Yet another pandora-sucessor concept

[Asiyura]

^Yeah, the move to reach numbers row is too large.

I tend to touch the hinge with my nail when trying to reach those buttons, it's not comfortable.

When you're coding and need to type numbers it kinda breaks the rhythm.

 

[_wb_]

I would swap backspace and delete (somehow make more sense to me to have backspace easily reachable in the top-right corner), and also CTRL and ALT. The location of SHIFT is kind of weird. I guess a lot depends on how many shoulder buttons there are, and how they are assigned.

I don't really feel the need to have dedicated wifi/usb/bluetooth keys - it's not like you want to toggle those so often that you need dedicated buttons for them. Especially because I assume the current generation of wifi/bt chips is much more low power, so you may as well just keep them active all the time.

But how much of this keyboard layout discussion is useful at this point? Isn't the idea that if the iCP2 works well, then a Pandora successor will use it as a keyboard? If that is how it is going to be, then there is not much point coming up with alternative layouts. Unless of course there are reasons not to use the iCP2 (perhaps not that much of it can be reused anyway for various reasons, so the savings from reusing that keyboard design are not significant).

 

[Grench]

But how much of this keyboard layout discussion is useful at this point? Isn't the idea that if the iCP2 works well, then a Pandora successor will use it as a keyboard? If that is how it is going to be, then there is not much point coming up with alternative layouts. Unless of course there are reasons not to use the iCP2 (perhaps not that much of it can be reused anyway for various reasons, so the savings from reusing that keyboard design are not significant).

I suspect part of the reason to consider 'starting fresh' and ignoring the iCP2 has to do with whether the lead from the iCP2 is involved at all in the development of an ED driven successor to the Pandora.

Besides, it's the P2 spam area - if someone wants to create keyboard concepts and discuss them, why not?

It's not like we've even seen an actual populated keymat for the iCP2.

 

[fusion_power]

I disagree.

I find those buttons are too small and too close to the hinge (and too far from the rest of the keyboard) to be comfortably accessible.

Don't forget that the gaming controls are top priority over keyboard usage, I can live with uncomfortable keyboard buttons but I couldn't live with bad gaming controls.

 

[Binky]

gaming controls are top priority over keyboard usage

Speak for yourself...

 

[patrick295767]

btw is the Sharp netwalker better than the pandora ?

http://www.pocketables.com/2009/08/sharp-introduces-netwalker-mid-with-ubuntu.html

 

[EssoAir]

No gaming controls

 

[Asiyura]

It all depends on your usage for such a device.

What I would say is :

Do you see any hardware gaming controls on it? No. Pandora is better!

How much does it weights? 408grams. Pandora is better!

Battery can keep it juiced (real-world usage) for how long? 7 hours. Pandora is better!

How large is it? 161*109*20mm. Pandora is better!

But that's MY use-case

 

[ekianjo]

btw is the Sharp netwalker better than the pandora ?

http://www.pocketables.com/2009/08/sharp-introduces-netwalker-mid-with-ubuntu.html

i tried it before in the stores. The mouse system is the little black square on the right top corner and its shit like hell. Theres no way this is better than the Pandora. Sharp products have been sucking balls for ages. Their engineers are fucking drunkers.

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

btw is the Sharp netwalker better than the pandora ?

http://www.pocketables.com/2009/08/sharp-introduces-netwalker-mid-with-ubuntu.html

Also, you will not get any better support anywhere else than the OpenPandora community.  This support alone worths owning the OpenPandora    I would buy anything this OpenPandora team makes.

 

[fusion_power]

gaming controls are top priority over keyboard usage

Speak for yourself...

Nope, I speak for the usual Pandora user I assume. We can make an poll about the Focus of the Pandora/similar Handheld but I'm sure most people prefer good Gaming Controls over an good Keyboard. The Pandora Keyboard is OK, it sureley can be improved (it's way to stiff for example) but it should never come in the way of the "gaming area".

 

[EssoAir]

well as far as "focus" the controls are great in the current gen, but they keyboard isnt. So while gaming controls are more important, I think the focus should be on the keyboard since it needs improvement

 

[fusion_power]

well as far as "focus" the controls are great in the current gen, but they keyboard isnt. So while gaming controls are more important, I think the focus should be on the keyboard since it needs improvement

Of course it needs improvement. But the danger is that game controls come in the way of the keyboard and vice versa. This is where the designers have to take attention. On the current pandora for example it is easy to accidently push the Pandora button when you actualy just want to push start/select. The new design here even has much more buttons around the Pandora button, which makes it even more dangerous. Remember, in MiniMenu, this button instant kills an app.

 

[TrashyMG]

Hmm I've never accidentally hit the Pandora button when going for the start and select.. Although I rarely use MiniMenu...

 

[patrick295767]

Hmm I've never accidentally hit the Pandora button when going for the start and select.. Although I rarely use MiniMenu...

I had to remap the keyboard,

Since I use bash, I need a TAB KEY.

So I remapped TAB as the SHIFT key, and the minimenu (pandora flag key) is now shift.

It is fairly much better.... 

tab key is so so important for programming and anything

 

[_jr_]

I fully agree that dedicated and easily reachable TAB, ESC, ALT, etc. would be great (actually neccessary since so many applications - often not remappably - bind useful functions to these). But (like on the N900) I find Ctrl-i a surprisingly useable substitute for TAB at least in the terminal.

 

[TrashyMG]

FN+space for TAB isn't that much of burden for me. Not only are the keys right next to each other so I can do it in a continuous motion. Also I use it so often I don't even need to think about it anymore. But having a Pandora for years I can use the keyboard without looking at the keys now.

 

[ShleeDragon]

Let's see how the icp2 keyboard works out.. We need more keys that's for sure.

 

[levi]

I often find I have to take a couple of tries to get fn+space to work as tab - usually first time out it'll print a space which I then have to delete. No idea whether it's my own clumsiness or something out of my control causing it, but it's a fairly frequent occurrence, but not annoying enough for me to yet have seriously tried to reproduce.


As for the gaming controls in the Pandora v1 being perfect, the nubs on my Pandora need recalibrating so often that games like Super Geo Dust are basically unplayable. For retro gaming though, pretty much perfect.

 

[Neelix]

I've never had a problem triggering tab with Fn+Space. As Trashy said, it's not something I have to think about much anymore.

If the Fn key itself consistently works ok it sounds like you are sometimes hitting space before Fn.

What works for me is to roll my thumb across them from right to left.  That way Fn always gets pressed first.

- Neelix