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User reviews for the Philips ProntoPro TSU6000 from Philips Electronics.
Ratings
Reviews
MSRP (USD)
Average: 3.49/5.00 Median: 4.00/5.00
23
$999
The ProntoPro upgrades the Pronto TSU2000 with a bright 256-color LCD screen, 8 megabytes of memory, a pickup sensor, sleek new case design, more hard buttons, optional RF basestation and an improved user interface.
The reviewer has used this remote control for 1-3 months.
Review 9 made on Monday December 10, 2001 at 3:53 PM.
Strengths:
Color, ease of use. Hasn't crashed yet.
Weaknesses:
Price.
Review:
Unlike an IPAQ, this product does not crash everytime you use it. I bought a color remote because I wanted a color remote, not a PocketPC pretending to be a remote. Overall, a fine product, but a bit pricey.
The reviewer has used this remote control for 1-3 months.
Review 8 made on Sunday December 2, 2001 at 5:28 PM.
Strengths:
Programmable like the TSU2000, pickup sensor, readable display
Weaknesses:
poor passive display, even slower as the TSU2000, volume and program up-down button to hard to press. Poor PC-Software
Review:
I was waiting for years for the couloured pronto was due to arrive. I bought it as soon as I could. I own it now for two weeks and I really am very diappointed in the product. The only real differences between the old pronto and the new one are a coloured diplay and a new casing. And that for three times the price? I really don't think that this is worth it. The display quality is very poor compared to a tft display, which you can get in every coloured pda costing pretty much half the price of a ProntoPro. The PC Software didn't really change since the old Pronto days and I had to restart it several times working 2-3 hours with it. It seems to eat up memory and resources. My resume: I will return it. The sad point is that there is no alternative (still) but that is no excuse for the poor product quality. Philips is only taking advantage of there beeing no competition.
The reviewer has used this remote control for 1-3 months.
Review 6 made on Tuesday November 13, 2001 at 12:16 PM.
Strengths:
Auto light on, color touchsscreen, powerful remote, great software, extremely customizable
Weaknesses:
Lack of hard buttons, the fact that I bought a TSU2000 for a few hundred dollars and now must sell at a loss.
Review:
Love the remote! Just got the RF Extender and it is very useful with my TIVO which is in the master bedroom. Comfortable, ergonomic. I'm so happy with this remote, it's a nice advancement from the regular Pronto. Impresses everyone with the color touchscreen and the network logos. Found the best price and a helpful staff at www.rrdeals.com
The reviewer has used this remote control for 1-3 months.
Review 5 made on Monday November 12, 2001 at 11:23 PM.
Strengths:
Useful as a doorstop. Can be thrown effectively during bad football plays. Otherwise? You've been raped.
Weaknesses:
Lack of anything remotely resembling ergonomic design.
Review:
When you consider that Philips really did listen to its audience of TSU2000 users that said, "Hey, we need a joystick, we want the unit to have a stick-based shape, and two hardbuttons are not enough" and released the Pronto Neo, you can't possibly be seriously considering purchasing this boat anchor.
Granted, the Neo isn't color, but it's clear that Philips have snapped out of their ergonomic form factor coma and finally developed a unit designed to be used with one hand.
Now if we torch this POS loudly enough, they'll maybe come back with real color and some guts behind it.
I can't even go on. I'm so glad I passed on this and had faith that Philips could design a proper remote.
Watch for the next rev after Neo for a truly useful remote and the first time in 3 years I ditch my Pronto T2.
The reviewer has used this remote control for 1-3 months.
Review 4 made on Saturday November 10, 2001 at 6:38 PM.
Strengths:
RF freakvency,color screen,do not have to point at the equipment,when you using macro or another commands,very very neat.
Weaknesses:
Hard button have it really hard touch that is the only weakness.
Review:
I owning the Pronto Pro almost 3 months,and I did not have it any problems with it at all.Of course at the beginning the macro was not working with RF.But after today update dos.I use to have the old Pronto,but this one is really cool.The memory is big enough for your home (audio,movies,all remotes,fans,AC...)so,GO GET IT!!!
The reviewer has used this remote control for 1-3 months.
Review 3 made on Wednesday September 19, 2001 at 7:52 PM.
Strengths:
What strengths?!?
Weaknesses:
WAY, WAY too expensive for what it does and doesn't do; low color screen; old inferior screen technology; old, slow processor; barely any memory; old serial connection.
Review:
I'm giving this remote lower ratings for a few reasons:
First, it is WAY too expensive. I could buy a Pocket PC handheld computer, like the Compaq iPaq (which by the way is a beautiful device) and a Compact Flash sleeve for $550. People right now are trying to develop solutions to turn the Compaq iPaq into a consumer remote control. If someone will develop a CF card/software combo, for instance, that will add consumer RF capability to the iPaq for $100 or less (which is realistic), you'd have a beautiful remote control/computer combo device that could do a thousand times the things this overpriced remote could ever do. Not to mention it would cost you no more than $650 for everything. And with that in mind, you're already talking about a savings of $350 right there.
Why would the iPaq be better? Well, lets look at the feature set of both devices:
-The remote only displays 8-bit color (256 colors). The iPaqs (the new iPaq models [3800 series] shipping in October 2001) have 16-bit color (65,536 colors). The current iPaqs (3600 and 3700 series) have 12-bit color (4,096 colors). HP Jornadas have 16-bit color. Most color Pocket PC's have the 16-bit screens. This extra color means much nicer graphics, no banding, and better detail and clarity.
-The remote has a crappy passive matrix FSTN screen. Pocket PC's have active matrix screens. Active matrix means much, much better color, brightness, and overall consistency and quality of graphics, animation, and video.
-The remote has an old, slow, 33MHz DragonBall processor. The iPaq has a StrongARM processor running at 206MHz. All Pocket PC's are moving to this processor. And next year, iPaqs may move to Intels XScale processors that are supposed to run at 416MHz.
-The remote has only 8MB of RAM memory for long-term storage. Pocket PC's have anywhere from 32-64MB. And the iPaqs can be upgraded internally to 128MB. They can be upgraded far beyond that. iPaq's can be upgraded clear to 5GB! (Yes, I said GB's). This costs more, but you can do it. At the very least and at no extra cost, with Pocket PC, you'll have four to eight times the memory this remote has.
-The remote has an older serial connection for connecting to your computer. You can get the iPaqs with a serial connection as an option, but all Pocket PC's (including the iPaq) come standard with USB, which is much better and faster.
Not to mention, the Pocket PC is a computer. It will run hundreds and hundreds of programs of all kinds. It plays 2D and 3D games, will keep track of your appointments and calendar events with alarms, can work as a sound soother and alarm clock (as an example), works as an MP3 player, can play videos, will store all of your Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access, and miscellaneous text and audio files, stores digital photos, works as a voice recorder, will allow you to touch up photographs, compose music, allow you to draw and paint, will play converted DVD movies (providing you have the memory - this isn't super cheap and of the highest quality you see on your TV or desktop - but it can be done), you can read electronic books, listen to audio books, and it has internet capability, and you can access networks and VPN's wirelessly with Wi-Fi PC cards. Some of what I mentioned above requires purchases software, and of course the Wi-Fi card would cost extra, but most of what I mentioned can be done out of the box. What's really cool (and granted, at added cost) is that Pocket PC's can wirelessly have internet access, send receive emails, faxes, SMS messages, and file transfers. All wirelessly. And soon, when Compaq (or HP - whatever will happen there) releases their tri-band GSM/GPRS phone card, it will turn the iPaq into a cellular phone as well. Pretty amazing indeed. With a Pocket PC, you could change the channel on the TV, change some settings of your home theatre, then surf the net, and check your email - all with the same device. The new iPaqs will have voice control software, and an SD slot, and with Palm's upcoming SD Bluetooth card, you could potentially have Bluetooth capability. Oh yeah, did I mention that with the right hardware, Pocket PC's will work as GPS devices and give you voice directions to your destination? You can sync the device with your computer - I could literally go on and on. Lets see this remote do all of that.
I know this is a lot of info, but these Pocket PC's can be infinitely expanded with the most state of the art technologies. It's a computer, so its only limited to the imagination and add-on ingenuity of hardware and software developers. And the point is, if someone comes out with a hardware/software solution for consumer remote capability for the iPaq and other Pocket PC's, you'd have a beautiful device, that does a thousand times the things this remote does, with much higher quality and greater speed, and at $350 less. We geeks are just waiting. I'd rather wait for a solution that will cost me $100 bucks or so and that will allow my $500-$650 Compaq iPaq work as a consumer remote in addition to everything else it does, than to spend almost $1000 for a device that isn't even that great and does only one thing.
And don't think that the Pocket PC is a jack of all trades, master of none type of device. It does everything well. And it could handle remote control capabilities in such a way that it would absolutely blow this remote away.
Now what would YOU rather have? I know this was long, but do you see my point?
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