My thought exactly. My initial reaction is that it has an attractive (although radically different) look, but the fact that the buttons are all joined together would make it more difficult to use. It seems like it would be too easy to have your thumb on two buttons at once, and it would be very difficult to locate a button by touch. Maybe I am not in the majority but to me that is a critical feature in my neverending quest for the "ultimate remote".

On first glance I didn't like it at all because I was expecting two circular areas (I like the transport controls like play/pause/etc. organized in a circle with pause in the middle, the way Dish Network does it on their remotes). The 688 has them in a single curved line. But then I noticed the skip forwards/back buttons are above the curved area, so when they are all considered the transport buttons will form a circle (sort of, more or less).

As I look at it more the design is growing in me. I definitely like what they have done with the directional pad. But I still think it is a mistake to have all the buttons formed together rather than spaced apart. Maybe someone who has had a chance to hold a prototype would have a better feel for whether this is the case.