Hi ALL,

I upgraded from an 880 to the One and I just finished 99% of my tweaking and I am quite pleased with it! I wanted to share my thoughts with you.

First off I have always had a modest home theater from the early days of VHS Hi Fi to Super VHS to DVD to Blu Ray (I skipped laser disc!). Once the remotes started to proliferate I started looking for a universal remote. The very first one I had was made by GE and was almost 20 years ago. It had a metal body with metal buttons and an LCD and looked pretty good. The biggest problem was limited memory. Learning a new command most of the time meant another command had to be deleted. Other than that it worked pretty well.

I went to some others and then settled on several models from the Home Theater Master line from Universal remote. From their early model to the MX-500 to even the MX-700. They all worked well, but just were not all that I wanted. Around then Harmony came up with their "activity" concept which at the time I thought was crazy!

I ultimately bought the 880 and that was the best remote I had to date. The activity concept was very good and once you got used to it you couldn't go back to a plain "device" remote. The biggest short commings with the 880 was lack of tactile feel for different buttons and limited resolution on the LCD. When the One came out I was tempted but I was never a big fan of touch screens.

Obviously I finally gave in and bought the One, and I was glad I did. While NOTHING is 100% perfect, the One comes pretty close. I'm still not a big fan of touch screens and sometimes I end up touching the wrong screen button, but in general the One is as much an upgrade from the 880 as the 880 is from a device remote. What I especially like is that the hard buttons are VERY easy to find by touch alone because of different shapes and some of the buttons have little bumps on them. Yes, the remote lights up very nicely but that means you have to look at it. Being the lazy couch potatoe that I am I would much rather just use touch to find a button. With the 880 you can sometimes do it. With the One you can always do it.

The LCD screen is much nicer and when you add the favorite chanel icons that squareeyes put together you get a real neat remote. The PC software runs vey nicely and I had tech support clone my 880 account into another so I can keep the 880 programming and use the clone to upgrade to the One. The upgrade process went without a hitch, but it is known that you have to set up the soft buttons again.

Without going on and on, I just wanted to let anyone know that the One is the best universal remote I've had so far. I just hope nothing better comes out too soon as I'm spending TOO much money on these silly remotes!!!

Gerry

P. S. One thing that would improve the One is to allow icons for the soft buttons. I think some limited capability is on the way but I'm not sure.

thx for your thoughts! i just got my One today.

may i ask how you "wake up" your One if, when you pick it up, it doesn't wake up and you have to shaking it harder? it's annoying and i don't want to push a button and change the station or anything like that! ...just want to wake up the LCD so i can change channels/channel surf.

thx.