The manual for the new TSU7500 is posted on the Pronto website at [Link: p4c.philips.com]. Appears that the improvements are incremental, not revolutionary. Hard button labels are a bit different, 48 Megs of memory, a Page Overview feature that lists all the pages for a given device, and an Animation Mode that animates screen transitions.

Would be useful to to get impressions from anyone at CEDIA attending the 7500 training class.

In the specs it states that there is LED backlit screen and buttons. This sounds different and better, as from what I understand the RC9500 has LED backlit buttons and are much easier to see. I am curious as to whether it would use the same editor as the TSU7000..perhaps same firmware? Is Philips stating that the "Page Overview" and screen transitions are new? They are available on the 7000.

I have Philips Training later in the week. I will try and give you all some initial impressions. I understand Daniel and Eric are here as well.

Dave at Cedia in Indianapolis

I'd be curious for those of you at CEDIA to inquire as to whether we should expect faster page jumps with the 7500 over that of the 7000. The 7000 could be a tad bit faster at this in my opinion. Perhaps the 7500 will be using a faster processor and/or memory. Downloading Adobe Acrobat now so I can take a look at the manual. Just reinstalled my OS a few days ago. I knew I'd forget to reinstall something. :-P

I must admit though, those light grey hard buttons look terrible. They should have left the colors of the unit alone. It looks extremely "cheap" now.

i hoped for a complete redesign the case - this one is not very handy - and it looks rather old-fashioned.

One thing that I liked about the original TS1000 Pronto were the easier to use hard buttons, which stuck out further from the case and were further apart from each other. The TS1000's buttons were far easier to use by feel as compared to the TSU3000 and TSU7000 hard buttons, which are too close together to easily navigate without looking at them or slowly feeling where they are. Hope this is something that Philips improves in the future, though I don't see any difference with the TSU7500 (based on the manual).

I saw the TSU7500 at CEDIA. The buttons are quite a bit different in that the backlight center label areas are raised quite a bit above the button, so it is very easy to identify the button by touch alone. Kinda like braille. Also, the buttons were not grey on the model at CEDIA. they were the same color as the current version with raised, white labels. The only button around the screen that did not have a raised indicator was the mute button, but it was easy to find because the buttons around it were easy to identify.

Hmm. Are the hard buttons backlit at all? On the 7000 the button labels were like a "die cut" where the backlight shines through. Also, did the Philips folks say anything about the editor/firmware - will it share the same as the 7000?

Sorry, just relaized that the bottom 4-way buttons are a different color as shown in the photos. Buttons around the screen are unchanged in color. The button centers are still backlight, just raised instead of recessed.

There is a new editor for the 7500. It's in beta right now and was given out on a CD. It's version 2.1.4. Not sure if it will be common with the 7000 or not. For now, it appers to be different. I'm sure that firmware is as well, but I didn't confirm that by checking one of the remotes or asking, just speculation given the memory and editor differences.

BTW, new remotes are supposed to ship in 2 weeks.

I heard the new remotes were shipping later than that. Also, please remember that these were prototypes...I was told that the new hard buttons on the finished product shipped would be different than those we saw at CEDIA.

Those were basically mock-ups/prototypes.

Daniel,

Sorry we did not hook up at CEDIA. I stopped into the Press Tent a few times but you and Eric were probably on the floor, checking out stuff.

May be next time.

Dave

In the class I went to at CEDIA, they indicated the 7500 would be available in about 30 days. They also mentioned the 3500 "might" be available for Chritmas.

Dave

I also went to CEDIA and saw the unit. Here's a URL for the story I wrote at Gizmodo: [Link: gizmodo.com]

Also, here are other images of the units and the RF unit, but I also have very high resolution versions availble if anyone wants them: