Here is a current summary of the major issues I feel Philips needs to address in the next firmware/PENG release, in order of importance. Feel free to add more.

The slow remote code transmission speed, resulting in button presses being ignored. It would help if they could at least cache the last five button presses and then transmit them in the order pressed.

The memory leaks (or whatever it is) that cause the page jumps to gradually slow down until a reboot is required. I saw a simple page jump that was taking 4(!) seconds go back to 1 second after a hard reset. This isn't a low battery issue, the batteries were close to new at the time. Accumulated delays such as this are usually indicative of memory not being freed over time. Suspiciously, the Free Memory display never changes from 94%. Is this indicator hard-coded?

If possible with just a firmware fix, do something to increase the battery life. I've noticed that even with fresh batteries, the backlight flickers noticeably when remote codes are being transmitted. Hopefully, this isn't a hardware problem.

Having to press some hard buttons twice to send IR. The first press activates the touchscreen, but doesn't send the IR. This is a real annoyance which should be easy to fix.

The inability to control whether the hard buttons activate the touchscreen. Fixing this would help conserve the battery. This is related to the previous item.

The inability to program the left and right-most hard buttons below the touchscreen, and the buttons on the left side of the unit.

The loss of clock, light sensor and button beep settings after a reset. Some of the settings aren't actually lost but are ignored, and return to the default state after a reset.

The device is often unstable after downloading a PCF. A hard reset is then needed to get the unit to function properly. Admittedly, I seem to be the only one noticing (or at least reporting) this behavior, but I've seen it happen enough times to be convinced of it.


This message was edited by remote618 on 04/11/03 00:23.

Agree about programming the buttons. It was the presence of hard buttons that led me to choose this version of the Pronto: it seems a bit rough that they aren't enabled.

Agree also about transmission speed: USB should go faster than this, shouldn't it?

As an aside, I've wondered why the Pronto doesn't use the obvious way to communicate with a PC, which is infra red.

Mostly because IR is slow and unreliable.

--John

1) Pronto uses IR not IRDA (PC IR)
2) not all PCs have IR

"Consumer IR" isn't anywhere near compatible with "PC IR". Those attempts to get PC IR to talk CIR have been poor at best.

Generally only laptops come with IR (and maybe some brand name desktops), so it's not a better idea than USB.

By "transmission speed" I meant the transmission of remote control codes from the 3000, not the upload/download speed to a PC, which is via USB.

It appears to me that the remote code transmission also slows down in direct proportion to the page-jump speed. The device as a whole gets progressively slower over time until the next reset or PCF download. I always keep a paper clip handy for when it needs another speed boost reboot.

I'd like to have more control over the system items. I'd like to put some things like the system activity (to get into device setup), clock and battery level on pages that I want to, not all the pages. I'd also like to be able to move the system items around to where I want them (on the pages I want them).

I've worked around the system activity button problem. (If I don't have it I can't get into setup.) I've turned it on, but on most screens its behind a navigation bar so isn't seen. On the other screens I've pastes a white panel over the top of it. Is there a more elegant way of doing it?