Photos by Tony Cordoza

Electronic program guides (EPGs) that help you choose what to watch from among hundreds of channels are built into a variety of devices from TV sets and set-top boxes to satellite receivers and hard-disk recorders. What they have in common is an onscreen display that, if it doesn’t cover the TV picture, reduces the show to a small window. But now Philips has chosen to unfetter the EPG from the TV set altogether and put it on a touchscreen called iPronto that you hold in your hands just like print listings. Unlike print, though, when you touch an icon next to the title with your finger or with the supplied stylus, the channel actually changes. Moreover, the listings are never obsolete thanks to a daily data dump, which happens automatically and wirelessly through your Wi-Fi (a.k.a. 802.11b) home network and broadband Internet connection. And when you’re not checking to see what movies will be broadcast on Saturday night, you can use iPronto to browse the Web. Clearly, this is a lot more than a remote control. At $1,700, it had better be.

Weighing 2 pounds, the iPronto looks like a tablet PC that’s been sawed in half. Stereo speakers, currently used only for audible cues like stylus taps, flank the 6 1/2-inch VGA (640 x 480-pixel) screen. Eight soft buttons, aligned vertically in a touch strip at the left side of the screen, call up a full-screen remote control, the EPG, a quartet of remotes each occupying a quadrant of the screen, four favorite Web sites each occupying a full screen, and the iPronto’s Web portal. Hard buttons to change channels and adjust volume are in a row below the screen along with a small LCD showing an analog clock face, a battery-depletion bar, and an icon to indicate a Wi-Fi signal.

A power button, scroll wheel, headphone jack, and holder for iPronto’s 4 1/4-inch-long stylus are built into the upper left corner. Although there’s a microphone, a USB port, and a slot for an MMC or SD flash memory card, Philips says none of these features have been implemented in the first release of the iPronto software but are meant for use in future versions. On the backside is an H-shaped pullout stand for positioning the touchscreen like an easel. It’s wide enough so that the 9 1/2 x 7-inch iPronto can sit snugly on your thigh at a 60° angle when you’re on the couch. Packed in the box is a rechargeable battery, AC power adapter, and wireless LAN adapter. The battery fits in a compartment under the stand, and the wireless PC card slides into a side compartment.

The first time you turn on iPronto, a system-settings screen appears so you can enter the date and time. The next step is to adjust the wireless settings. Though the manual claims iPronto will find the nearest wireless access point automatically, I needed to talk to a technical product manager before I was able to get iPronto communicating with my Wi-Fi network.

Once attached wirelessly to my home network and, by extension, the Internet via my cable modem (there’s no option to use an Ethernet or USB cable from iPronto itself), I logged onto the iPronto Web site to register and provided my Zip code and the name of my cable system in order to download the EPG. (Touching any field requiring alphanumerical input automatically brings up an onscreen keyboard.) Three years of EPG service are included with an iPronto purchase. Philips plans to charge about $50 a year after that.

Unlike any other EPG I’ve used, its default isn’t to list everything that’s on at a particular time. It can do that, but what you’re supposed to do first is tap and highlight category buttons at the top of the screen. I had to wait a few seconds each time I highlighted more categories, and I found the categorization far from perfect — for instance, why list Sesame Street under drama? There’s no way to search for a show by name from the onscreen keyboard. Also, iPronto cannot be set up to control unattended recording.

Of course, the integration of an EPG in a remote endows the iPronto with the ability to tune to a program by simply tapping the screen. Specifically, you touch a Watch icon (it looks like an eye) displayed within listings for shows currently being broadcast. But first, further setup is necessary. Using your computer, you need to download the iProntoEdit application from the iPronto site. (There’s no disc in the box.) Then you identify each infrared (IR)-controlled device in your home by type and manufacturer. I identified my TV set, DVD player, hard-disk recorder (what Philips calls a PVR, or personal video recorder), cable box, VCR, and receiver by brand. Then, you assign the Watch icon to a particular tuner (TV, PVR, cable, or satellite box) so that iPronto’s EPG can send out the right IR code. Unfortunately, there’s no way to change the EPG’s IR assignment from iPronto itself, making on-the-fly switching between, for example, a PVR and an HDTV set-top box impossible.

Once the information is saved in your PC — assuming you don’t also want to design customized buttons for the iPronto screen — you tell the iProntoEdit program to download your customized configuration file to the iPronto over your Wi-Fi network. Once the iPronto is found, it appears in a dialogue box on your computer screen. You click on it, then tap an acceptance button that pops up on the iPronto itself. Once the file was downloaded, I was able to use the iPronto’s EPG to change the channel on my ReplayTV hard-disk recorder.

Of course, you don’t have to use the EPG to change channels. You can fill the iPronto screen with a virtually unlimited number of devices (13 are supported as the default), or even put sets of buttons on the screen for four devices at once. Rather than going back to the computer to change IR codes, you can tap the Learn command in the iPronto to capture signals from your dedicated remotes. For example, by pointing my TV remote at the iPronto, I could reassign a button on the iPronto’s TV remote screen to bring up my TV’s settings menu. When you tabletop train an iPronto, though, you must remember to upload that information to your computer before downloading another configuration file from your computer. Otherwise, iPronto’s newly learned tricks will be wiped out.

If you touch one of four Web buttons in the side strip, iPronto turns into a browser. Each button stores the URL of the site it last accessed. The surfing function was a welcome diversion during commercials while I watched the Academy Awards. I used the stylus to tap out Oscars.com and brought up a list of winners in progress as well as transcripts of acceptance speeches within minutes of seeing events transpire live — all from my lap without wires or a computer. Heck, I deserved an award for couch potato with the best gadget!

As cool as accessing the Internet from iPronto seems, there are limitations. The flash-enabled and multimedia portions of Web sites can’t be viewed or heard. Nor can it handle pop-ups. Also, Philips missed an opportunity in not linking entries in the EPG to the networks’ or shows’ URLs.

I was disappointed in my iPronto’s failure to recover gracefully from system errors. I was forced to “reboot” the device by sticking the stylus in the reset hole in iPronto’s underside several times. I hope that was because I was using prerelease software. (Philips says it’s working to correct all the problems I encountered.) Bugs included: URLs that caused the iPronto to freeze up, the inability to turn iPronto off when connected to the AC adapter, and the failure to upgrade the iPronto’s software from the Philips Web site. “The required data could not be downloaded from the device update server,” was the message I received even on the replacement model that Philips hoped would correct the problem.

Despite its coolness factor and that it’s not meant to be an alternative to a computer, the biggest problem with iPronto is that it’s a complex device to set up. Philips admits that it’s targeting iPronto primarily at custom installers, not at end users like myself. So, for most people, iPronto will be part of a system, which means they won’t have to deal with installation issues.

Philips, meanwhile, emphasizes the upgrade path for an iPronto purchased today. The Wi-Fi 802.11b card, for example, could one day be swapped out for a faster card (802.11g, perhaps), which could make video streaming directly to the iPronto screen possible. And the MMC/SD slot could let you view photos from your digital camera.

To be sure, iPronto has a lot of potential, especially as more homes get Wi-Fi’d. While prudent consumers would do best to wait until a product like this puts some mileage under its dashboard, high-tech homeowners who can afford to hire somebody to set it up and troubleshoot any glitches should enjoy the sheer pleasure of flaunting one of these trophy control panels in front of the neighbors.

Philips www.pronto.philips.com, 800-531-0039