csmith75's Full Review: Universal Remote Control SL-9000 LCD Remote Contro...
PICTURE THIS: On our wedding night, while we were relaxing in the Presidential Suite at our hotel, my parents were at our home freaking out believing that they had damaged our new TV.
The next morning when we returned home, my sister told me that my parents had broken our TV. Apparently there was no picture. I walked into the bedroom and saw that the VCR was on and tuned to a different channel. I pressed the power off button on the VCR and voila! A PICTURE! My father told me that they probably would have figured it out if we didn't have seven remotes sitting in the basket beside the bed.
That's when I decided to get a universal remote.
Why did I pick this remote?
I needed a remote that would be able to handle the following devices:
TV
VCR
Cable Box
DVD Player
Home Theater System
Replay TV
Stereo
That's seven devices and we will probably add a DVD recorder before the end of the year, so I wanted the ability to control at least 8 devices and this was perfect since it controls 10. I also needed something that could learn all the specific functions of each device. If I was going to spend a large amount of money on an universal remote, I wanted to make sure that I STILL didn't need to use any other remote.
After some serious research and visits to various electronic stores, I decided on the Universal Remote Control MX-500. My husband wanted the Sony Touchscreen remote, but I felt it was too big and would look too appealing to our cat.
Appearance
I ordered this from Amazon.com and after using a coupon, I ended up paying $115.00. It is currently on sale for $130.99.
The remote is black with 45 hard buttons, a LCD screen, and a 5 way touchpad in the center. The Power Off button is at the top along with a System Off button. It is approximately 9 inches long and 3 inches wide and weighs about 8 ounces. It requires four aaa batteries and uses them very conservatively. I was somewhat concerned about the battery usage since the LCD screen stays "on" permanently, but I've had no problems. After a couple of months of use, I haven't had to change the batteries once.
The LCD screen is 1.3 inches by 2 inches and is flanked by five buttons on each side. Each of these buttons controls a device or function label on the LCD screen that can be changed.
Beneath the LCD screen are three buttons, Page, Main, and Fav. The Page buttons allows you to go through the different "pages" on the screen. The Main button allows you to go back to the main screen, which displays all the different devices. This button is also pressed in conjunction with another to access the setup screen. The Fav button is customized to display all your favorite channels.
At the center of the remote are the buttons that are probably used the most by most people. They are Fast Forward, Rewind, REW track (also doubles as the Guide), Play, FF track (also doubles as Menu), Record (also doubles as Exit), Stop, and Pause (also doubles as Info). All these buttons surround the touchpad that is used for directional and select functions.
Underneath these are the number buttons and at the very bottom, three macro buttons.
All of the buttons are very solid and responsive to touch. They are the perfect size and reasonably spaced. I have no problems with the touchpad...I guess all those years of using videogame controllers has paid off.
Setup
When I first received the remote, I wanted to change the labels of the devices on the LCD screen. The default labels were AUX, TV, VCR1, VCR2, DVD, AUDIO, CD, SAT, CABLE, and TAPE. By pressing the MAIN and ENT button for approximately two seconds, it takes you the setup menu where you are given the option to edit the labels.
After changing the default device names, I decided to program all the devices. The instruction manual includes the codes for many different components that you can just type in. I was able to type in the codes for my TV, VCR, and DVD player and get most of the functions. However, I was not able to with my ReplayTv, home theater system, and cable box.
In order to program those, I had to learn the functions of each remote of each device. To do this, I had to take the remote and point it towards the Universal Remote Control MX-500, go to the setup menu, press learn, and program whatever button with a function of my choice. After the first couple of tries, it was quite easy and I was able to program all the remotes within 30-45 minutes.
Second, I wanted to program the macros. Macros are very important to people who have multiple devices. For example, in order for us to watch a DVD, we have to switch the Tv to S-Video (which is four steps), turn on the DVD player, and then turn on the home theater system. I went to the setup menu and pressed macro, picked the button, and went through the steps, and voila! It was programmed. Now all you have to do is press the one button and it goes through all those steps automatically.
Next, I programmed the favorite button to list all our favorite cable channels and to automatically tune to the correct channel when the corresponding button is pressed. The hardest part of this was just picking the order of the channels on the various "pages".
As you can tell, the level of customization of this remote far outranks other universal remotes.
Pros
1. Customization - this remote allows you to customize the device names and functions. This allows for many of the specific functions that many other universal remotes can't accomodate.
2. Macros - this allows you to press one button and it performs several different steps. This is great with today's systems where you often have to turn on several components just to do one thing.
3. Backlight - on the side of the remote, there is a button that you can press to turn on the backlight. A blueish light will turn on and light up the buttons and the LCD screen allowing you to see it in the dark. At first, I thought this was unnecessary, but I use it every night. You can even customize this as well! You can program it to go off after 1 - 99 seconds of inactivity.
4. Range - this remote has great range. I've used it from every angle of my bedroom and it's never failed me.
5. Ease of use - I only had to use the manual when I first received the remote. Even though I've made minor adjustments to the programming since then, the setup is so easy, that I have no use of the manual.
Cons
1. Size - this remote is larger than most remotes on the market. It fits comfortably in my hand, but I do notice the difference in size compared to our other remotes.
2. Price - even though I believe this remote is worth every penny, it is still a large sum for a remote.
3. Time - one thing that would have made this remote perfect would have been a time display on the LCD screen. Sometimes, I'm just too lazy to turn my head to the left to look at my alarm clock. This is something really minor that only matters to people that are lazy....like myself.
Conclusion
I love this remote! The level of customization and ease of setup and programming is superb. There hasn't been one thing that it could not do. My husband, who didn't help program one button by the way, has had no difficulties in using this remote and that says a lot!
I plan on buying another one for our system in the living room. We currently have a very lightweight remote that pales in comparion to this remote.
If you need an universial remote to control multiple devices that have very specific functions and want an advanced level of customization, this is the one for you!
Controls up to ten devices Preprogrammed for over 1,000 audio/video components Learns up to 530 commands via infrared from device remotes Send out mul...More at Amazon Marketplace
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