RS Media

If I'd seen one of these when I was an 8 year old, I would have gone on a hunger-strike until my parents bought me one.

This is one of the coolest toys you could imagine. Put it in front of a kid of any age and they will simply go bananas.

Unlike previous robot toys from manufacturer Wow Wee, the RS Media is the first to really impress. The company's original Robosapien was a relatively huge hit, bought by more yuppies than parents, we suspect. But it was small, slow, had limited tricks and well, was boring. We recently looked at the Roboreptile, a remarkably disappointing excuse for a robotic toy.

Granted, it was early days for toy robots, but in just a couple of years great robotic strides have been made. Granted too, the previous Robos were cheap – like sub $200 cheap. Considering that the RS Media will cost around $800 – we just have to accept that a quality robot toy costs serious money and that’s the way of the world.

It’s worth it. The RS Media is a remarkably engineered creation. Its movements are precise, it can pick things up (as long as the things are ‘just the right size’, but still, impressive). It can sit down, lie down, and get back up again. And it’s solid and heavy. Qualities we’ve decided are important in a robot.

The RS Media is also big. Well over half a meter tall at 575mm. It could look eye-to-eye with a small child. Big, we have also determined, is another must-have robot quality. Build quality seems to be excellent. It feels solid and withstood our rough treatment.

So what can you do with a RS Media Robot? Well, once he ‘boots up’ (which takes almost 20 seconds. He is a proper computer, you know), he’ll greet you, check out his surroundings, and await your orders. In essence you can set it to a variety of different ‘free roam’ modes, or take direct control via the remote. In free roam mode he trundled off around our office. After a while we forgot about him and got on with the real work, but he made it a good 50 meters or so through the day, navigating around desks and walls. He has proximity sensors so he won’t bump into things, and has a voice wisecrack for every occasion.

RS Media has three personalities to choose from, a C3PO overly polite, overly feminine (but still male) personality, a ‘yee har’ Texas cowboy (unbearable), and a gung-ho space marine-type (our favourite). Now, here’s where RS Media starts to get interesting and transcends just being a toy. It’s completely customisable. You can create your own voice recordings, accompany them with custom movements – let you imagination run wild. The possibilities are endless.
The ‘Media’ in RS Media refers to its genuine and legitimate multimedia capabilities. It has a small colour screen in its chest, and can display photos that it takes with its built in camera. He can even detect colours! Hold a blue ball up in front of you and he’ll make a wisecrack about something blue. He can also recognise skin tones, so if you wave your hand in front of your fact his vocal response will be different than if it were something else.

It has a 2.1 speaker system built-in (a speaker in each hand and a subwoofer in his back). The range of vocal prerecords is vast, and for the most part quite witty. He can play MP3 files too, and even MP4 movies -- and all this is input via an SD card slot, USB or line-in jack.

RS Media comes with PC software you can use to define preset macros for moves. This is very cool. Here at the office we’re using this to create a sequence we hope to film as a Z-grade movie we may post, if it’s bad enough.

The software also includes a ‘Personality Editor’, giving RS Media your own voice and personality, should you wish to really spook out your friends. There’s also an iTunes-like media organiser.

All up this is comfortably the most sophisticated robot on the market. It does not have the adaptive learning capability that made Aibo famous, but you won’t care. He really is supremely entertaining and a remarkably engineered device. Put RS Media in front of any young child and they’ll go nuts. Just like most adults did here in the office. We want one, even at the $800 price tag, this is one serious toy.