Price Paid:  $250.00 from local retailer

Summary:
Without knowing all dicrete codes, the Macro function is a joke. A discrete code sends differnt IR codes based on state of receiving device.

Software is as outdated as windows 3.1.

After fiddling for hours, I changed devives menu to type of view menu. I have one panel for watching TV, one for watching DVD, and one for recording with DVD+RW. Other than that keep your old remotes nearby.

Strengths:
Backlit is useful. Keep it very simple, and it will give good service.

Weaknesses:
slim choice of bitmaps preprogramed. Making new ones is tedious.

Price Paid:  $0.00 from phillips dealership

Summary:
I'll start off with this; this is my personal opinion only. I cannot stand this remote. This has got to be one of the clumsiest remotes that I have ever had the misfortune to operate. I have worked for a dealership who sells these units for quite some time and have experience programming them as well. I'll list my main problems as below.

-Poor build quality (MANY broken returns)
-NO hard button familiarity (cannot use in the dark without touching to activate back light)
-SLOW use (no quick commands here, you must find the desired page, find the button and make your command, very slow)
-Clumsy Macros (people are obsessed with this one. Guess what, in the world or IR, macros do not work so well, this thing doesn't do RS232)

This thing has lots of "Wow, neat" potential but little else. If you want a real remote try a Home Theater Master. This thing poorly emulates a higher end remote such as a Panja/AMX or Crestron.

Strengths:
Lots of "wow" factor.

Weaknesses:
Horrible battry life if left off base. Slow to use in common situations. Poor build quality.

Similar Products Used:
Home Theater Master, Panja, AMX, Crestron, Niles

Price Paid:  $200.00 from e-bay

Summary:
I'll keep this short. This remote works great if your sitting up in your chair with both hands free and you don't want to control things too quickly. It's to wide to hold with one hand. All my remotes are still on my table. I should have read the dimensions on this thing before I purchased it. That's why I got rid of the big Sony. I'll stick with my Home Theater Master SL 9000.

Strengths:
I thought it programed easy enough. It will do it all. Tons of memory and options.

Weaknesses:
Not a comfortable remote to hold or use.

Similar Products Used:
Sony AV2000, Home Theater Master 9000, Xantech Urc-1

Price Paid:  $3000.00 from Magnolia

Summary:
I recently put together a small home theater system consisting of Toshiba DVD player, Onkyo Receiver, JVC VHS and a Sony Plasma TV. I had four remote controllers which makes using the system painful.

The pronto, provides a means for controlling all devices and creating macros for making multi-step procedures on touch.

The TSU2000 works well. And this unit has real buttons: channel, mute, and volume buttons which I prefer over touch screen for simple tasks.

Macros:
The first Macro I wrote was turn off everything: DVD, TV, Receiver and VHS.
It works if everything is on. If not,
it turns on devices that were off.
But this isn't a problem with the proto,
the IR code to turn off a device on most
devices is really just a "toggle" button.
The Sony Plasma TV actually has two
buttons so I was able to reprogram on and off codes. The unit's software crashed during this process but recovered nicely. For the other devices this simple task won't work.

Overall, for steep price the unit (same as a Palm Computer) you are really paying
for the nifty control software.

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
Huge .ccf database at remotecentral is what convinced me to buy this product. I have a Sony ES tuner which has no remote.
Used in conjunction w/ the ds-1000 charging base, you need not worry about batteries again. Those who want to take it a step further can figure out how to get the Tetris game working on your remote.

Strengths:
Great silver finish, more than enough memory for all your devices

Weaknesses:
ProntoEdit not intuitive for those who are not technically inclined