I am looking to purchase my first intelligent remote and am going back and forth between the Pronto 3000 and the Harmony 880. I love the fact that the Pronto is fully customizable, but I'm not sure if will be too difficult to learn. On the other hand, I have some concerns with the 880 I was hoping some of the 880 owners could answer.

I hear that that the 880 will switch off components that are not being used, therefore making it hard to do two things at once. For instance, if I am waltching television and I want to turn on lights, my television will turn off.

How customizable is the remote? I hear it is not close to the Pronto, although it is much easier to program.

Do you think I will run into any problems with my setup? I have a plasma, dvd, cable box, receiver, and scene lighting.

Finally, does the remote give you the option of having different room configurations? I have a television in my kitchen and den that I would like to work with the remote? Do you know if the Pronto can handle multiple room layouts?

well, I have a pronto tsu2000 (which I've had for a couple of years) and i just bought a 880.

The 880 is much easier to program than the pronto, much. As far as your light question you can program the 880 to not shut off unselected devices (lights) if you wish. One thing that originally made the pronto attractive to me was that you could label the buttons through the gui. Almost any universal remote can "learn" functions but the problem is remembering which button was assigned what function.

The pronto can do anything, has the advantage of being totally customizable, has a steeper learning curve to use properly, if you want to add a button to a screen its very easy to do once you are familiar with how its programmed. What I did with my pronto was find screens for a similar device (ie cable box), use those screens and then customize them for my use. Any button can be a macro. It probably took a week to get it working (much longer to get it just the way you want it though)

The 880, I haven't been able to find anything that it can't do (i've had it about a week). Doesn't have the customizable screens (i should say customized screen designs), it uses "activities" (macros) as the main function. setup was extremely easy and fast (it was working within 1/2 hour). You can add functions (custom buttons with the proper labels) easily. Its smart enough to know if you add a function to the tv (i have one setup for tv w/stereo and one with the tv speakers) it will add the function to all activities that include the tv. You can also control the individual devices on the system as well. an example would be the tv w/stereo, turns on the cable box, turns on the tv, turns on the stereo, puts the tv on video 4, stereo on tv input, and shuts off the tv speakers. When I switch activities it turns the tv speakers back on. When I hit the off button, everything turns off. If I switch from tv w/stereo to just tv. the remote turns off the stereo and turns on the tv speakers, without turning off the tv or the cable box.

Sorry if this rambles a little, I've tried to answer your questions. I would suggest going to the logitech site and it allows you to setup a "test drive", you can see how easy it is to setup.

I've currently got a sony rear projection 1080p, a hd pvr cable box, dvd, and surround sound system.

The 880 can handle extra rooms with no problem, just have different activities for each room. The activites can be custom labled, as can any special buttons you want to add.

I own an 880 and have no knowledge of Prontos. The 880 is in my view a good mid-range universal remote that balances medium cost with good features.

Specifically on your questions.
* The 880 allows operation of devices in two main ways: as Activities or as individual Devices. Activities turn mutliple things on, and set correct inputs. Switching to another Activity can turn off devices not required, or not as per your choice. The Device menu enables you to operate any device individually - on off, change inputs etc. My guess is that you would use your lights as a device independent of AV equipment. Some people do switch on lights with Activities and leave them on until the global Off button is pressed.
* The 880 is programmable using the Harmony website; which is often love/hate. After a while, I found it quite easy to use and adequate for my needs. It learns missing IR commands just fine, although the library is pretty good.
* The 880 will allow different layouts in the sense that you input all devices in your house and then set Activities that use the appropriate collection of devices. Seems to me that you will have a 'Watch kitchen TV' Activity that simply turns on that TV (and off again.)

Hope this is of some help.