A potential bargain at its new price!!! (Read on!)
Written: Jun 21 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Will do anything you need, set up by task, not device
Cons: Bulky, occasionally inefficient, perhaps a little buggy
The Bottom Line: If you're willing to invest the time to customize this, its a great bargain compared to its competitors.
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| joebeauche's Full Review: Harman Kardon TC 1000 Take Control Universal Remot... |
The price on these has dropped to $250, and at that price, its worth consideration.
In my opinion, this remote will always have a bipolar following. You will likely either totally love it, or you'll totally hate it. I'm guessing there's no middle ground. So hopefully this will help you decide...
1) If you need (or want) to control every function on every remote you're replacing, you may love it.
2) If you're willing to spend 4-8 hours tweaking the programming on the PC to get things exactly the way you want them, you may love it.
3) If you need to access buttons from one remote while operating another device (turning on the TV CC when watching a VCR tape) you may love it.
4) If you love to fiddle with computers and gadgets, you may love it.
5) If you like to be able to name the buttons to match the original remotes, you may love it
6) If you want to be able to instantly find the button you're looking for, you may hate it. It only shows 20 buttons at a time, so you have to make choices.
If you don't fall into any (or all) of the above categories, skip this remote. You're probably just wasting your money.
I paid $125 for an open-box one with no PC cable (They can occasionally be had for $99 refurbished from HK), I built my own the next afternoon, downloaded the software, and was up and running that evening. No instructions (downloaded those, too, but haven't read them.) I've got 4 hours of tweaking so far and its almost perfect for the way my wife and I use the remotes. In some ways, it better than the 5 remotes its replacing, but its not as fast, assuming you can find the remotes you need. We need 3 remotes to watch a DVD, 3 to watch a tape, two to watch DSS, etc., and this is the first replacement we've found that can replace 100% of the functionality.
In many cases, it will take a few screens to find the buttons, but I have them logically grouped by function, and all of the really important ones are never more than one screen away from each other. If you program it right, you will really love it.
Mines a bit buggy. It has a little trouble learning commands, but once learned, executes them properly. Occasionally, rotating the main wheel down will result in having the channel change up, but its at most a minor annoyance I will willingly live with. I'm not sure if its related to it being a demo model or if that's inherent in the design.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
joebeauche
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Member: Joe Beauchesne
Location: Orange, CA
Reviews written: 16
Trusted by: 0 members
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