I have to say that the casing and Industrial Design are pretty good - Sandi likes the "no-fingerprints" case (her words) and we both appreciate that the volume/channel buttons are now consistent with all the other remotes.
I had some trouble getting going because on my primary computer there is a problem where plugging in the remote (USB) terminates my wireless connection. It was late and nobody I know was online, so I called customer service just for kicks.
Well, the best the Tier 1 guy came up with ... ok he had two options:
- Use a wired connection.
Not feasible since I have to use an Extender, and dragging that out of the cabinet will be ugly.... and I don't have a long enough network cable. Ok I do, but its in a box in the garage while my basement is being done. So its not do-able. shut up. - Disable the network adapter for the remote in the Device Manager.
I knew this was foolish - how will the client talk to the remote without it? - but I went along just to get past Tier 1.
So then I hit the website and start entering my information... lo and behold, the client can't connect to the remote for the connectivity check. Duh. Call back in and get Tier 2. Now we're talking to someone with a clue.
Turns out I'm the first to ever experience this problem and they don't have a suggestion other than a wired connection or another computer. All right, this I was expecting, but it means something on my system here doesn't play well with the remote... or perhaps the Belcarra driver doesn't play well with it, I don't know. I should point out that this worked fine on my Logitech laptop, which is the same model as this one, so its probably just a difference in a driver somewhere.
Right, so I get on the home laptop and that works properly. I continue to add my shit in... what a gently caressing pain in the ass that is. No Migration Path my left nut. They need to make one.
Now, It strikes me as I'm doing all this crap that all their talk of "completely different software" is a giant pile of sloppy wet bull turds. This "completely different software" is exactly the same as the old one, except that you can't migrate to Hennessy. I'm serious, its still the same crappy web interface, but they're billing it as something new. ... and there are still a lot of dumb visual errors on that site too.
So fine I get through that with minimal cursing... didn't want to wake up the better half, right?. Getting it updated wasn't actually as bad as I had expected. I only had to plug in the Extender once, The firmware and configuration update didn't actually take too long (though it was interesting to see that a FW update was actually necessary. Already.) And for once it actually worked the first time. No button customizations required and so far I haven't wanted to do any... though I did look at that interface... All I can say about that is a Tab labelled "Hardbuttons" is definitely ... amateurish. There must be a better UI for that, jeez.
"But tell us what you really think!". All right, get to the point.
Pros:
- UI is much more responsive than the 1000
- animations! (well, it does make it look slicker)
- Boot time is vastly improved
- Update times are vastly improved
- The graphics in general are better than the 1000, but I find myself wishing that they either got a better quality LCD or drew their pictures with more colours. Perhaps I'm jaded from using the BlackBerry for so long, but the remote just isn't crisp enough.
- Casing is good - the matte black repels fingerprints well.
- The wife hasn't once uttered the phrase "well that's just stupid."
2009/08/07 update - she uttered the phrase. Apparently she's not a fan of the default "send Play on Start" behaviour.
Cons:
- Web continues to need a birthday (click an option, click a button)... you cover a hell of a lot of screen real-estate on every page. You would think they would at least put the buttons closer to the options list, but really the lists need to go, it makes the web harder to use. Oh, sorry, I mean "the software". That makes it worse - billing it as software makes me think of the current interfaces as exceptionally klunky.
- Not cheap, especially in this economy. Its a little unfair to throw that out, since its been in development for a year or so (before the shit went down), but I suspect they're going to have trouble getting them off the shelves, at least for a while.
- Charger runs pretty warm. I don't remember this from the 1000, so I wonder if there's a new component that's cooking a little more than in the previous model. Then again I'm using the Cognac charger; maybe I should swap in the new one.
- I don't seem to have the sensitivity I would have expected at the corners.... this could be my unit I suppose, but I sometimes find that pressing on the corner icons doesn't have any effect.
- Sounds still suck large piles of dog poo.
No word yet on battery life.
Ultimately, its a big improvement over Cognac; much more (UI) responsive and limited use so far hasn't had the IR-sending lock up (Cognac would occasionally send-forever after a button press, until another button got pressed - possibly a missed KB-up event or something)
I'm disappointed in the graphics quality, but the animations are smooth and the graphics being used are at least as nice as Cognac's.
This remote definitely gives you more value for your money.
