The Philips RC9800i Remote Control: Upon Further Review (Updated)

Background

Philips has been a major player in the world of programmable touch screen remotes for quite some time now. Up until now, their most significant entries in this genre have been the Pronto line of remotes. Pronto remotes are highly functional and customizable, but can also be difficult and time consuming to program.

That is where the RC9800i comes into the picture. Philips introduced the RC9800i at this year's CES convention. The RC9800i is designed to be easier to program and more intuitive to use. It also has the ability to access pictures or music on your home computer and channel it to a TV or audio device with the proper adapters. As such, it is part of Philip's Connected Planet lineup, a foray into the world of networked homes.

Who is this Remote For?

The RC9800i is probably best suited for people with somewhat to fairly complicated home theater setups. To make use of all of its abilities, you would also need a wireless Internet network. The setup and operation of the RC9800i is very computer-like, so a good basic familiarity with computers is also very helpful.

In the Box

The RC9800i arrived in an attractive box. The front opened like a book, to reveal the remote inside without opening the box. Inside the box, the remote was packed in a simple but effective manner. I think the packaging is adequate to protect the RC9800i from moderate shipping abuse.

The RC9800i came bundled with a charging dock, an USB cable, a user manual, a quick start guide, and a stylus. A CD with Philips Media Manager software and an electronic (PDF) version of the user manual and quick start guide was also included.

Charging the remote is easy. You just place the RC9800i in the dock and it starts charging. A full charge takes about 3 hours.

Features/Specifications
(From the Box)

Backlit 65536 color TFT LCD
3.5 inch high sensitivity touch screen, 320 x 240 pixels
32MB RAM memory, 32MB flash memory
USB Connector
Speaker

Setup (Is Not Easy)

I have read some claims that the RC9800i can be set up in 30 minutes to 2 hours. I would not bet on this, unless you were part of the product development team at Philips. I received my RC9800i via FedEx a few hours before I needed to go to work. I sat down to start programming it, and was nearly late for work. I worked on it again for about 4 hours after work. All in all, I probably spent about 6-8 hours programming the remote.

First, I programmed the remote to control the various devices in my living room. There are several ways to accomplish this. The easiest is Learn & Match. In this mode, you point the original remote at the sensor of the RC9800i and hit certain buttons when prompted to do so. After the remote has recognized two or three buttons, it can then pick out a code set for the device you are trying to control. You can then try the various buttons and make sure they work. If there are any that were not included, you can tell the RC9800i to learn them as needed.

The second method for programming is Autoscan. In this mode, the RC9800i runs through various code sets that it has for your device until it finds one that works. You can then fill in any buttons that it did not have by using the learning feature.

The final way to program the remote is Select and Try. This is only recommended if the other two methods do not work. I did not have to use this method for the devices that I programmed, as Learn & Match worked well for me. However, I did attempt using it for the sake of a thorough review. There is nothing I wouldn't do for my readers! (Just kidding. Please do not start making strange requests.) Anyway, I tried it with the RCA TV in my bedroom. In the Select and Try mode, the RC9800i gives you a list of all code sets it has for the brand and type of device (in this case RCA TV) that you are trying to program. The code sets seem to be listed in order of relevance, as the very first code set worked for me. Which was good, as I was not looking forward to trying 20 different code sets!

I have spent some time on RC9800i message boards, and even people who I would consider remote fanatics have reported spending 3-5 hours setting up the RC9800i. This is, however, an improvement over many previous generation programmable LCD touch screen remotes, which could take weeks to get fully programmed. In fact, many people chose to have previous generation remotes of this genre programmed by professional installers.

Activity-Based Control

One of the main features of the RC9800i is activity-based control. What this means is that once you finish programming the remote to control your various devices, it presents you with a list of tasks that you might want these devices to perform. For example, the list might include Watch TV using Zenith TV. You can select this task, and the remote will ask you some questions, such as does the audio come from the TV, or does it come from the Integra Receiver. Once you have answered all these questions, the task (or activity) is set up.

Once you have the various activities programmed, you can choose them from the home page. On my home page, it lists Watch, Listen, and Watch/Listen on RC9800i. If I click Watch, it gives me the options Watch TV or Watch DVD. One click of either button will perform all the activities required to set my system up to watch the selected item. So when I press watch TV, it turns the TV on, sets it to the right input source, and turns on the receiver for the audio.

I did have some problems getting the RC9800i to set the different video sources to the right input. I was finally able to resolve this problem by removing one input that I was not using. This worked for my Zenith television some of the time. I also had to use the "fix" button of the activity screen to change the input fairly often when the activity-based control did not change it properly.

When I recently purchased a newer Toshiba TV, I had even more input problems. The Toshiba uses a menu to choose the input. You can either open the input menu and push the number of the input that you want, or use the cursor keys to move up or down the list. The RC9800i had both these options available for the setup for the televison, but neither of them works properly. So now I have to keep the new TV remote out as well as the "universal" remote.


As of now, the user cannot define any activity-based controls. You can only choose from the activities that the RC9800i decides you might want to use. For some strange reason, the remote did not think that I might want to listen to CDs using my CD player. I finally had to go in and set up my CD player again, at which time the option to play CDs using Marantz CD Player did finally appear. I am not sure why this worked the second time and not the first, but this is an example of the type of try and try again mentality that a person needs to set up everything on this remote the way they want it. In this way, it reminds me of computers. The people that I work with think that I know a lot about computers, and that I am very good at using them. I'm not. I am simply willing to try different things until I get something to work. In other words, there were a few features of the remote that I was only able to get working after many attempts. One such feature is...

The Electronic Program Guide (EPG)

The Electronic Program Guide is a television guide that appears right on the screen of the remote when you press the Guide button. It downloads information about television programming from the Internet. This is an extremely cool feature, especially if you have over-the-air or non-digital cable TV. I have non-digital cable, and so to get programming information I either had to look it up on the Internet, or else watch the TV Guide channel. The TV Guide channel seems to be about the sixth level of Hades, as it is there that Melissa and Joan Rivers reside. Being able to check what is on television without being exposed to Joan and Melissa Rivers is a VERY useful feature.

Setting up the EPG was, again, not easy. As a disclaimer here, I just recently set up a wireless network in my home, and it took me the better part of one day. So I really do not know much about wireless networks. Anyway, first I had to get the RC9800i hooked up to the wireless network. This took probably around 2 hours. I won't go into the details here, but I will offer a few quick pieces of advice. First, if you are using MAC filtering on your network (and you probably should be, unless you want your teenage neighbors to download music using your network), you need to add the remote's MAC address to your allowed list. I also had to enter the WPA encryption code into the device, as I am also using encryption. Yeah, I'm paranoid. I've learned to live with it. Finally, if you are using an 802.11g access point, you must set your access point to mixed mode.

Once I had all that figured out, the RC9800i connected. I did also have to go online and register for the EPG service. The manual says you get one free year of EPG, which makes me a bit nervous. I hope this isn't like those darn drug dealers they warned us about in the DARE program, who give it to you free until you are hooked, then start charging.

At this point I had set up the RC9800i to work with my network, registered, and entered the activation code in my remote. But for some reason, the RC9800i could not download the EPG for the first day. On the second day, it did succeed in downloading the information. I suspect this was just a problem with the server that provides the EPG.

When the EPG was finally downloaded, and I had a chance to use it, I thought it was great. You can easily go through all the channels that you chose during the online registration. Clicking on the up or down arrow moves the guide up or down one full page, which is very convenient. You can also just touch a certain spot on the bar on the right hand side, and the guide will skip to that section of the listings, much like a computer document that takes up more than one screen. The guide shows a 30 minute window, but also tells you how long each program lasts. You can click on a program twice for information. You can also select a program from the guide and press Watch, and the RC9800i will automatically tune the TV to that channel for you. If you click (or touch) a program twice, the EPG will show you details about the program.

After some time has passed, I have had some problems with the EPG. It sometimes says that it is downloading at times that it should not be downloading, and cannot be used at such times. It will also occasionally display data for the wrong date or time.

PC Control


Using the Philips Media Manager software, you can stream MP3s from your computer to your receiver, as long as your receiver is attached to an UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) adapter. You could also view photos on your TV if it was attached to an UPnP adapter.

Now, I must admit, I am an AV guy that dabbles in computers. As such, I spent a lot more time setting up the Audio/Video part of the remote. I am also very cautious when it comes to my computer, as I handle a lot of my financial affairs online. So I have a good firewall (Zone Alarm), have my wireless network set up with both MAC filtering and WPA encryption, and I do not allow my computer to be accessed remotely. In order to use the RC9800i to access files from my computer, I would have to change a lot of the security settings that I have established, and I don't feel comfortable doing that.

Also, if I want to see digital photos on my television, I can always just burn them on a CD and stick that in my DVD player. I generally do not listen to MP3s on my main stereo, as I have a pretty nice stereo and prefer the higher fidelity of CDs. If I did want to listen to MP3s on my stereo, I can easily hook up my MP3 player to my receiver.

So, the PC control feature of the RC9800i is not really very useful to me. If you are more of a computer person, and are concerned about the PC control features, you would be well served to seek out another review from a person with more of a computer background.


Upgradeability

The RC9800i can hook up to a PC via USB and download firmware updates from a Philips website. I did this once already, and it was fairly easy to do. The update did address one common complaint that I have read about on RC9800i message boards, which is that with the original firmware it is not possible to rename user defined buttons. After the update, I could rename these buttons without a problem.

Things that I Like:

1. The Electronic Program Guide. This is a really cool idea, and works well. I can scan all the channels in my list in about a minute. This really cuts down on the amount of time it takes me to decide what to watch.

2. Activity-based controls. Again this is a good idea, and works well after I resolved some setup issues.

3. The touch screen. It is a very nice touch screen, with good resolution, sensitivity, and color.

4. The design of the remote. The shape and size seem perfect. The appearance is clean and simple. The hard buttons on the right hand side are all very functional and well placed.

Things that I Don't Like:

1. The RC9800i has frozen up or reset itself on numerous occasions. I had to turn off the unit with the small on/off switch on the back to get it to reset. I wish that they had included a small, recessed reset button on the device. Thankfully, the freeze-ups did not erase any of the information for the devices that I had already programmed.

2. There is no place on the device to hold the stylus. I have seen many PDAs that have a cavity that the stylus fits into, or a clip that it could snap into. Since the RC9800i does not have either of these, I am afraid I will eventually lose the stylus.

Things That I Wish Philips Would Add With a Future Firmware Update:

1. The ability to remove buttons that you do not use, and add ones that are important to the first screen of buttons. Also, the ability to rename any button. This should not be too difficult to upgrade, and would please a lot of potential customers, especially those who are used to the customization available with Pronto models. This seems to be more important now that I have had more time to use the remote. The user defined buttons are usually on the very last page of controls, so I often have to go through five or six screens of controls to get to a button that I use frequently.

2. The ability to add user defined activities. This would have been really handy when the remote was not recognizing the fact that I might like to have an activity to use my CD player to play CDs.

3. The option to choose when the remote downloads the Electronic Program Guide. The EPG cannot be used when it is downloading. By default, it is set to download the guide between 1 AM and 7 AM. This can be pretty annoying, since I often like to stay up late, and so if I am watching TV after 1AM, I don't get to use the EPG.

4. Tetris. This is a somewhat frivolous request, but it would be awesome on the RC9800i's 3.5 inch color LCD screen, and the hard buttons on the side of the unit would work perfect for the game.

Overall

At first, I liked the remote. After some initial skepticism, my girlfriend also decided that she liked it. However, over the course of the last few months, a few highly annoying bugs have shown up. The remote cannot control the video input for my new television, which greatly limits the usefulness of the activity-based controls. It didn't do a particularly good job with the video inputs of my old television, either. The tendency of the unit to freeze up or reset itself occasionally is annoying. And while I love the concept of the activity-based controls and EPG, the implementation leaves something to be desired. Since I am not using its PC control capabilities, it might be a bit of overkill for me.

On the positive side, the design team did a great job. The remote seems to be well put together, has an attractive appearance, and fits easily in my hands.

Since the RC9800i is upgradeable, Philips has the opportunity to add a few features that would make the remote even better. I think that they should add these features, especially considering the remote's rather substantial price tag.




This product was provided by Hass MS&L for the purpose of posting a fair and honest review on Epinions.com.