Sony RM-AV3000 Universal Remote Control with Touch-key LCD Screen

There are four basic problems in addition to the size. The first is that despite the perhaps-cool similarity to all those touch-screen manipulations you see on Star Trek, you're likely to wish you were pressing real buttons (with real tactile feedback) rather than a little part of the screen that says "power." And the real buttons that ARE present have no backlight.

The second major drawback isn't actually an issue with this universal remote as much as with the equipment we want it to control. Most home theater equipment just isn't ready to deal with the "macro" commands an AV3000 owner would likely want to program -- for example, turn on the amp, set it to DVD, turn on the DVD player, set it to wide-screen and set the volume to -5 dB, turn on the TV, wait 4 seconds for it to wake up then set it to Input #5 with wide screen mode, etc. The AV3000 allows you to do A LOT of this, but there's no way to program in discrete codes (e.g., turn ON, rather than toggle On/Off) unless you already have another remote that can transmit these. This means you end up programming functions for various but similar scenarios, such as play a DVD when the DVD player is already on, play a DVD when the TV is already on but the DVD is off, etc.

Third, the manual is just awful. It's pretty big, and there's an index (though the index fails to list a number of important topics), but the information is presented in a most inefficient and confusing manner. Owners of other Sony products will be familiar with this, unfortunately. If it weren't for the folks at remotecentral.com, I never would have learned a number of important procedures.

Finally, my unit (and others, from what I've read online) is extremely sensitive to lighting conditions when "learning" from another remote. When the lights are on, the unit gives a certain error message (five beeps), leading the user to look up the "five beeps" message in the manual. There you read a number of suggestions which don't apply, but nothing about turning off the lights. I spent at least four hours tracking this down. Ugh!

It's precisely what I was looking for. What makes it so useful are the macro functions. Switching from my cable box to my DVD player used to require about 30 seconds of fiddling with 3 different remotes; now it's a single button press. People around the house who had no idea how to operate the entertainment system can now switch back and forth between the components quickly and easily.

Programming is difficult and there's a learning curve, maybe comparable to learning to use a Palm device for the first time. Once you master programming it, though, you'll find yourself doing things very quickly. There's no learning curve for using the device, and with the macro functions it will probably be easier to use than your existing remotes.

A touchscreen is always a comprimise over regular buttons, but its innovative labelling system means that you will actually know what the buttons are doing instead of having to program functions to inappropriate keys, which is always the case with button-only universal remotes. I find I can still do the vast majority of things with the regular buttons on the bottom half, anyways. It is somewhat large and heavy, but much less space-consuming and awkward as having to keep 2 or 3 remotes nearby. It should be noted that there's an easy to use lock function on the remote which you can use to prevent yourself from accidentally triggering things by brushing the screen.

The timer functions are also surprisingly useful; my bedroom remote components are also roomily accomodated on the remote, and I use the remote to operate my television as an alarm clock. It can also make taping things on different cable box or satellite channels when away a breeze.

It's also worth noting that I have no Sony components at all and have had no problems. While the special "PowerOn" function doesn't work with non-Sony components, with a little experimentation you can program the remote to do essentially the same thing with most manufacturers' devices.

All in all, it's delivered everything I ever wanted in a universal remote, and it's made life far easier. Unlike any other universal I've ever owned, I was able to take every other remote I have and throw them in a shoebox in the closet once I had it all programmed, and I haven't needed them since. Highly recommended.

- Motorola Digital Cable Box

All I had to do was look up the product number in the catalog that came with the remote. It may have taken me a total of 20 minutes to get all of these devices working. The only problems were that I was missing a few buttons from my ReplayTV remote, and the ability to change DVD's in my 3-disc DVD player was missing. That's when I figured out how to use the remote's "learning" function. After another 5-10 minutes, I added 3 new buttons to my ReplayTV screen and 3 more to my DVD screen. The remote commander now controls all of my devices with every function available to me that I had with my old remotes.

After I got everything up and running, I decided to try some of the advanced Macro features. I couldn't think of anything I really needed this for, so I just decided to set one up that turns all of my devices on/off with one click. Again this only took 2-3 minutes to program.

All in all, this remote does everything that it advertises. It is very easy to use and program, and it includes enough cool customization options that it can virtually replace any remote.