On one of our many “I need some toys” visits to the local Toys R Us store, I noticed this little beauty, and felt I neeeeeeeded it. I’d originally gone over there to pick up a remote control helicopter, and ended up leaving with both.
The box read “Fly the Millennium Falcon”, “Easy to Fly”, and had the Hasbro logo in the corner which ticked the boxes for me.
I have to admit, it’s not bad looking, granted there is is a big hole in the middle of it, however the rest is highly detailed, and they’ve made some effort on the controller.
As this chargers from the remote, I have to admit, hiding the charge cable under they “cockpit type flap” was a nice touch.
So how does it fly ?…pretty bad in my opinion. I have various “change and fly” polystyrene helicopters and can successfully control them, and keep them in the air for the time it takes the battery to run down, this however was a mare !
I found I had to get within about a foot of it to initially respond, and the it would take off. Upon attempting to adjust the trim to it stopped spinning, it would just flip over and head for the ground ?….I then adjusted the trim while on the floor….great it flew straight….for a second or two….then would just flip over and head for the floor again ?
Maybe it will just take a little getting used to, but the other helicopter I bought, I was able to fly out of the box.
I’ve checked YouTube and they are flyable, I guess I’ll just have to master it….will post a video if/when this happens.
As always, unboxing pics below, and a YouTube video of one of these in action.
edit 31/12/2010
Please find below, my attempt at flying, this was unfortunately also the death of the Falcon
As time goes on, and I buy myself more and more gadgets, these obviously come with more and more remotes. Over the last couple of years I’ve tried various “All in One” remote controls, from the cheap “enter the device ID, and hope for the best”, to a Cambridge Audio MI+ “Smart Remote”
I’ve been more than happy with the Cambridge MI+ however I made the mistake of leaving another remote on top of it, which drained the batteries….
As I couldn’t really be bothered reprogramming it all (which took me ages to get everything how I wanted, also all the macros I had set up), I decided to give the Harmony remotes a try.
I found a good deal on Amazon, and got one of the basic Harmony 515 remotes just to give them a try. The major selling point to me, was that it backed up the remote to an online database.
A couple of days later, the remote arrived, very simple PC/Mac GUI interface, pick your devices and bobs your uncle !
One of the limitations of the 515 remote, was the fact that it will only run up to 5 devices, however this is where the limitations end.
The major thing that makes the Harmony remote series stand out from all the rest, are the way they work. On the “All in One” remotes, you basically switch on device a, then device b, then device c, then switch device a to channel d, etc etc. The Cambridge remote did attempt to combat this, by giving you the option of macro, which meant with 1 button press, you could macro “switch on device a, then device b, then device c, then switch device a to channel d, etc etc”.
The setup of the Harmony creates Activities. Once you have set up your devices, it will give you a list of suggested activities based on your devices. An example of this would be “Watch TV”. The setup runs through, and asks the following question.
Assume you want the TV on (and what channel, AV, etc), the PVR on, do you want the amp on, if so what channel, when the activity is complete, do you want the volume controls to control the amp or the TV, etc. Once done, you plug your remote into your PC/Mac and download the information to it, and your done. When you then click the “Watch TV” activity, it turns on the TV, switches to my HDMI channel, turns on the Sky HD, turns on the amp, and switches to CBL/TV, sets the control to emulate the Sky+ remote, and the volume control to control the amp.
This setup works for DVD, PS3, Xbox, and anything else I throw into the mix !
With being so impressed with the 515 remote, I treated myself to the Harmony One remote, and moved the 515 up into the bedroom. This gave me chance to use the “Replace Remote” function within the Harmony software, plugged in the Harmony One, clicked Replace Remote, and within a few minutes it had configured the new remote with my configuration, all the devices worked as before ! Brilliant !
The advantage of the Harmony One, is that it can control up to 15 devices, has a colour touch screen and comes with dock/charger, and to be honest looks the business.
If you are looking for a smart, all in one remote, look no further than the Harmony series !
Well, I have a spare machine, so thought I’d download the Vista 7 Beta, and see what’s in store for windows users.
Currently I’ve spent only an hour or so using it, however I thought I’d give my first impressions.
It’s quick, it’s stable and so far no crashing.
The UI is improved, however seems more and more like Mac OS
The below are just first impressions, and the resolution is possible, however not clear.
Currently don’t like to the fact that that you can’t change the control panel to classic mode.
There is no longer a quick launch toolbar (I need this in my life)
Unable to turn off UAC
I’m a little curious how it was able to access my NAS drive (which requires name/password), and have full access ?
as I’ve said, this are first impressions, and I will add posts when I’ve sussed out how to do the above.
edit: Ok, now I’ve had a little more time, I’ve now answered my questions. Instead of UAC, you now have a feature that gives you a sliding scale of how often you want Windows to annoy you, turning this to never, allows your to do what you like.
Sussed the taskbar, I had it locked…now I can drag and “pin to toolbar”
Sussed how it was able to access my NAS drive, it seems to be smart enough to use the NT/Authentication setting that I logged onto Windows 7 with, and try these…and it worked.
Finally as for the control panel, you are unable to change it to classic mode, but you can “show all control panel”, and this displays the log, however it does seem to reset when you go back in.
