Well, it's nothing on the same scale as some recent purchases in the community but nevertheless I'm now the proud owner of a Logitech Harmony 880 Universal remote, and I want to share some of my thoughts about it. It was in my cart for quite a while and I'd been watching the price, so when it got down to where I could afford it without second thought I pulled the trigger. It has since gone back up about $13.00 so I think my timing was right as well.

First off I was pleased with how much attention was paid to the packaging. The remote itself was placed in clam shell plastic and in a sturdy cardboard box. The big plus here was that by pulling out the three or four staples holding the two sections of plastic together it was very easy to remove the remote. This is important to me because I just HATE the typical packaging that makes you have to get out the tin snips and hope you don't veer into some important text inside while cutting. And I also usually end up bleeding at some point when I get stabbed by a sharp edge hanging out.

The remote is almost identical in size and shape to the Tivo remote I got with DirecTV, with the DTV remote being slightly heavier but no more ergonomically comfortable than the 880. The 880 is very appealing from a visual standpoint; nice chrome like appointments where some of the function buttons are placed, which form a U shape around the display. The display itself, although smallish, is in a resolution that even I can interpret. BTW, the display is customizable with options for loading different background styles... pretty neat IMO.

Loading the software onto my PC, which can blow the doors off anything Apple can come up with at its price point, was a breeze and after it installed it went to the Logitech Harmony website to update the s/w to the latest rev. The update took all of maybe a minute to complete, with no hicups. After you create an account on the remote's website you can then start setting up the "Activity" keys which is where this remote shines. The manner in which the product IR codes are loaded, which come from the website after you identify your equipment, eliminates for the most part the need to 'learn' the remote with a particular component's own remote. There were a few cases though where I did have to go through that process as the 880 didn't recognize some of the individual device's functions. But after I did this and tried out the programmed buttons, everything that I wanted on and set to the proper states worked. I've still got to educate myself (read... L.J. WHAT THE HE!! DO I DO NOW?!?!?!) regarding some of the programming aspects since I only played around with it for an hour or so, but I'm confident that it's going to eventually eliminate the need for playing piano with the four, sometimes five remotes taking up space better used for holding beers and Margaritas on my coffee table.

Anyway, that's the long & short of it for now. I'll be sure to brag more about it when I become more familiar with all of its bells & whistles.

(Shameless plug): The Harmony 1000 Touch-screen remote has drastically dropped in price to the $250 range from about $500, so...