Price Paid:  $299.00 from local dealer

Summary:
recently I moved, and knowing I was going to be broke for awhile, used some of the largess left over from a house purchase to buy this remote and charger, something I've promised myself for years. The use of a universal is something I bug people about, because your system isnt really an integrated system until you have one. The difference between a good universal and a bunch of remotes is night and day. After using the very good marantze rc2000mkII I was hesitant about giving it up, but there are things I want to do that it cant handle. Enter the tsu3000 This is the latest version of the popular pronto, and is a great product. Perfect? Not by a long shot, but its amazing what Phillips has managed with this remote. I was hesitant about using codes, remembering my old "one for all " days, these things never work, but the codes on the proto covered just about everything and what wasnt covered could be learned. The primary reason for these is easy startup, so you can start using the remote in minutes, and I actually had several marcros running in about half an hour. This got me by until I could figure out the pronto-edit software, the famous(or infamous) computer program that lets you customize your pronto to degrees of rediculousness that would satisefy the most nitpicky of us. Remote control central was a big help, I got a lot of usefull stuff from there. I still dont have a unified theme for my pronto, but I have it set to where its very usefull, but I do have a buffy the vampire slayer background to my dish hi-def receiver. And at the end of the day, thats the great thing about this remote, you can set the codes, learn what few things are missed, set up a few marcros, and go. OR you can spend endless hours huddled over your computer, using the buggy pronto-edit software to create a fully customized remote that nobody else on the planet has. Oh, its not perfect by a long shot, I cant get it to move the cursor on my tv controls just one click, it just has to move them two, and the hard cursor buttons wont work on everything for some reason, on some devices you have to use the screen cursor, and I STILL havent figured out how to make a decent home page But this is still a major achievement, giving touchpad coolness to the masses, the problems with this remote are minor for what it does. The soft buttons arent hard to use if you put them in the same place for each device, pretty soon you know where they are, and the increased number of hard buttons helps, this thing can do things no other remote can for the price Just dont even think about getting it without the charger, unless you own your own battery factory. The rechargeables can last for several days of heavy use, but you'd go broke in a hurry buying AAA batteries for this thing. What possessed phillips to use tripple aaa's is beyond me, this one needs at least six double AA's. I just leave mine in its charger and use it that way. I've had this remote for about a month and find I'm using it in different ways than I thought I would, but my system is easier to use because of it, the mark of a trully well made remote, but dont get me wrong, this is a remote like a porsche is a moped, it sits on my coffee table and amazes my friends, who are usually using it in seconds after they pick it up. Just get the charger to go with it. Trust me on this

Strengths:
versatile, ergonomic, easy to get set up the first time, configuring it is a hobby unto itself

Weaknesses:
well made but the materials are a bit "light", I'm worried about the connector to the charger, a bit quirky at times

Similar Products Used:
Sony lcd remote pad, marantze rc2000mkII, about a zillion one-for-all remotes