The transmitter physically feels great. I've not done a range check on it nor even bound it yet. I do have one plane set up on it. If you're looking for a plug n fly, don't think about it much transmitter, this ain't it. However, the plane I've got on it is a flying wing. I've found the templates on the transmitter, plugged it in and my flight surfaces are controlled. I need to assign the throttle kill switch to my spring switch. This is another thing, none of these pysical switches on the transmitter or linked to anything. You need to pick what switch does what. Dual rates, landing gear, throttle cut, soundtrack, etc.
Soundtraack? Oh yea, you can load a music file to your card, flip a switch and it will play music to you. But heck, with the telemetry you can assign values to make Logical switches, of which there are 32 or 64, i'm blurry this morning, and you can have those switches make the transmitter tell you things. "Low fuel, low battery, ailerons in 3d mode, I'm going too fast".
Huh? There are a bunch of pre-recorded messages on the box AND a bunch of little 64x32 images of planes, and a Splash image or two, all of which are open memory and can be added too or taken away.
So,,,, if I do this correctly I can turn on my box, it will power up, with Open TX on the screen for a couple seconds while it loads the Eprom. Then it would say Welcome Mr.Clean and display a splash screen of the MrClean emblem. Then it should come up with the model memory I last used, displaying a picture of my model with the model name in the upper right corner and the conditions of the switches I've activated telling me Ailerons at bl rate, Elevator at bl rates, throttle closed, audibly giving you the rundown. 8 switches, 32 or 64 logical switches, all the mixes, control smoothing by assigning and modifying the curves to your control inputs (how slick will that be to hook up your gasser and have the throttle response be linear to the stick position?) all of them programable, mixable, screw up-able for 60 planes.
Most likely, I'll use the 6 channel template and never use the rest of it, so it's overkill. But I've got this high powered computer that I'm typing on that will do my taxes, print or read books, let me type masterpieces or play space invaders or watch and edit movies of my own or others, control the house lights and all, yet all I do with it is answer emails, talk on billboards (forums) and watch porn.
So far I'm digging it though its a kind of like a new cell phone. I need to learn how to use a big chunk of the stuff even though I'll normally just use a 25 buck transmitters worth of flight controls and I'm real close to just flying control line and not even worry about electronics. I fly FF but I don't build that good.
It's amazing and daunting BUT the box feels good, like my 8103 with flippers on the side of it. Nice weight and size. The sticks are a little short but those can be swapped out.
Now, I think I've had an embulism pop in my head thinking about this stuff, I'm going back to bed and let the room stop spinning. Anyone who has grown up knowing the number of buttons on a game station consoles controller and what they do will have no problem with this. I knew the 3 settings and dial of Pong, its gonna take a bit.