topspeed
06-10-2006, 10:31 AM
Well, I finally broke down and replaced my old Sony RM3000 touchscreen remote with the flavor-of-the-month, the Harmony 880.
http://www.3dnews.ru/documents/news5/20050107_harmony88_01.jpg
I must say, initial impression are pretty positive. There's definitely some tweaking that needs to be done, but for the most part I'm fairly impressed. It's also nice to have a remote with hard buttons again. Touchscreens may look cool, but being forced to look at it every time you want to change the channel becomes a chore. There's no substitute for tactile feedback.
Pros:
* Easy set-up: The internet interface is very user-friendly and downloading the correct commands is a snap.
* Excellent macros: Labeled "Activities", this process was nothing short of a revelation compared to the hell I went through setting up macros on my Sony. On the latter, I had physically push the buttons...in order...of how I wanted things to operate. With the 880, it merely asks you what the inputs should be set to and figures out the command sequence all its own. Nice. Switching between "Watch TV" to "Listen to CD" the unit knew to shut down the monitor and Sat while switching the AVR to DVD (I use a universal player), turn the DVD on, and push play. That was cool. I think this is one my wife will actually be able to figure out.
* Favorites with icons: Up to 16 of your favorite channels are stored as hot buttons with color icons (downloadable) so you get to them immediately. This will be a boon for my kids.
* Motion Sensor: The remote goes black when not in use to save power but comes back on as soon as you move it. Cool.
* It operates my TV: This isn't as stupid as it sounds. For some reason, my Sony refused to turn on my JVC while using macros. The 880 has no such problems.
Cons:
* Small buttons: For example: See that small thin silver band around the screen? There's no less than 16(!) buttons imbedded into that strip. Not the most ergonomic layout I've seen. Better than a touchscreen, but boy are they small
* Screen too small: This may be a factor of coming from a large touchscreen remote, but cramming 8 commands onto that little screen means most of the words are cropped so bad you don't know what they are anymore.
* Curious layout to learned commands: I'm hoping there's a way to rearrange the learned buttons, because the website apparently took the shotgun approach to organization. This is particularly prevalent with the AVR controls, as there's something like 13 pages you have to cycle through on the screen and nothing is laid out the way you would expect. For example, if you want to change from DPL2 "cinema" to DPL2 "music", you have to turn on DPL2 on page 2, cycle through to page 8 for "cinema" and/or page 13 for "music". WTF?
* Touchy charging base: You have to get the remote on there just right or it won't charge.
That's about all I can think of now. For those of you with this remote, it you have any set-up tips or tricks you learned, I'm all ears...er, rather eyes.
http://www.3dnews.ru/documents/news5/20050107_harmony88_01.jpg
I must say, initial impression are pretty positive. There's definitely some tweaking that needs to be done, but for the most part I'm fairly impressed. It's also nice to have a remote with hard buttons again. Touchscreens may look cool, but being forced to look at it every time you want to change the channel becomes a chore. There's no substitute for tactile feedback.
Pros:
* Easy set-up: The internet interface is very user-friendly and downloading the correct commands is a snap.
* Excellent macros: Labeled "Activities", this process was nothing short of a revelation compared to the hell I went through setting up macros on my Sony. On the latter, I had physically push the buttons...in order...of how I wanted things to operate. With the 880, it merely asks you what the inputs should be set to and figures out the command sequence all its own. Nice. Switching between "Watch TV" to "Listen to CD" the unit knew to shut down the monitor and Sat while switching the AVR to DVD (I use a universal player), turn the DVD on, and push play. That was cool. I think this is one my wife will actually be able to figure out.
* Favorites with icons: Up to 16 of your favorite channels are stored as hot buttons with color icons (downloadable) so you get to them immediately. This will be a boon for my kids.
* Motion Sensor: The remote goes black when not in use to save power but comes back on as soon as you move it. Cool.
* It operates my TV: This isn't as stupid as it sounds. For some reason, my Sony refused to turn on my JVC while using macros. The 880 has no such problems.
Cons:
* Small buttons: For example: See that small thin silver band around the screen? There's no less than 16(!) buttons imbedded into that strip. Not the most ergonomic layout I've seen. Better than a touchscreen, but boy are they small
* Screen too small: This may be a factor of coming from a large touchscreen remote, but cramming 8 commands onto that little screen means most of the words are cropped so bad you don't know what they are anymore.
* Curious layout to learned commands: I'm hoping there's a way to rearrange the learned buttons, because the website apparently took the shotgun approach to organization. This is particularly prevalent with the AVR controls, as there's something like 13 pages you have to cycle through on the screen and nothing is laid out the way you would expect. For example, if you want to change from DPL2 "cinema" to DPL2 "music", you have to turn on DPL2 on page 2, cycle through to page 8 for "cinema" and/or page 13 for "music". WTF?
* Touchy charging base: You have to get the remote on there just right or it won't charge.
That's about all I can think of now. For those of you with this remote, it you have any set-up tips or tricks you learned, I'm all ears...er, rather eyes.