Form Factor - Handheld Pc, Or Zaurus-style? Options

[chiark]

Wow, this has really captured my imagination !

For me, the zaurus is too small for comfortable use, both in terms of screen and in terms of the keyboard.

Perhaps I'm too old, but for me the sweet spot of form factor usability vs portability is in the shape of the Psion Series 5, and the Sigmarion 3.

The psion's keyboard is great, the screen is adequate if a weird shape...

The sig3 runs an 800x480 screen with a very, very capable keyboard. If it ran Linux, well, it'd be *awesome*.

I'd love the screen real estate and keyboard size of the old devices with modern hardware. Am I alone in thinking that that is about the right form factor for such a device? We're not going for PDA replacement after all, but general purpose pervasive computing platform

[MONVMENTVM]

While a friend of mine had a black Nintendo DS Lite, I thought about PocketPenguin. And yeah... it would be the perfekt shape for the PocketPenguin. The DS fits the pocket very well, as it is a bit longer than the zaurus but thinner and not so broad. Of course a longer shape makes it perfect for larger keys than the Zaurus ones and a widescreen display.

You can have a look here:
http://www.nettavisen.no/spillmagasinet/ds/article603034.ece
http://www.funponsel.com/blog/archives/200...-black-edition/

And here a pic made with gimp (it doesnt look very pretty but it gives an idea of how I think it could look):


In this pic you can see that it looks like an traditional handheld pc (like the hp jornada or the nec ones) but in a smaller dimension.


Size Comparison:

Zaurus Cxx00:
124 x 87 x 25mm

Nintendo DS Lite:
133 x 73.9 x 21.5mm

So the Nintendo DS Lite fits the pocket better as it is thinner (3.5mm is a lot in those dimensions) and not that broad.

I think this dimensions/look would be nice for the PocketPenguin.

Cheers