Price Paid:  $0.00 from Marantz dealership

Summary:
I currently work for a Marantz dealership and have many hours both using and programming this remote. As with many of this style of remotes (Pronto as well) this unit has many problems.

-Low battery life
-Slow use (pages a slow and clumsy)
-Very slow in the dark (must first activate backlight)
-Bad Macros (This is IR people, not RS232, multiple commands often don't work)
-Very difficult and time consuming to program

This thing has lots of "neat" or "impress your friends" potential but little else. Using this thing is an exercise in frustration. I would know, I took on home on demo. After using it for some time I returned it and never looked back. My wife even disliked it.
Example: I has few hard buttons so using it on my DSS I had to look down at the unit, find the desired page or button, press it, wait for a response, and repeat. Channel surfing quickly became a task. If someone calls during a movie you have to activate the backlight, find your desired page, press the button and wait for a response. You get the point. Slow.

This unit poorly tries to emulate more expensive units such as Panja/AMX or Crestron.

Strengths:
Not much, good to look at.

Weaknesses:
Not very functional as a real remote. Software will be hard for many.

Similar Products Used:
Panja/AMX, Crestron, niles.

Price Paid:  $600.00 from wild west electronic

Summary:
This unit is crap. The display icons for macros and the up and down arrow keys are impossible to see. It looks like someone pressed their thumb as hard as they could on the LCD screen and called it an icon.

The customizable software available from marantz.com doesn't work. It has bugs as well as no operating instructions or help function. Well, that's not entirely true. Their help button provides only the name and version of the software. Useless.

After spending an insane amount of time configuring the device, the software only partially downloads the configuration to the remote and leaves all other functions blank. I.e., the word "volume" appears on the remote, but without the up and down arrow buttons. That's just one example. Other changes just won't appear and in some cases the software won't change the default configuration at all.

But the most unacceptable thing of all is that the remote is unable to power my receiver on and off. The remote says "OK" when I program the receiver remote into it, but when I try to use the 5200 to power my receiver it doesn't work.

There is no excuse for this sort of crap from a remote like this. Not to mention when I bought the device the factory forgot to include the instruction booklet. A small oversite but inexcusable for a $600 remote. I have a $120 Proton Universal Remote that works perfectly and is fully customizable without hooking it up tp your computer and downloading useless software from the internet.

If you're looking for a remote in this price range - Keep Looking.

Strengths:
"cute" concept and idea, but it doesn't work. It's hard to believe Marantz didn't even test this remote or the software before shipping it.

Weaknesses:
Software is flawed, doesn't "learn" all functions of all devices, especially with a receiver (other that Marantz, I'm sure - I have an Onkyo).

Similar Products Used:
Proton src-2000 ($120, works perfectly)

Price Paid:  $450.00 from world of sound

Summary:
Well, if you don't have all Marantz equipment, unless Im wrong, you will be programming each button till the wee hours of the morn via old remote to 5200. Liked the display, good resolution, liked the buttons all of witch were programmable (hard buttons are the ones you will use the most so this is a bonus on the 5200). Backlight is good, getting around the thing was pretty fast, liked the number of Macros available (as many as wanted) liked the layout with nice fonts and graphics. The unit, like the Phillips, is getting better in the ergonomic department but still lacks majorly with boat like shape(come on guys its your hand thats going to use this) and if your left handed...you can almost say NEVER MIND due to the (labeled)channel and volume buttons being on the right side, though you can program the lower buttons to take over those functions. Reading the manual for me and I may be handicapped?, was harder than learning a foreign language. Id rather pick it up and experiment, witch was not so hard after 8 hours. The unit has some great flexibility with its Edit options but some things were almost impossible for me to figure out much less the sales person. But with some patience Im sure even the final programming can be completed. Liked the rechargeable batt and docking tray though huge in my eyes and also the fact that it is ubgradeable to RF one of the reasons I got it at all! Overall programming seemed to be easy enough after you get the idea but for some reasons LCD buttons were disappearing after programming them and I would have to do it again and again, could have been my fault, but I dont think so. Thing got stuck in some funky light and display permanently on mode till I pulled out the rechargeable battery and plugged it back in, it worked fine after that. Sometimes I would have to tap three times to get the button on the LCD to react where most the time once for on and once for enter worked great. The battery cover on the back is definately a week link where every time you push on the front your hand on the back would squeeze the cover and it flexed, not feeling sturdy, not too major a complaint. Never made it to the software, which seemed to be reasonable as expected, much like the new Prontos and Marantz because I was persuaded to exchange it for the more ergodynamical Wife approved McIntoshUR12. OverAll 4+

Strengths:
RF add on, Display, quick button to button learning, rechargeable batt+docking tray, good hard buttons, some easy programming, LCD size, Many Macros.

Weaknesses:
Unergonomic, Right Hand only Volume/Channel buttons, battery cover flex, some programming a mystery, some mystery problems.

Similar Products Used:
McIntosh UR12(Similar to MX-1000), Sony stock LCD Remote.