First of all, thanks to David D'ARCHE for prompt delivery! Here are my first impressions from a few days of playing around with it.
Hardware-wise, it is an impressive piece of equipment. Rather than extolling its virtues, however, I will concentrate on its shortcomings - which may be more interesting to potential buyers.
I bitterly bemoan that Philips has removed the capability of uploading from the control unit to the PC. They say this protects the work of custom installers. Maybe that's true, but I would have preferred to retain this as an optional. Obviously, I am not a custom installer!
That the device connects to a Wifi net, yet does not incorporate a browser, is a major disgrace. There is absolutely no excuse of any kind that Philips did not provide a browser! This is entirely ununderstandable!
Apart from the above, the device is highly functional and just fine. I hope that the 2100 mAh Li-ion battery has a long life, but I hadn't yet enough time to find out.
The software, on the other hand, is a dog! For one thing, it is amazingly slow. That applies to everything: installing, loading, saving and retrieving files, etc. No idea in which language it was written and how it was compiled. I have never seen any kind of software that is that slow (including Visual Basic stuff).
Another annoyance with the software is that it does not adhere to standard conventions. The way you select graphic items is non-standard: you cannot simply draw a rectangle to select a bunch of included items. Also, there is no way to shift items along perfectly horizontal/vertical lines (any other graphic package will do so by pressing Shift). There are many more inconveniencies with the software which drive me up the wall - but what can I do?
On the plus side, the software appears to be stable. I didn't experience any crash - yet. Not even with the device simulator, which was notoriously "crashy" in other Pronto software versions.
All in all, I am satisfied with my purchase. It is a good item - and it could be much better if Philips had consulted me before releasing it :-)
