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...Continued from Page 10.
As usual, we start off at level one – a single polyester layer of infrared absorbing power. As is also usual, the dual-emittered SRC-3810 experienced absolutely no problems. Moving on to level two, twice as thick as level one, again the remote passed with flying colors, although a slight reduction in off-angle performance was observed. Level three is typically where the going starts getting tough – but in this case the going packed up and went home. Nothing. Not a blip. Could this be true? Moving the remote several feet closer to the receiver something started to get through, but from our standard test distance the SRC-3810 was mute.
So, the finally tally comes out to 2.0, one of the lower scores we’ve registered. It should nonetheless be noted that during normal use the SRC-3810 performed similarly to other universal remotes that ranked higher.
Poking and prodding.
The SRC-3810 is a pleasure to use. When navigating through the remote it smartly remembers the last device accessed from each bank, as well as the last page viewed for every device. The current time is always displayed at the top of the remote, and at any time the full date can be shown by holding the [Page/Date] button for a second. The audible beep whenever a key is pressed can be disabled if desired. A battery level icon on the screen indicates full, low and “time to replace” battery conditions, while the [Record] button even has a one-second safety hold, a nice touch that is often overlooked.
Changing devices or pages is quick and responsive, as is general key use. Possibly too quick – a button or LCD square can be tapped quickly enough that the remote beeps but not enough of a signal is transmitted to be recognized by the device. Although this did not happen often, it was repeatable.
The remote ships in colorful retail packaging and includes a 52-page manual that’s surprisingly good. There are complete descriptions of how to setup all aspects of the control, plenty of screenshots, tips and FAQs, plus a section in the back on how to use the remote once it’s programmed.
Final thoughts.
The Sunwave SRC-3810 covers the majority of the requirements for a good universal remote control by offering quality construction, a preprogrammed code database, infrared learning with lots of memory, plenty of macros, easy setup, and a good amount of screen customization. However, the hard button complement is minimal, so those who feel that a larger selection of hard buttons is important may want to look elsewhere. The lack of dedicated play/channel buttons becomes particularly apparent with the preprogrammed layout for VCRs, which simply omits channel up/down functions.
With twice as many devices and 250% more possible commands, the SRC-3810 has, without a doubt, improved substantially upon its SRC-8000 predecessor. The addition of useful features like the dot matrix section of the screen, a greater number of possible labels, longer macros, favorite channel lists and vibrant blue backlighting add to its appeal. If you need a remote that’s compact, powerful and not too pricey you won’t find anything else quite like the SRC-3810.
- Daniel Tonks (Remote Central)
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