[Link: homecontrol.philips.com]

The RC9800i has been created with the home theater enthusiast in mind.

The remote has been ergonomically designed for single and double-handed use. It features a bright color TFT LCD screen which offers optimum readability. The integrated infrared and WiFi technology allows the RC9800i to control both legacy devices, such as a DVD player, and also UPnP networked devices, such as media adapters. You are even able to preview pictures stored on your PC or listen to MP3s on the RC9800i.

The RC9800i is extremely simple to configure thanks to the intelligent setup wizard. With straightforward questions, it generates the logic to automate your control experience and trouble-free installation.

To ensure top performance a Li-Polymer battery powers the remote, which is recharged using the included charging cradle.

Yup - we had Philips over with us a couple of months ago and they were telling us about it ... no schedules for launch over here yet as far as we can tell but they did promise us a couple to have a play with.

Of course we haven't got them yet... :-(

(Perhaps that might have something to do with my comment of "Like **** are you getting this back without a fight" when they sent us over a pre-production iPronto all that time ago? :-D )

Phil

lol

Wha they ought to do is offer a trade in / exchange on the iPronto. I am sure the adoption of this product will mean end of life for the iPronto.

The early adopters are screwed once again.

From what I read on it, I don't think it will be replacing the TSi6400. The RC9800i is going to be priced around $500 from a couple of sites I read. I doubt they would price a replacement almost a grand less than the predecessor.

The information I have is that this will coexist with the existing Pronto product line ... it is deliberately not being given the "Pronto" branding to keep it a separate series.

Remember that it won't have *ANY* of the programability or configurability of the current Prontos, there is no PC setup software for it. Also - the planned pricing for the unit (I received initial release schedules and pricing for it only this morning) does not put it in any sort of competition with the iPronto or even the RU980 so I think your "early adopters being screwed once again" comment may be a little misplaced - tell you what Barry, I'll do you a deal, when the 9800i comes out I'll do you a straight exchange for your iPronto (assuming it's all tidy and unmarked) - now I can't say fairer than that can I? ;-)

The Pronto line is aimed more at the enthusiast / installer where as the 9800i seems to be aimed more at the higher-end end user who has no desire to spend time creating something uniquely tailored to him.

Phil

This message was edited by bassfiend on 09/20/04 07:28 ET.

fair enough - the 9800i may not be a replacement for the iPronto but I ask this, how much time have Philips spent developing this product (using experience gained from the iPronto) and how much time have they spent on enhancing the iPronto?

I'm pretty surprised that the latest iPronto release has ONE enhancement, maybe thats all they had time for as resources are being diverted onto a new product.

Playing devils advocate here I would counter with how much time did Philips spend developing the RU970 with experiences learned from the RU940, the RU980 with what they learned from the RU970, the iPronto with what they learned from the 970/950/940...

...products will *ALWAYS* be improved and made cheaper and "early adopters" will always pay a premium for a product which is "cutting edge".

This happens with AV kit, computers, cars, everything and in very few situations does a manufacturer then give previous purchasers a "trade-in" against their new and improved model. For example - I bought a graphics card the other day for £39.95 that blows away the one that it replaces which cost me over £100 a year ago.

I bought a 32" LCD TV just over a week ago for about £2,000 - the picture sucks with off air broadcasts but running from my HTPC it is superb - in six months time I'm sure it will have been superceeded with a new model which is better quality and also probably substantially cheaper - should the manufacturers therefore offer me a trade in on it?

At least the issues with the iPronto have been able to be fixed by firmware updates and unfortunately I think you'll find that this is the way that things are going in general as products become ever more firmware based.


Maybe - or maybe they've been trying to sort out why a small number of iProntos have been locking up without reason.

Maybe you and I have a different outlook on things, I want a remote that is stable, reliable, works each time I pick it up and just becomes part of the furniture - I'm not worried about it having a richer function set or more bells and whistles.

Phil

Phil,

Certainly a valid opinion.

I would agree that stability & reliability are important, this needs to be balanced with functionality & value for money to be a successful product.

The combination offered by Philips in the form of the iPronto was a level i considered optimum (this is when compared to the crestron system which is probably better in all areas but with a price tag to match). When looking at a product with future upgrade potential it will justifiably attract a premium, the gamble for the consumer is whether future upgrades actually appear.

My concern/problem comes more in the promise of what the iPronto would be able to do. Early adopters of technology always suffer a price penalty, however, the promise of improvements in performance, reliability & functionality provided via firmware updates has made the iPronto far more successful than if it was launched as a finished product.

The iPronto is an expensive piece of hardware, it is priced at the right level based upon the combination of both current functionality and promised future functionality (along with the pre-requisite reliability)

I would be very disappointed if Philips announced that future focus will be directed to the 9800i or in fact an upgraded iPronto.

I guess maybe this is where I'm a pessimist with kit ... I buy something because of what it does now, not because of what it might do in the future. I'm happy to have a remote with a huge screen where I no longer have to spend hours/days carefully tweaking layouts to get them to fit in the given space. I remember feeling quite queasy when I imported my RU970 CCF file into the iPronto and there were these huge expanses of unused screen that I then had to fill!

There are things I wish it did differently - sure. I wish it didn't take so long to wake up, I'd happily sacrifice a lot of battery life if they could keep at least the hard buttons working at all times (most of the customers I speak with recharge the thing every night anyway) and just how much do I wish it had a charging cradle rather than that bloody stupid plug in PSU but other than that I'm really happy with it - it's a remote control that does what it's supposed to do.

Playing Devils Advocate once again - because I honestly don't set out to rub people up the wrong way but I do like sparking off what is hopefully a healthy debate rather than just a series of "me too" grumbles - I'd be interested to know what people have been promised by Philips in the way of what the iPronto will do but that it doesn't now. You see, Philips are one of these companies that put out products which are "out there" and sometimes so way ahead/aside from the rest of the field that they either take off or crash and burn ... doesn't necessarily make them bad products ... remember Video2000?

I love my iPronto - in fact I need another one but can't afford it. Yes it would be nice if it had more functionality but it doesn't *NEED* more functionality to do what it is supposed to do. Believe it or not I push a few people inside Philips (Europe) *VERY* hard over this product probably two or three times a week but they aren't going to implement anything that may detract from it's core purpose in either speed or stability - just follow the threads from a few months ago and most of them were about stability issues.

Phil

*lol* I remember when I imported my Pronto file as well Phil! I was amazed! Vast expanses of emptiness, where before I was squeezing in teeny tiny buttons just to get everything I needed on one screen. It's also worth mentioning the vast amount of memory there is to play with. I had to abandon my plans for TV channel pages on my old one because my system just took up too much memory. Not so now though! I have all the direct channel access I could possibly want now.

I do agree that the wake up could be faster. And I have noticed another thing too. When it wakes up, the first button you press takes ages before it seems to send the IR code. But really, after a few weeks of living with a stable iPronto (thanks Phil!) I have to say I would not want to do without it. And the NetX has made my cinema look even tidier now. I didn't buy it for the future upgrades, I bought it based on what I expected it to do. And now they have "fixed" the hard buttons issue, it pretty much does.

I actually wish they hadn't tried to make it so future proof in a way, because I think it could have cost less without a fancy unused sound system, SD slot, USB socket etc. And yes, a cradle would have been much more elegant than what they came up with. But it's a great system. Show me anything out there for the money that competes and I'll eat my words.

I guess i'm just a mug for the promise of future upgradability ;) You would tell this quite easily if you saw my kit as its all Tag McLaren - and I didn't mind paying the premium for the upgrade path.

I have actually taken advantage of this path pretty much every time it has been made available, the main upgrade being the AV32R to the AV192R.

I hear you and agree on your comment re. keeping the iPronto as a remote control - frankly I don't care about being able to view photos on it.

However, there are 2 things I really want my iPronto to do, the main one being an rs232 netx extender (2-way) to control/read both my Tag AV kit and Lutron lighting.

Call it gimmicky but being able to see on my iPronto current volume, processing mode, scaler settings etc would be much nicer than having to see it on the screen.

I was also looking to hook up my video entry phone to the iPronto, this would require another rs232 unit to allow me to automatically open the driveway doors and also a video streaming facility to use the camera, would also make use of the iPronto speakers & microphone!!

This concept could be extended to many applications, and until they are available it won't compete with the crestron/amx style of system (although i'm not clear if this was ever the intention) - rs232 was always promised by Philips, I hope they still deliver on this promise otherwise I might end up going to a full blown amx system.

I wanted to use my iPronto as a complete home automation tool, sadly at present it is simple an AV remote control...

I did look longingly at the Tag stuff but at that price point my heart is almost irretrievably set on Meridian ... but then when you start looking at that then the DSP5000 speakers look tempting too and suddenly you're up in new TVR territory. :-D


Nope - me neither.


I know that one person on here is making noises about getting hold of a NetX and reverse engineering the protocols plus I'm plugging away at my guy at Philips to see if I can convince them to do something in the way of a software NetX. It's unlikely that there will ever be two way comms though as that opens up a whole can of worms at the iPronto end as to how to handle incoming data.


It would but I don't think it will happen...


/me spots a huge jump in functionality / hardware demands / complexity here ... again I think you have a snowball in hell's chance of that.


OK - well in my usual badgering emails to them this morning I did put forward whether it might be feasible to produce a version of the NetX that had a serial output on it rather than an IR output...


But *WHAT* an AV remote...

Phil

Phil,
So the RC9800i does not has *ANY* relation with Pronto line?

Remember our iPronto Beta-test Site?
[Link: pronto.philips.com]

Kees

According to the last meeting we had with Philips they are not intending the RC9800 to be any sort of competition for the Pronto / iPronto family and if anything they are being positioned alongside the Philips Streamium range of products. The line we were given is that the Pronto and iPronto are to appeal to the enthusiast or installer - someone who is more technically aware and wishes to spend the time programming a remote for exactly what they want.

The RC9800 is supposed to be targetted at those people who want something more than a One-For-All Kameleon but don't want the hassle of programming up a remote.

I didn't intend to imply that they were separate products within Philips or that they had been developed by separate teams of engineers and programmers.

Phil