Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 27
 Excellent layout and value with a few problems December 31, 2007
M. Hendawi (Washington, DC)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I own one of these for my home theater have been extremely happy with it. I've tried many other universal remote controls, including a couple of the fancy Logitech Harmony remotes and have returned them all because I found them too cumbersome to use, usually because of awkward button layout. This one, is a model of simplicity and straightforward design. However, I recently bought another one for my parents and have had a few problems with it. First I'll start off with the good parts:
Good:
Button layout - This is the most important issue for me. In a nutshell, I want to be able to use the remote without always looking down at it, and in order to do that you need a good layout. Because I am used to the excellent TiVo remote, and have both a TiVo and cable company DVR, the most important set of buttons for me is the cluster of buttons for play/pause/ff/rew and the all-important replay. These are functions I use constantly and this remote has a superb design for navigating around.
Feels good in my hand - The remote feels solid and well proportioned in my hand. I have fairly large hands though.
Excellent value - I am amazed that this remote is so inexpensive, given some of the other ones I've tried.
Learning function is easy to use - when you need to program something manually you can, and it's easy to do.
Punch through for volume/mute - you can set it up so you can adjust the volume or mute the TV or stereo when you have any function selected. That way you don't have to constantly shift back to the TV or receiver every time you need to tweak the volume. This is critical!!
Bad:
Range seems lacking for a big room - I only noticed this at my parent's house. They have a much larger room and some of the equipment is placed in such a way that the remote sensors are not in easy view. The standard TiVo remote seemed to have more range/power and you could at least bounce the signal off the walls to get it to work. This remote seems to be a little underpowered. It works great in a smaller room (8-10 feet away), but 15-20 feet seems too far for this remote to control our TiVo unless you have a very direct line of sight. All of the other devices work just fine though at that range, so it may just be the unfortunate positioning of the TiVo.
Preprogrammed codes are limited by button type - For example, the SAT/Cable button can be programmed for Satellite/Digital cable and DVR's. We have a satellite, digital cable, and a TiVo. I used a preprogrammed code for the digital cable box and it worked great. I figured I could then just program the TiVo code onto the "AUX" button. No luck. I could only program the TiVo to use the SAT/Cable button. I had to manually program the entire TiVo remote into the AUX device using the learning (took about 5-10 minutes - it's that easy).
No Macros - there are macros for power, but no way to have it perform an arbitrary sequence of steps in the way you can with the Harmony remotes.
Bottom line - I haven't found a better value for a universal remote yet - but I'm still looking for the perfect one.
 Everything I wanted from a Universal Remote, oh, except for the actually functioning part... June 3, 2006
Jebus (USA)
3 out of 20 found this review helpful
So I was ready to buy a Uniiversal remote and I thought "hey that's a cool looking remote and the packaging design is spiffy and the capabilities boasted by the manufacturer sound great, okay, I'm on board". I get the thing out of the box and it feels a little bit light, as if made entirely of cheap plastic, I install the batteries and I sit down to program some functions and NOTHING. I changed the batteries and tried again and still no luck. It's too bad that the first review of this product has to be a negative one but I am sorry to say I will be returning this plastic piece of junk in favor of the less expensive Sony competitor. Sony, a name you can trust to work right-out-of-the-box everytime. No I don't work for Sony, Hopefully, their universal remote will work for me.
 Works very well July 10, 2006
Goonk (Arlington, TN United States)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Easy to setup and works real well. I was able to setup a vcr, dvd, receiver, sat. box, and a tv all on this one device! I like some of the special features like combining volume of several devices on one key and the on/off combinations too.
Excellent, affordable remote November 5, 2007
P. Vermilya (Portland, OR)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Excellent, solid unit; it was easy to program, even the macros, with logically laid out function keys. The instruction book is reasonably complete, though I found out about one issue with macros that was not described when I called their tech support line. The phone tech support was extremely helpful; they quickly & efficiently resolved the issue I was having. There is no reason to spend a hundred+ $$ for a universal remote when this one will do what the majority need a universal to do: efficiently control up to seven devices.
 Died With the Batteries December 16, 2007
Pat J. Cowden (Phoenix, AZ USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was very pleased with this remote, right up until the moment the included batteries died. The first time I replaced the batteries, all programming was lost, and the remote just stopped functioning altogether.
With the new batteries, I have power, but programming does not work. It's now a paper weight.
This remote lasted maybe 6 months. My previous universal remote died after many years.
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