HEC

It was already mentioned repeatedly in this thread that there is no ongoing cost involved with using the phone for remote control function. If you are willing to spend extra money on single purpose proprietary controller you can as well spend the same money or less on cheap smart phone or tablet with more eventual use. And if you need / want to prevent kids from using the device for "unaproved" purposes simply use the guest / kid mode on the device and disable internet access, installing of the apps etc. If there is an ergonomy concern in regards of using the touchscreen or looking at screen in general a plethora of various physical controllers can be attached to the phone (both BT as well as USB) to deal with that particular issue too.

There is no monthly or any other fee involved. Just use any smart phone without subscription / SIM card. There is so many cheap both new and used smart phones available that this should be the least of the issues.

Wow. Landed on my shopping list instantly ... In regards of physical remote handset instead of mobile app would it be too adventurous to assume the the new train BT handsets would be compatible? Or other variants might be produced with different mechanical controls / design using the same communication protocols ... Side question - anyone have a design for nice Lego Piggy bank? Time to start stuffing ;)

Thanks for the review Jim. I've got both 42090 and 42091 in December despite being aware of decreased amount of parts and simplified design mainly because I wanted to add pullbacks to my collections and was tempted a little bit by the combined model too (plus I've got it for less than RRP). And I totally agree with Jim's conclusion / rating :( On top of that one of the pullback motors seems to be partially faulty as it have much higher resistance and rattles a bit so the wheels will stop spinning almost immediately unlike the other ones which runs nice smooth and quiet with much longer free spin. Anyone experienced the similar issue with the pullback motors?