Yet another concept for the new Pyra

[Grench]

Please make the shoulder buttons go around the edges.

No. That was a design flaw in the Pandora. It was a constant point of mechanical failure. The slightest bump on a back corner and the things would jam.


Those back corners are the -highest- likelihood place for the case to sustain impact.


He has it right now with real buttons on the back NOT going around the corners.


This is nearly perfect for the shoulder buttons.  I would have them stick out the back about 1/3 as much as shown in the image or make them flush to the outer case in a slight indent though.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Properly made the shoulder buttons won't get damaged easily.

Also I wouldn't sacrifice the shoulder buttons around the edges because of some people damaging their Pandora.

Are you kidding?  Just getting them to -work- at all was a multi-month delay on the Pandora.  Then the parts got painted and they had to sand and tweak every single one of them for a while.  They are an engineering headache that is completely unnecessary.

Having the buttons wrap the corner was also an ergonomics issue.  It's darn near impossible for a new user to pick the Pandora up without triggering a shoulder button.  You can't put it in it's case without triggering them.

Have you ever had your Pandora get bumped/dropped/sat down sideways and fall more than an inch?  It -always- lands on the exposed shoulder buttons.  More than a 3" fall and the stupid things jam.

How do you plan to have them, "Properly made" to avoid this?  Unless you have an engineered alternative that simply -works-, the mechanical and structural simplicity of -real buttons- simply makes sense.

They'll work just fine for every application - gaming included - on the back of the device where they're safer.

 

[Exophase]

Almost every other handheld has shoulder buttons that make up the corner of the device, and for a good reason (although they're mostly quite different from how Pandora is). Compare GP2X, which has nice feeling shoulder buttons, with Wiz, which does not. If you can't pick up the unit without accidentally triggering one then you're doing it in a very strange way...

The shoulders on the CC Pandora sucked because of the paint. The newer ones are a lot better but still have room for improvement.

 

[Askarus]

Please make the shoulder buttons go around the edges.

No. That was a design flaw in the Pandora. It was a constant point of mechanical failure. The slightest bump on a back corner and the things would jam.


Those back corners are the -highest- likelihood place for the case to sustain impact.


He has it right now with real buttons on the back NOT going around the corners.


This is nearly perfect for the shoulder buttons.  I would have them stick out the back about 1/3 as much as shown in the image or make them flush to the outer case in a slight indent though.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Properly made the shoulder buttons won't get damaged easily.

Also I wouldn't sacrifice the shoulder buttons around the edges because of some people damaging their Pandora.

Spoiler

Are you kidding?  Just getting them to -work- at all was a multi-month delay on the Pandora.  Then the parts got painted and they had to sand and tweak every single one of them for a while.  They are an engineering headache that is completely unnecessary.

Having the buttons wrap the corner was also an ergonomics issue.  It's darn near impossible for a new user to pick the Pandora up without triggering a shoulder button.  You can't put it in it's case without triggering them.

Have you ever had your Pandora get bumped/dropped/sat down sideways and fall more than an inch?  It -always- lands on the exposed shoulder buttons.  More than a 3" fall and the stupid things jam.

How do you plan to have them, "Properly made" to avoid this?  Unless you have an engineered alternative that simply -works-, the mechanical and structural simplicity of -real buttons- simply makes sense.

They'll work just fine for every application - gaming included - on the back of the device where they're safer.

The 3DS XL has perfect shoulder buttons for me.

It's pretty unlikely that they break when the device falls on the ground.

They are ergonomic an silent.

And no, I never pressed them accidentally.

My Pandora fell on one shoulder button in the train and it's damaged.

But that's not the fault of the Pandora but mine. I wasn't careful enough.

If you can't pick up the unit without accidentally triggering one then you're doing it in a very strange way...

Well said .

 

[MrBazil2k]

oki.. beside all that shoulder button discussion going on there...

have a look at this pls :

I have allowed myself again to take some influence on that layout you have recommended to implement into the current concept rendering.

(Different thread about unofficial keyboard layout, going to post the 2 Dimensional view there)

I have played around with the position of the speakers in the bottomcase as well a bit ... I ended up with this here due to some ergonimic reasons.

Right at the moment we can still see the speakers in the lid (not going to remove those for now ...)

Im looking into this shoulder button ideas right now ...

 

 

[Granitehead]

Very bad idea, you'll cover the speakers with your fingers...

 

[MrBazil2k]

Very bad idea, you'll cover the speakers with your fingers...

Hummm... well I m not sure about that.

If you just take you Pandora now and start playing through the DPad and the ABXY Buttons... would you really cover the concept speakers there ?

Usually I hit the Buttons with the fingertips of my thumbs.

Not covering the concept speakers in my case, but I guess this is a matter of the size of each hands as well

EDIT : which needs to be investigated ...

 

[b_o_b]

Nice solution there mrbrazil2k. Personally I don't mind smaller or even only one speaker if it helps. I would sacrifice it any day for a larger screen or more keys.

Tablets usually have the speaker on the backside. Might be a solution as well.

Would be nice if ED already had some info what the screen size will be. The width and total size of the device will be determined by the screen. 

Or we could just go for a 7 inch screen.  That would make this a lot easier

 

[MrBazil2k]

=D ah you are right .. I recognized the speakers on the backside of some tablets as well ^^

About that screen size ... I m not really sure if we can go any further than this 5 inch 16 : 9 there now.

Because increasing its size further than 5 inches without changing the aspect ratio would burst the casing again

and we are going to exceed the current maximum of 90 mm depth again

Unless someone shows up with a 6 inch screen and an aspect ratio of ~ 20 : 9

I m staying with this concept up there =D

I will need technical drawings for that one then to implement it into the current concept ^^

 

[Grench]

Repeating a bit from the other thread - sorry if that bugs anyone.

Swap the speakers for the game pad controls.  The sound from the speakers can then reflect off of the screen back to the user.

Remove the speakers and camera from the lid.  Maybe assume 6mm bezels left & right, 3mm bezel top/bottom for the screen component until or if we get something more definitive from ED?

Shrink the keyboard/control area left to right until the whole thing fits in the footprint of the screen + bezels.  Make the keys narrower so they're 2/3 sized rectangles if you need to - nothing says they have to be square.

Personally I'd like to move the LEDs and light pipes to the front of the device (away from the screen) and the SD slots to the left or right side.  That would free up room to move that top row of keys toward the screen a notch.

Your artwork is pretty amazing - very very cool.

 

[MrBazil2k]

Thank you all =)

I m going to look into this again some other time / later ...

staying with the button layout on the back like it is right now.

need to free my mind of this all a bit =D... that usually provides some good ideas ... at least sometimes ^^

Oki... ONE last impression about the rearside for now :

 

 

[Natsu]

Is it just me? The pic isn't loading.

 

[Fzero]

Image loaded ok for me, it looks great too.

I hope we do get the 4 shoulder buttons on Pyra

 

[Natsu]

I see it now. Not bad.

 

[MrBazil2k]

This is the one I would go for now =D *hehe* :

 

 

 

[Fzero]

I like it.

Has only just occurred to me too that a phones dialer number pad is different to that of a k/board ... You'd think the newer would've copied the older eh, as people would've been accustomed to it

 

[Natsu]

Is that black thing meant to be the camera? Also, what's that space under the Pyra?

Has only just occurred to me too that a phones dialer number pad is different to that of a k/board ... You'd think the newer would've copied the older eh, as people would've been accustomed to it

... Mind blown.

 

[WizardStan]

Has only just occurred to me too that a phones dialer number pad is different to that of a k/board ... You'd think the newer would've copied the older eh, as people would've been accustomed to it

The original adding machines were mechanical in nature, with gears and levers and stuff, and by design had to have the numbers 7 8 9 across the top, counting downwards to 1 2 3: going the other way would have made the mechanisms too complex. These were specialized machines used by only a few people.When the touch tone phone was invented, a study was done trying different things. They discovered that the reverse layout, starting with 1 2 3 across the top, was easiest for the average person. Since the adding machines weren't widespread public use, they didn't feel the need to follow any sort of standard, so they went with what they found the average person preferred.

Fast forward a few years and you get the electronic calculator. It's basically an adding machine but digital now: there's no longer a requirement that 7 8 9 be at the top, but because it is being used by people who had grown accustomed to that layout that is how it remained. The modern keypad is just an evolution of that, being kept the same because the ever growing number of users had grown accustomed to the way it had been.

The keypad and phone dialer may look similar but they actually evolved along completely different paths. It's called "convergent evolution" and applies to ideas as much as it does to organisms.

 

[God Ginrai]

Almost every other handheld has shoulder buttons that make up the corner of the device, and for a good reason (although they're mostly quite different from how Pandora is). Compare GP2X, which has nice feeling shoulder buttons, with Wiz, which does not. If you can't pick up the unit without accidentally triggering one then you're doing it in a very strange way...

The shoulders on the CC Pandora sucked because of the paint. The newer ones are a lot better but still have room for improvement.

I loved the GP2X shoulders. I am certainly hoping that the shoulders for the Pyra are more like the GP2X, GBA, or original DS shoulders.

-God Ginrai

 

[Binky]

The original adding machines were mechanical in nature, with gears and levers and stuff, and by design had to have the numbers 7 8 9 across the top, counting downwards to 1 2 3

Wasn't that, in turn a variation on the earlier columns of numbers. I've seen an adder (hiss) with numbers counting down in columns, so that there was a row of all ones then a row of all twos, then threes, etc.

 

[_wb_]

I prefer the numeric keypad layout (123 at the bottom) over the phone layout. It makes more sense to me: 0 close to 1, lower numbers more easily reachable. Also, it would send out the message that this is a real computer, not a phone

This is the one I would go for now =D *hehe* :

 

 

This is starting to look really nice. I would move the dpad and action buttons down, in line with the nubs, making some room for speakers at the top of the base. The lid should be nothing but screen.

In a normal numeric keypad, the 0 (being the "spacebar for numbers") is as wide as 1 and 2 combined, and it is below those keys. In this context, it's probably best to split it up so we get two keys, but I would put it under the 1, not in the middle. Maybe to the right of 0, we could have "," and "." (the keys normally to the right of M, but we don't have room for that since we need a spacebar there). That way the decimal separator (and the thousands separator, both in languages that write one million and a half as 1,000,000.50 and those that write it as 1.000.000,50) are nicely integrated in the numeric keypad.

Indicator LEDs that are only visible when the lid is opened don't make that much sense to me. I only really use those indicator LEDs now when the lid is closed: e.g. to check if a big compile job is finished (if the SD card leds are blinking, it's still busy), if the battery needs charging, when it is done charging, etc. When the lid is opened I can just as well look at the screen