WANTED: Zunepad Feedback <stickied>

One thing I would like about the squircle is that you don't actually have to press in to make your selections. I wish you could just tap it in the center at a certain pressure to make a selection.  But theres a fine line with that..too high sensitivity and someones just going to try and scroll thru songs and when you first hit it the software thinks you want to choose that song....too low sensitity and you'd have to take a  sledge hammer to it ;) but something in the middle would be nice!

Thanks!

If touch navigation is off, it should not have weird effects if two fingers are on the pad at the same time when you click one of the up down left or right buttons. My Zune 80 does this.

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Alcuin

Some quick feedback on my experiences with the Zune Pad (SQUIRCLE!)

General Issues

Overall I like the Zune Pad, but I find myself reverting to the directional clicks when I want to make sure my inputs are recognized. I typically use the center of my thumb and as I have large hands I tend to need to use a delicate touch to avoid registering as a click. I believe it is this light touch that is causing some of my problems. I can tell by feel that I am making physical contact with the pad, but it seems many times my actions are not registering. Most often it seems to take more than one flick to the left or right to get the twist menu to advance. Up and down actions seem to have more success, but this might just be superstition?

I really enjoy the feel of the "flick" scrolling through long lists, but I tend to revert to the physical click when scrolling through my massive song lists. I do tend to have issues with stopping the scroll with a touch, but this might be due to my light touch. Pressing the center for "OK" sometimes registers as a directional press so I have to make a concerted effort to press down squarely on the pad.

By instinct I find myself double tapping the pad for the center press. This is of course because of my laptop experience and might be a good addition to the firmware as it is very intuitive (for touchpadders) and would eliminate accidental directional input when wanting to press the center button.

Navigating photos is enjoyable with the Zune Pad, but it appears that changing from an up/down motion to a left right requires a very definite pause before changing direction. It's not much, but noticeable. Zipping around a grid of photos makes me wish there was some sort of keypad (a la XBox) that I could use in this fashion to set up searches or name a playlist. Ideas for the future...

I hope this is helpful information.

i enjoyed using the zunepad when i first got my zune 80. the natural motion involving the act of simply swiping and touching is easier for me than clicking, although i use the vertical motion more often, and horizontal clicking more often. the firmware does an excellent job at detecting accidental swipes and causing movement, although in some cases it does too good of a job since it doesnt detect some of my horizontal gestures; this is a non-issue though since as i have said, i dont really use the horizontal swipes. i dont know if everyone noticed this, but when browsing the photos with the zune pad, i usually use it as if it was a touchpad in a laptop, and to my suprise, it actually acts like in that case, making photobrowsing highly entertaining and less clunky. some cavaets though include the occassional misclick of the OK instead of one of the directional buttons intended to be clicked and the fact that the buttons have no definite labeling on the surface thus people dont really know that they could actually click the pad as a dpad and the ok button was the middle of the touchpad. The shape is refreshing combining elements of a rigid and curved shape making for an appealing modern feel on the device and i love the way the pad maintains a 2 dimensional navigation capability because i think it makes it easier for navigating through the actual play in a single defined level or space of category.

 billsrock61 wrote:

One thing I would like about the squircle is that you don't actually have to press in to make your selections. I wish you could just tap it in the center at a certain pressure to make a selection.  But theres a fine line with that..too high sensitivity and someones just going to try and scroll thru songs and when you first hit it the software thinks you want to choose that song....too low sensitity and you'd have to take a  sledge hammer to it ;) but something in the middle would be nice!

Thanks!

 

I second that!!!  I have loved the Zune since I bought it and the ONLY thing I really feel is lacking is no tap feature.  I think a double tap might be better just to keep it honest, and hopefully there would be a setting to adjust for your tap speed like on windows.  But I think that would add HUGE user friendlyness to the touch pad!!!

 Alcuin29 wrote:

If touch navigation is off, it should not have weird effects if two fingers are on the pad at the same time when you click one of the up down left or right buttons. My Zune 80 does this.

 

The Dpad is not a 4 way switch.  It depends on the zpad to tell it what direction is being pressed, as it is NOT a 4 way switch.

the Dpad is a 5 way switch (x, y, z) Left, Right, Up, Down, Confirm (well it's only one button that does all that stuff).

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Hold your breath someone is about to tell the greatest lie EVER!

 Daklu wrote:

I don't like the "button" feel of the touchpad

Can you explain what you don't like about it?  Is it too stiff?  Too mushy?  Not enough travel?  The center click typically has a slightly different feel than the four directional clicks.  Do all five buttons feel bad or is it only some of the buttons?

I have one question.  Isnt the touchpad button only one physical button?  Anyone can test this themselves if they dont beleive me.  If you click the very top of the touchpad, it wont do anything because the zpad doesnt pick it up.  But, if you place you finger on the left/right/bottom/center, it will click to wherever that finger is placed.  This also works in other directions, like click the outermost part of the left/right/top/bottom zpad, and place a finger anywhere. 

Also, I have my own answers to those questions.  The center part of the button is too noisy.  Like, WAY too noisy.  If it was as quiet as the ipod center, it would be nice.  I think its because its to stiff, but im not completely positive.  I know its not only my own zune, because i've had to return a different one, and i also played with one in stores.  Maybe it just needs to be broken in.  The top, left, right, and bottom parts of the button are just right though.   They are even quieter than I though actually.  Almost silent.

The only thing that I would change in the firmware is the touch sensitive motions for left/right. They are for previous/next track which seemed odd for me. I wish it would do a 5-10 second rewind/fastforward instead.

I have had a few other troubles like other people described, such as the center click sometimes doing another function, but since it happens rarely, its not really a problem. I guess a double tap on the touch sensitive pad would be cool too.

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FL studio addict... former podder.

I love touching things...mmm

But really about the pad:
I never got a iPod because i didn't like the interface/clicky wheel.  The zunepad is def a huge upgrade and much more intuitive.  I do have a few gripes:

1) Like some said you can easily scroll past an artist when in the huge list.  I read that a click of the pad will stop the scrolling but I am not sure if this is true.  Maybe you could make it like tivo when you are fast fowarding and press play it knows you went past the part you want and judges the reaction time depending on how fast you are scrolling.  It usually puts you in the right place.  Also you could make the click thing work (it it is a real feature) with a lighter tap.

2) It seems to be unresponsive and weird when tracking through songs and movies.  It seems not to backtrack but just start the song over and in movies skips huge chunks when going forward..  I love skipping the song to the next one (that works great) but it isn't sensitive with other things.

The pad itself seems to have a little discolored blob (was mint out of the box, the mark appeared the first day.) Idk if this is just from wear or what but I don't really mind that much(omg OCD taking over.)  Other than that I LOVE the touch pad and feel it is much easier to use than the clicky wheel.

OK, this is too late now for the 4-8-80 gig Zunes, but the next generation I would like to see on the T-Pad is to have a bump or simuliar right dead center, just to let our thumb know where center is.

Just when I think I have center, I click left, right, top, bottom. Very rarely do I get it right the first time.

I use it one-handed, right thumb along the upper right next to the thumbnail.

The size of the pad could be a bit bigger because I have somewhat large hands.

And during a song play, the "swift" movement to the right doesn't always take you to the next song. Sometimes I have to try it several times or I just have to resort to right clicking it to go to the next song.

Dale

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I never said I was smart, just pretty to look at...

 Sinner667 wrote:

 Alcuin29 wrote:

If touch navigation is off, it should not have weird effects if two fingers are on the pad at the same time when you click one of the up down left or right buttons. My Zune 80 does this.

 

The Dpad is not a 4 way switch.  It depends on the zpad to tell it what direction is being pressed, as it is NOT a 4 way switch.

That doesn't make it any less of a design flaw.

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Alcuin