Pronto Neo

[Andrew Pratt]

No this isn't a prop from the next installment on the Matrix its philips latest pronto remote. Marantz is about to release the 5200 and the 9200 which I've copied the specs from the remotecentral site. anyway the Neo is supposed to be like the marantz 3200 which uses the same physical body that the 5200 and 9200 use but it will offer only 1 meg or memory. Anywho BestBuy has the Neo on for $249 so the price is right and who knows what it will go for online. I'm excited about using the bottom rocker button for menu navigation.

See update below

[Lex]

That's a good looking remote, and appears to be poised to take the monochrome Pronto into the next few years. Might have to have one of those, looks very cool. 8)

Thanks Andrew,
Lex

[Andrew Pratt]

well we'll wait and see what software this thing can talk to. rumors right now indicate it may not be able to use pronto edit in which case its not a contender IMO

[Andrew Pratt]

Ok we've got some new info on the Neo




New ProntoNEO TSU500!
Judging from the emails I received on Sunday and Monday, folks are not content to merely sit and wait for information on the new Philips ProntoNEO TSU500! Although I'll ultimately be posting a full review of the remote, here are a few details to whet your appetite.

ProntoNEO: Click to enlarge.
The TSU500 is based on the same platform as the Marantz RC3200 and uses a 3" 160x100 pixel 4-grayshade LCD touchscreen supported by electronic contrast control and aqua-colored electroluminescent (EL) backlighting. All user hard buttons, of which there are 15 including a 5-way menu control, are also backlit. Three other hard buttons on the side are for activating the backlight and scrolling through pages. The remote includes 1mb of memory shared between the operating software, a built-in database of device codes and user configuration. In addition, the remote is capable of learning infrared signals up to 56kHz and 455kHz.

Instead of the current Pronto's three "Main", "Device" and "Macro" sections, the ProntoNEO will only include two: a device menu and the devices themselves. Despite a clock with day/month/year information, the remote does not support timers. However, much like the current Pronto, every button can hold a preprogrammed code, learned signal or macro. Think of it as "Pronto Lite"!

However, despite being branded with the well-known "Pronto" name, the new Philips model (and Marantz counterpart) are not actually compatible with existing Pronto CCF files or infrared codes - they use their own .NCF file format. As far as I've heard, no provisions for importing existing CCF files or hex codes have been considered. Although the Philips NEOedit PC software looks and feels like existing ProntoEdit versions, it has in fact been totally rewritten. The problem is that my preproduction remote did not include a software CD, so I cannot comment further on exactly how it will work. I do know that the remote will fully support customized labels and bitmaps, just like existing Prontos.

Daniel Tonks
Remote Central

[Andrew Pratt]

details are up on philips site re the neo

http://www.pronto.philips.com/ifu_ProntoNEO.pdf

[Kevin P]

I saw the Neo at Best Buy a week or so ago. It looks like a neat remote--I like how it's smaller so one-handed usage is a possibility, and the hard buttons (including menu navigation buttons) is a big plus! The screen looks like it's a bit smaller than the regular Pronto but now you don't have to crowd the screen with menu buttons anymore. It also has scroll buttons on the side, which is another plus.

I wonder if the Pronto Neo Edit software is more stable than ProntoEdit 2.0. I hope it is, I actually like 1.05 better but I need 2.0 to do the newer Prontos. 2.0 is buggy.

KJP




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[Andrew Pratt]

Kevin from what I've heard the pronotneo software isn't nearly as powerful as prontoedit. It won't allow you to post in codes from pronto edit so that pretty much kills it for me