This is what I sent to Philips customer support... I know many of you have the same complains but I just wanted to add my two cents...
I am one of your contest winners and now that I have been using your remote non-stop for over 24 hours, I would like to make a few comments and ask a few questions (please be aware that I am currently using pronto sbc ru950):
Great Things about the remote: 1. Style: the look and feel of this remote is awesome! 2. streaming is a wonderful feature. I love that I can listen to my MP3's AND view photos from my server. 3. Setup -- your setup wizard is a great idea and helps make an easier setup 4. Activity based flow -- I also love this idea as this is how i make my decisions on how and what to watch 5. Included TV guide is also very nice 6. Ability to upgrade firmware and software on unit 7. Through your navigation, you have solved a lot of my power on/off discrete code issues that I have with my current remote. This is very good!
The following are some things that would make an overall medium remote a much better remote. For a $400 remote, I am actually very dissapointed that these features are not included (please feel free to comment and/or correct me on the below):
Networking and UPnP use: 1. The screen resolution should be better for viewing pictures. The pictures I can view are choppy and sometimes hard to make out 2. The fact that the wireless hardware is based on 802.11b and not 802.11g is very confusing to me. Now, I have to use mixed mode in my wireless network which has DRASTICALLY brought down my overall wireless network speed. This would've made your wireless users a million times happier as 802.11g is faster AND has longer range. I also use a laptop to view movies on my server AND now I am having major problems getting a smooth picture. 3. Better internal speakers and a headphone jack 4. Ability to sort the lists in folders AND ability to customize different levels of filters. For example, I would like to navigate folders like this: Music -- Generes -- Artist and/or Album -- list of music. OR have some group my functions within the displayed lists 5. List viewing: the fonts are too big which doesn't allow you to see the entire name of the song. This can be fixed by having a different screen layout and having the option of decreasing the font 6. Autoscrolling of pictures. Although there is a play button, you have to manually scroll thought the directory of pictures. It would be nice if it autoscrolled by a user defined number of seconds between pictures. 7. MP3 quality -- the quality could be better. Of course this is related to the speed of wireless network -- no 802.11g!? 8. In your documentation, you should suggest using QoS for wireless networking 9. No video streaming?!
Remote Navigation and Setup of Audio/Video equiptment: Overall, a lot of work needs to happen here. My impression is that if you have a very basic system without many units to control, this will work only OK. My $100 Pronto SBC RU950/00 works much better.
1. Large issue: Users should have the ability to add activities. Through your activity based navigation, I cannot get to many activities that I do: listen to tape, DAT, phono, and others. To get around this, I have to navigate through back to the individual device control which is 7 or 8 different screens just to change the input to TAPE or just to press the sleep button or just to press the record button, or just to navigate through present radio stations. 2. Large Issue: Cannot customize screens. You force me to show buttons that I don't need or use, then page though to find buttons I philips thinks I need, ultimately missing functions/buttons that I need and use. Along with that... 3. Large Issue: No ability to change/add/remove buttons to screens. There are many buttons I use daily that I have to navigate back to the individual device control which forces me to go though 6, 7, or 8 different screens just to press one button. There are many functions that I use which are not available. If you are going to force me to display buttons I don't need, at least let me change the name of them. I know I can learn over functions, but who wants to press or can remember the button "menu off" is really to change the input to TAPE? Along with that... 4. No macro setup. Don't really know how large of an issue this is based on activity based flow. But because you cannot add activities, the ability to assign simple macros would be extremely helpful.
Other: 1. No PC setup or PC save configuration. What happens if this crashes or I forget to charge for a long period of time?
My overall impression is very mixed. Unfortunately, based on the above, I will still be using my older pronto until a firmware version that can come out to address some of the above: I just find myself having the navigate back to the individual device control way to many times. Additionally, this unit hasn't passed the wife test. MP3 listening and picture viewing is great... when watching TV or listening to media on my system, my wife has to ask me a million times how to do "x, y, and z." It just doesn't make sense to have to navigate through 6-8 screens just to press one button that's on the origianal remote AND it doesn't make sense where a button labeled "menu off" is actually change input to tape. I eventually wind up using the control screens in the individual device control for all my device control which this is unit is really not designed to do that, and because I cannot add buttons, there are just things I do a lot which I will never be able to do on this remote.
Your comments and corrections would be greatly appreciated. I would be more than happy to talk to someone directly on this.
The concept and idea is fantastic; just allow us to add activities, change screen layout, change/add/remove/create buttons, and save setup to PC, and you will have yourself a winner!
