The features are great, but it's really all about performance and specifically audio. For this price point, a user isn't going to get a 4k display for 5 years in their price range. So the video processing is less interesting than the audio performance. The 1700 model did not get a good review from HomeTheater.com. Hopefully this one in the mid-tier is true to the harman reputation. With other brands like Revel, Mark Levinson, Lexicon, and JBL Synthesis, Harman has a great opportunity to bring great sound down to the average user.
The only Harman brands where I see anything recent are the speaker brands of JBL and Revel. Even Infinity is just a repeat of the Primus line and the same in-walls.
Mark Levinson and Lexicon are woefully stagnant on the pre-pro front. Is it too much to ask for a 6 HDMI pre-pro w/ 3D pass through and high resolution audio decoding from several thousand dollar plus electronics?
HK receivers are usually a year or two behind bleeding edge Onkyo (and to a lesser degree Denon, Marantz and Yamaha) on the feature front with a bump up in sound quality (and price). The only thing I see these days is the bump up in price (and aesthetics). This current pricing puts it against the forth coming Onkyo 828 (and outgoing 818). It's also similar in price to the Denon AVR 3313CI (with Audyssey MultiEQ XT).
My major issue with this HK receiver is that it lacks pre-outs. All the other mainstream vendors (Denon, Marantz, Onkyo, Pioneer, Sony, Yamaha) offer pre-outs at this price point. Hopefully, HK will get it together for next year's receivers.