Customer Reviews

Samsung SAM2000 12-DEVICE Universal Learning Remote with LCD Screen

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

The most illogical operation of any universal remote I've seen. I've got a ProntoNG, a Pronto, a Neo, 3 OneForAll, & quite a few others. I bought this for its clean looks but the device is so poorly designed that it's useless to me. For instance, on the Satellite screen, there is no "Guide" button. Duh! When you program codes for a device, the ratio of actual buttons that work for that device is maybe 3 out of 10. The rest you have to "learn" from the original remote & this SAM2000 runs out of memory very quickly. I tried to get additional help from Samsung online, but they don't even list it as a product they made or support. I'm sure they're trying to forget they even made this POS. Save your money for something else.....Anything else!

I try to be optimistic, and I read some bad reviews about this product and thought to try it anyway... after all it couldn't be that bad right? Well it was! The remote couldn't learn anything at all! And I followed the directions very carefully. Within an hour of recieving the product I was filing a return. Please save your time and money and don't buy this product!

This device was advertised as having 12 macros with 10 layers of 10 functions. Regarding V.Bells review, the "extensive catalog" doesn't refer to the macro functions at all. I believe this was a marketing error and await a response from Samsung. The manual is poorly written as well (poor Japanese translation). I cannot get this unit to "learn" hardly anything from the other remotes. I too have had many remotes. Some of the more sophisticated were Pronto, Neo, OFA, etc. The sam2000 isn't even near this league of remotes. This remote just wasn't planned out very well. The programmable remote codes don't work for my very mainstream Pioneer dvd player and Sony reciever. Do yourself a favor and buy the cheapest learning remote you can for $12.00 and you've done much better than this remote can do for you. You will be disappointed with this remote.

I bought this because I like how clutter free the remote is compared to other devices. However, after about 2 hours of entering codes and trying to "teach" the remote, I still went to be last night without total success.

For one thing, the remote doesn't have codes for new devices such as dvd recorders. Secondly, the learning feature doesn't really work that well. For instance, say you want to control your TV and Home Theatre Amp without having to switch "modes". For some reason, the remote won't learn the TV remote and the AMP remote codes under the same mode. Therefore, the end result is that to adjust the volume of my home theatre I have to push the "AMP" mode and then adjust the volume...then if I want to change channels, I have to push the "TV" mode and push up and down on the channel. That is, if I could get the remote to learn the channel buttons. For some reason with my DVD recorder, the remote will learn all the buttons except the channel up/down.

In short, this remote looks great but doesn't work as I would lik e it to. I think I'll either have to totally rearrange my home theatre setup or buy a more expensive remote to get the job done.

This remote is probably the worst piece of hardware I've seen in many years.

While the manual could be better, it's not the major problem. The problem is the remote design and engineering or the lack of it.

While it can learn some of the remote codes, it refuses to learn others (Motorola HD cable box is one example - there is no way this piece of crap can learn numeric buttons 0 and 8, though it learns the rest fine).

The assignment of the buttons for preprogrammed devices are also stupid. There is a Menu button on LCD and there is another dedicated Menu button below it. Why they decided to waste the space like this is beyond me.

Also, for several components some of the LCD buttons are unused and are not assignable/learnable. And it's not like the remote has plenty of buttons to spare.

Even if the remote would have actually worked as it was supposed to, it would suffer from bad ergonomics. Having Up/Down arrows for component switching is not convenient on a 12 device remote. As Samsung engineers could have guessed (if they had some brains, of course) it'd take you 6 button pushes to get from the first to the seventh device mode.

My advice - don't waste your time on SAM2000 even if they start giving it out for free.

As the preprogrammed modes did not control but the most commonplace functions on my tv and audio set, I quickly started using its learning interface. After teaching many codes, it worked reasonably well, though at the time of buying I did not expect I would have to push many buttons before I could get to the desired device.

Then, it lasted roughly 2 weeks. Afterwards, no matter what I did it locked up with a 0999 message for a few seconds, and did not take any new codes until a removed and reinserted the batteries.

SAVE YOUR MONEY.

Let me preface with this: The manual is wrong. Training is difficult. "Learning," well, takes an incredible amount of patience - however, if you're willing to teach this remote "Water," it will eventually prosper and grow into a universal remote.

Annoyed that I spent nearly $30 on a universal remote that just wouldn't work, I spent about 3 hours figuring out how to make it work.

You need to point your remote behind the unit when in 'learning' mode - and don't sneeze, or it'll lose it. It also doesn't like to work very well with bizarre, and elder systems.

However, I was able to program it to work with my cheap $120 Sanyo TV, circa 2004, and it natively supported my Philips DVP-642 (2005), my RCA VCR (circa 1997), my digital cable box (with PPV!), and my never-heard-of RCA amplifier.

So, if you have patience, and don't mind being annoyed to the point of distress, it works well. I've replaced the batteries in mine once in two years. I'm hooked.. I just pray I will never need to reprogram the beast.

Like another reviewer here, I wish 0 stars were an option. This remote can't learn! I followed the instructions precisely and it could not learn a single button. I wasn't able to get the code scanning option to work either (it supposedly scans for built-in remote codes that work with your gear). It's not that the codes didn't work. There was just no way to get to the scanning option. Lame, lame and yes, lame. This is going back immediately.

this is a really bad remote. save your money for something like a harmony that works. try to get help from samsung's web site?--good luck. in addition to not finding any help with this thing online on ANY samsung web site, i have gone thru 2 sets of batteries in a week. this is a disaster.

Learning other remote functions really blows. The worst part is not being able to have the volume stay the same regardless of what component you've highlighted---you can do this, but then the channel control has to be from the same remote. Can you say LAME?!?!?! For those of us with receivers that control volume, and VCR/Sat/Dish, this is just lame. You get what you pay for with this. The backlighting is very cool.