing the case.
You might want to look up the dozens of previous posts which essentially say the same thing you are saying going back 3 years.
Just because you can think of these 'really cool ideas' does not mean they are possible.
I suggest if you believe it can be done you design some cases, have them rapid prototyped and come back here and show us how to do it, and we will buy your case design from you in an instant.
PS you might need to invent a new way of making an analogue control thinner (as well as various other technologies) too.
