Just saw a post on RCGroups.com by “SkyNorth” that the NEW Turnigy 9XR Pro should be released very, very soon.  A bit of history, “SkyNorth” developed a replacement board to fit in the old 9X Transmitters (the Grey ones) which gave it incredible functionality. This was way before the Taranis was developed by FrSky and they have basically designed the Taranis to the same spec (but with a totally different board design).  HobbyKing approached SkyNorth and asked if he wanted to sell them his design, he declined but said he would work with them (for a fee) to design a board for the 9XR (the Black ones) and then release them as the 9XR Pro exclusive to Hobbyking.  Now, these will have about the same spec as my Taranis.

No price has been mentioned yet but speculation is around the $100 USD mark.  Add in a FrSky module (or DSM2/x) and you will have a world class Radio.  ALSO, the boards/parts are going to be available as spares.  So those who have a 9XR could buy the bits and upgrade their 9XR to a Pro.

The Post:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=27427895&postcount=12

The 9XR Pro will be out later this month.
Arm Cortex processor runs er(sky)9x
30+ model memory
Voice / sound output – 3/4 watt Audio ouput
SD Card for Sound files / firmware updates and telemetry logging
USB port for model / firmware update/backup
Haptic buzzer for alerts
Telemetry support for Frsky modules , and new DSM module coming soon
Bluetooth support through spare Com port
Rotary encoder support

More details in this thread if you are interested.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2019298

Picture under the Rubber Flap on the 9Xr Pro shows the Headphone jack , the Micro SD Card slot , the mini USB port,
the Erase button and the Charger jack.

Turnigy 9XR Pro ports