I also don't understand why so many are against the idea of a PSP-like casing. IMHO, it's a good design in general. I don't find it ugly -- rather, I think it's kind of high-tech looking. As well, it is far more ergonomic than the A320 case. The fact that the PSP-like casing would be bigger than the A320 is a good thing, since you need more room to adequately space the additional control(s?) and to implement better shoulder buttons and to avoid problems stemming from cramming the guts into a tiny case.
Although it is nice and basic and looks elegantly simple in black, the A320 case is not very user friendly. While it's truly amazing that so much has been packed into such a small package, that package is actually just a bit too small. I'm an average-sized North American guy, including my hands, and the size and shape of the A320 result in discomfort after long gaming sessions. Also, the small size of the A320 "invites" you to carry it in your pocket, which is really a recipe for disaster since the things are so damn fragile; I keep mine in a carrying case four times the size of the A320 itself. The shoulder buttons are absolute crap, and I'm not sure they could be improved upon while retaining the same size/style case. Anybody know what the quality of the GameBoy Micro shoulder buttons was?
Unless I'm missing something, I'm seeing basically three objections to the PSP-like case:
1) It's ugly. Well...I just don't agree with that at all (as noted above) and find it a subjective thing, anyway.
2) It looks like a PSP. So what? Are you worried that people will think you are playing a PSP? It's a very superficial resemblance, and, in the case of the A330 implementation, the size difference alone makes it kind of obvious that it isn't a PSP. If someone actually asks you, "Hey...is that a PSP?" you get to explain to them how much cooler than a PSP your handheld actually is. And if no one asks...well...we're back to "So what?"
3) The A330 implementation of a PSP-like case sucked. Yes, it did. It truly did. Speaker placement was not good, shoulder button hardware was not the improvement it could have been, etc. So does this mean the concept is bad? No. It just means we have a bad example to learn from.
Personally, I'm not as concerned about what the case looks like as I am about the overall build quality of the unit. Having it look like a PSP wouldn't prevent me from buying it; what would prevent me from buying it would be poorly designed and built controls (especially the shoulder buttons), a case that's so small that it barely contains the innards (resulting in pressure waves on the screen and other internal issues), and other such problems.
If the choice of case design depends on the majority and if DDU considers the voice of this forum to be representative of its target market, then we probably won't see a PSP-like design. Whatever. Ultimately, what really matters is what's inside and how effective the controls (regarldess of the case they are mounted on) are at letting us access and manipulate what's inside.
