Intempo Evolve

[ffutures]

Anyone know anything about these - sounds like a good deal (though Amazon list them at £80, not £200), I'm wondering if there are snags.

Comments

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Will be able to tell you soon. Mine arrived this afternoon.

They're very light - the set top box bit is about the size of one of the old Western Digital My Book external hard drives, and the remote is about the size of a (somewhat thicker than usual) smartphone - with a touchpad where the screen would be. The touchpad slides over to reveal a (minimalist) "keyboard" - more a qwerty-style arrangement of clicky buttons - may end up using one of the USB slots for a keyboard....

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Excellent! Let me know how you get on.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Not well.

Put batteries in (slightly rattly) controller, wired up box to power, TV (hdmi) and LAN.

Controller would not stay switched on. Eventually worked out that this meant it wasn't paired. Went through pairing routine and lights no longer flashing. Screen failing to display, though, on our digimate TV... Singularly failing to get anywhere - guess I need a way of testing whether it will talk to another TV or if a known-good HDMI device will talk to the TV.

Giving up soon.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I've been checking AV sites and reviews are generally not very positive - the big problem seems to be that the processor speed and memory aren't up to the task, graphics are jagged etc. I didn't notice anything about a pairing problem, but it wouldn't astonish me if they occurred - I've never had good luck with wireless keyboards at any distance from the computer, and I assume you aren't sitting right on top of the TV?

Obvious stupid question though - have you tried really fresh batteries?

[akicif.livejournal.com]

The batteries in the controller (3 x AAA) are brand new, and test at 100% The box itself is mains powered....

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

OK, think I'd better shelve the idea for now, MANY thanks for your help.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Happy to be of service.... It's a pity it doesn't work - I suspect it may be something to do with the packing - the unit and controller were both loose inside the box when it arrived. Still, if it had worked....

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Just before sending it back to Intempo under guarantee, I had a chance to try it out on our spiffy new HDMI projector screen at work - it works! I couldn't test the cable, though, as the projector end is different.

This means my problem was with the cable or my TV - I really hope it's the former....

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

What is the picture quality like, and video?

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Didn't get a chance to connect it to the internet, but the initial couple of screens were clear and crisp.

(And now I've had a chance to test my TV with another HDMI device, it looks like that's where the prob;em was)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Sorry, didn't realise you'd replied. The Cyclone thing unfortunately doesn't support YouTube or iPlayer, which means I'll have to send it back.

Let me know how it goes with internet stuff.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Connected it last night - screen slightly blurry when looking at small print (maybe due to HDMI to SCART conversion - it had certainly looked crisper on the projection system at work).

Basically, an android tablet writ large, but with a touchpad (seemed odd at first holding the remote "sideways", and using a button to flip the pad between moving the pointer and scrolling the screen).

BBC iPlayer and so on "just worked" - I'm going to see if I can plug a"proper" keyboard into the USB port, because I'd not want to do any serious typing on the clicky-buttoned keyboard that slides out of the remote.

Youtube fine, flash animations fine, Android shop accessible (I didn't try any of the games, but they looked pretty enough).

I didn't check out displaying USB stick content or work through all the options from the homepage, but I have to say I'm pretty happy with it.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Thanks - now ordered!