Sony RM-AX1400 universal remote

I just thought I’d toss out a recommendation for this. I picked one up at Best Buy yesterday to try it out (60 day holiday return policy, woo) and I have to say I’m impressed. You can get it for about $60 cheaper than the Harmony 550, and it has almost identical functionality; programmable through the PC or by learning, excellent configuration program, supports just about anything you can imagine, really flexible button configuration, awesome macro system. I was also happy to see it automatically update the remote’s firmware when I downloaded a new version of the editor program.

Visually, it’s a very pretty design, much more slick than the 550. The display is OLED instead of the 550’s LCD, and it looks great. My only real complaint is that it is somewhat wide; my girlfriend has difficulty accessing all the buttons on the left with her thumb while holding it in her palm. Oh, and the “turn all off” button doesn’t work – even though I’m using preset profiles for each of my components, all it managed to do was turn off my cable box while leaving the TV on and switching the receiver’s input mode. Heh.