I have had the 950 for a couple of days now, and have spent a lot of time programming it. I really wanted to like this remote, and in many ways I do, but in a major way (for me) it is a dissapointment.

I have had most of the remotes that URC has come out with, since the beginning, and really became a fan, when they came out with the MX-500 design. Since that time, every step up I have taken, with the 700, then the 800 series, I have felt was an improvement. To me, the 950 is a step, sort of sideways, with some big improvements, but the change in shape and button layout is IMO a step backwards.

The purpose, for me, of a hard button remote, is to be able to feel the buttons without looking at them. When I am in my theater, and watching a movie, I don't want to have to look down, at a Crestron, or Pronto touch screen, and that is why I have always loved the URC remotes. The shape of the remote feels good in the hand, the balance is right, and I can feel each button easily, and rarely make mistakes. Occaisionally, I look at the LCD display, but for the most part, I navigate my remote by feel.

The MX-950 has lost this advantage, by trying to look retro (for some reason) the buttons are small, and the layout is confusing. Why they switched the menu button from where it has always been, to the other side of the remote is an enigma to me. Even the buttons along the LCD are too small, and closely spaced together, so that it is really easy to hit the wrong button. I really miss the FF and RW button position on either side of the center button, and find the two position movement very cumbersome on, what are now the "Back" and "Ahead" buttons.

With all those negatives, the 950 is really a work of art. The adjustable colors of the display, are really beautiful, the backlighting of the buttons is very nice, and the rechargeable battery is such a long overdue feature for these battery hungry remotes. I would really love to see those features incorporated into the MX-800 series design, then I would have my perfect remote.

The programming advances are also a positive. I really like the added programming flexibility, and capacity. The sounds are cute, but not really necessary to me. I don't have a lot to say about the programming, because I feel that I have barely scratched the surface on what this remote can do. I wish I could get past the ergonomics, and then I could really love this remote.

Overall, this is a fine remote, just one that will not be ideal for my theater. It will find a place controlling another room of my house, where it can be more of a display, and multifunction piece, rather than in the dark, where I need a remote that is more intuitive, and form fitting for my hand and fingers.

Thanks for your considered and honest review. While I'm disappointed because I was obviously hoping that the 950 would be a knockout, I'm frankly kind of glad that I don't have to spend $600 to replace my beloved MX-700!


-Neil

I too was interested in the 950 and still want to hold it in my hand to see what it feels like. But, after posts like this one and others about the 950, I'm very interested to see the details of the 900 that should be announced at CEDIA.

You make some good points, Free. Having used the MX-950 for awhile now though, I'm getting used to the different layout and looking at it less and less. It's soon going to replace my MX-850 I think.

Mike
www.SurfRemoteControl.com

The MX-900 that will be shown at CEDIA looks to be along the same style/design as the MX-950.

Everything is based on personal preference. I have a lot of customers that are totally in love with their MX-950, but I'm sure there other people who share your opinions too. Personally, I don't like the "Listen" and "Watch" buttons because I feel that it actually makes the MX-950 less intuitive to use, especially because it's the programmer's job to make the remote easy to use. It would have been more valuable to add "Favorites" as a button...or even use "Devices" and "Activities" buttons to replace those. That's just my personal opinion of it though.



Thank you,
Damon DG
= = = = =
http://www.ProRemotes.com - Authorized Dealer & Remote Programming

Mike,
Are you a Tivo user? If so, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the moved transport controls. As a Tivo guy, I absolutely love the transport controls surrounding the direction controls on my MX-700 - it makes moving from menus to controlling playback absolutely seemless. The change there seems the biggest problem to me on the 950. While yes, I'm sure I would get used to the change, I can't imagine that I would ever prefer it, or even like it as much, as the older models.

But I could be wrong :)

-Neil

Yeah, I've seen the pic of the 900 and while I could do without the Listen and Watch buttons, the layout seems significantly different from the 950. By the way, those pics that were up on the design site are gone now. I wonder if the URC folks saw the thread here or at AVS and told them to pull the pics until after it was officially announced...

I too have recently switched from an MX-800 to an MX-950. I sympathize with the issues raised by Free here. In fact, in the first few days of use I found myself feeling much the same way.

But with more time, I find myself rarely needing to look at the hard buttons on the 950. And I actually appreciate the different feel. The layout of of the hard keys really works for me now -- particularly when watching TiVo. It's even more evident when someone else (who's never used a prior MX remote) comes to visit and is instantly able to make everything run. There are far fewer quirks in its usability.

For me, one of the most functional features on this product is the motion-activation of backlighting. It increases usability dramatically in my experience because it's now much easier to glance quickly at either buttons or the LCD without manually activating the backlight.

That said, I still miss the Favorites button (and don't really care much about Listen/Watch). But I suspect that part of my problem here is that I simply "ported" my 800 layouts to the 950. Like many people, I used the Favorites buttons to carry oft-used universal shortcuts to the AV system (switching Surround modes, switching TV format modes, selecting lighting scenes, and jumping to hidden device pages when I needed some weird remote function) while still keeping the rest of the hard buttons assigned to their original devices.

But with all the extra capacity for pages and devices in the 950, I'm now integrating what used to be in the Favorites section directly into the individual activity sections. On the plus side, this enables layouts that bring most-used former Favorites to a more accessible location on a device (e.g. my TiVo section uses 2 surround modes and 2 TV format modes 99% of the time, so they're on the first page of the LCD now). The negatives of this approach are: 1) I've duplicated the former Favorites in lots more places (though I've done it with Macros so that a change in one place will ripple through all the rest); and 2) by appearing in different places for different activities, it's tough to memorize where the former Favorites are now and I have to rely on the LCD display.

The point is, I guess, that if you LOVE the 800/850, you'll find that some of the things you love are different. Not necessarily better or worse, just different. And the initial reaction is that "different" is "worse." I've been pleasantly surprised that adapting to the changes wasn't that hard, and I now prefer the 950 for its wonderful feel and powerful programming capabilities (though I'm STILL not done tweaking the pages for the no-Favorites-but-as-many-pages-as-you-want programming paradigm).

More like an addict. I have 5 Tivos in my home.

In a way the 950's slightly better in that it gives you both the FF and Skip buttons (as well as the REW and Replay) below the thumbpad, with Stop (can be used for Record) play and pause just below that. It takes a little getting used to after the 700/800/850, but it's still convenient.

Regarding FAVs, with the 256 page capacity, you can set up as many FAVS as you want for each device (SD and HD for example), then jump to them from a single button on the first page of the device.

Another option is to use skip+/- for < and > and rew/ff for <<< and >>> macros. I like to put replay on STOP, but this confuses guests...

What are you suggesting exactly? Do you mean that the FAVs should be duplicated on a subpage of each activity, or that there should be a FAV activity that can be accessed from the first page of each normal activity? If the latter, this still lacks the nice ability to return to the previous activity with MAIN like the other MX remotes can with the FAV button.

I'm saying put it on activity (or device) subpages. I've done that with the 850, but you run out of pages fast with only 4 available. Assuming your activity macro lands you on the first page of a device (ex: cable box), you can access FAV pages with a FAV button on that page, as well as return to with a Return button on the FAV page (or pages).

This is the part that I don't get. Since the 950 doesn't have a "return to page" capability from within a macro, I'm not sure how you do this.

Thanks Mike!
I'm a touch confused though - how do you have both FF AND skip, as well as RW AND replay? Are there two commands mapped to each of the back and ahead buttons? IE, press for RW, press and hold for replay?

-Neil

Fletch

Use a 'go to page' in a macro for a return to the page you were on.

With multiple device's, I doubt you'll have it programed in 30 minutes but, it does work.

This message was edited by pilgram on 08/29/05 12:42 ET.

Take a closer look at your remote. The RW and FF buttons are really two buttons each.