User reviews for the Philips ProntoNEO TSU500 from Philips Electronics. Ratings Reviews MSRP (USD) Average: 3.29/5.00 Median: 3.67/5.00 52 $249 The ProntoNEO TSU500 is a lower-cost addition to the Pronto Family. But with a graphical LCD touchscreen, full code learning, macros on any button and complete PC editing software with custom bitmaps, the ProntoNEO itself is no lightweight. Message Forum Add Your Review Get it at:

Written by wilksonian from texas, USA. The reviewer has used this remote control for 6-12 months.

Review 45 made on Saturday November 15, 2003 at 11:42 PM. Strengths: programability Weaknesses: screen calibration OS Issues bad supporting software Review: Ok... now I'm mad at this device... paid $150 at Best Buy and took a couple of hours to program it for my simple world (1 TV, 1 VCR, 1 DVD). While I was able to get fairly compatible results, it was less than 5 months later that the remote started locking up on me... I had to remove the batteries to get it to unlock... Now the screen will not allow a re-calibration and touchscreen activation occurs about one inch lower from where I touch. Simply Frustrating... very dissapointed with this high priced toy... Quality: Features: Value:

Written by D. BROTHERS from CALIFORNIA. The reviewer has used this remote control for 1-3 months.

Review 44 made on Saturday November 15, 2003 at 4:08 AM. Strengths: HARD BUTTONS, WHEN THEY WORK! Weaknesses: JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING Review: 1. TROUBLE LEARNING SOME BUTTONS. IT REFUSES TO LEARN ANY KEYS ON MY LASER DISK PLAYER REMOTE, DVD AND OLDER MODEL T.V.. WHEN MY OTHER LEARNER WHICH IS CHEAPER DOES IT ALL. THE SONY RM2100 (3) YEARS AND A HALF OLD. 2. THE TABLE OF BRANDS SECTION DOES NOT COVER (3) OF MY DEVICES AND THE DEVICES THAT IT COVERS ARE WEAK IN SOME KEYS. 3. THE CD SOFTWARE DID NOT COME WITH IT. UNABLE TO DOWNLOAD INFORMATION OFF OF THE PHILIPS WEBSITE. EVEN THOUGH I PURCHASED ZIP PROGRAM. THEN RETURNED THE ZIP AND GOT REFUND AFTER DOWNLOAD ATTEMPTS WAS INEFFECTIVE, TOTALLY. 4. MACROS CAN BE LEARNED BUT CANNOT BE DELETED UNLESS YOU REVERT ALL INFORMATION THAT WAS BEFOREHAND. MANUAL DOES NOT SAY OTHERWISE. 5. REMOTE FREEZES UP FROM TIME TO TIME. AT FIRST WHEN YOU PRESS RESET BUTTON IT REFUNCTIONS. NOW I DISCOVERED LAST TIME I RESET IT, IT DID NOT COME BACK AFTER SO MANY ATTEMPTS. CHECKED BATTERY POWER ON ALL (3) AA’S AND 2 WAS FULL POWER AND 1 HAD NO POWER(IN THE RED). THIS IS SECOND REMOTE AFTER EXCHANGING FIRST, FIRST ONE WAS WORSE THAN THIS ONE. FREEZES ON ALL MODES. A TOTALLY DEAD SINGLE BATTERY WHILE THE OTHER 2 HAD FULL POWER. EXPLAIN THAT? AFTER HAVING UNIT 5 WEEKS, USING VERY LITTLE. THIS IS LAST AND FINAL STRAW!!!!!!!!!!!! MUST RETURN. 6. STUBBORN TO LEARN, LIKE FISHING! 7. OTHER PROBLEMS BUT TOO MUCH TO GO IN TO! Quality: Features: Value:

Written by spiff11 from San Jose, USA. The reviewer has used this remote control for 1-3 months.

Review 43 made on Tuesday May 13, 2003 at 5:37 AM. Review: www.ichau.com/ProntoNEO ...for a visual review. Don't read it, look at it, and see the NEO's graphic possibilities. Quality: Features: Value:

Written by bobb from Silicon Valley, CA. The reviewer has used this remote control for 1-3 months.

Review 42 made on Sunday May 11, 2003 at 8:15 AM. Strengths: Fully customizable Bitmap Touchscreen; Current price (usd$100); Everything configurable via PC except learning codes. Weaknesses: Cheap construction; less than perfect ergonomics; No timer; No advanced programming features like Toggles, Flags, Loops Review: I could not find another remote in this price range that will let me fully customize the screen. This is an excellent valued remote (now around usd$100) for people who wants fully customization and are willing to put the time to do so up front. People who wants a plug&play will probably be dissapointed by the TSU500's very skimp device database and its difficulty in learning some codes (discreete codes available in the file section here submitted by forum members). Quality: Features: Value:

Written by Mark Goossens from England. The reviewer has used this remote control for 1-3 months.

Review 41 made on Monday March 3, 2003 at 6:55 AM. Strengths: It has a resonable number of hard buttons. Programmable buttons to do multiple things for a single key press. Weaknesses: Learning ability is very poor compared to Philips Pronto. Time gets reset everytime you upload or download Review: I have been a Pronto (890) user for a few years and whilst I like this product always found the lack of hard buttons made it's use less than intuitive and so a couple of the remotes for the most used items kept coming out of the cupboard. ProntoNeo offers the hard buttons that I was missing and could do all of the things I ever used on the Pronto. Basic programing was straight forward using the NeoEdit software. This all seemed to work as advertised straight from the box. I used the default setup and modified it to suit me, so no fancy graphics or buttons. I set up only one macro to turn everything off and used a few buttons to do multiple things at once (e.g. The DVD button on my TV home page turns on the Amp, selects DVD input, puts it into movie surround mode, turns on the DVD player and starts it playing, selects the correct AV input on the TV and lands me up on the DVD page on the Neo). There were two problems I had that foxed me for a while. It wouldn't learn either the standby sequence for my Tivo or the stop button for the DVD (despite trying all sorts of combinations of waves and presses!). The standby on the Tivo I fixed with a macro style of button presses that navigate through the TIVO menus to the standby option. The DVD stop button I fixed by taking the stop IR code from my Pronto and feeding this into NeoHacker. I'm glad these problems could be solved, but it's poor that the thing couldn't just learn the commands. As for the other learning stuff. Of my things (Panasonic TV, Video & DVD; Yamaha Amp, Pace Satellite, Thompson Tivo, Kenwood CD Player) only the TV, VCR & CD worked with the pre-programmed codes, everything else had to be learnt. Of these most things required tricks to make them learn. I found the best way was to keep the button pressed on the remote I wanted to learn and then press the button I was trying to teach on the Neo 3 times in rapid succession - again bizarre that you have to do this when the Pronto gets nearly everything first time everytime (and it gets it from the bottom of the handset so you don't need one of the two remotes to be upside down!) Overall, now it's programmed (which took me about 3 hours to get the basics and 2 hours to figure out the two problems), I think it's great. The first impression is that it doesn't feel as robust as the Pronto, but now I've used it a bit, I suspect the fact that it's lighter means that it will handle the occasional plummet from the arm rest to the floor with less damage. In summary, I haven't seen anything else that does this much of what I want at any price, let alone at this relatively low price level. Quality: Features: Value:

Written by Simon Ward from England. The reviewer has used this remote control for 1-3 months.

Review 40 made on Friday February 28, 2003 at 5:36 AM. Strengths: Ergonomics - it was the nicest to hold in the shop. Easy to make a basic set-up. Completely customisable. PC software. Good selection of hard buttons. Weaknesses: No auto-sensing backlight - it has to be manually switched on in the dark. PC software crashes and has bugs - it is still usable, but not what I consider professional quality s/w. Limited IR codes built in. No concept of an A/V amp! Review: There are two ways to setup this remote. The simple way is to use the default out-of-the-box layout for devices and then just tell it what type of TV, CD, etc. player you have. The other way is to use the PC software to completely configure the device howerver you want. You can change bitmaps, layouts, navigation, beeps - pretty much everything. However, this is a bit time consuming. It took me about two hours to create a fairly simple layout from scratch. Some people in this forum have said it loses code when you change it with the PC. Technically this is true because when you download a configuration from your PC you overwrite any existing configuration on the remote. However, you can upload configurations to the PC from the remote, including IR codes. What you should do if you want to edit on your PC is first upload your existing configuration (along with learned IR codes); modify it on the PC, and then load it back onto the remote. This way you don't lose anything. Finally, this is my first universal remtoe. The main reason that I wanted one was to replace the truely horrible remote that comes with the Sony STR-DB930 A/V Amp. I finally achieved this but it was not easy. The ProntoNEO has no concept of an A/V amp, which I found pretty surprising. The preset codes in the manual only have "pre-amp", and even then Sony is not listed. (Do Philips really think Sony don't make amplifiers?) No matter, you might think because this is also a learning remote. However, the annoying two-way nature of the original Sony remote made it impossible to learn the codes for selecting inputs. In the end I was saved by the files section of the Remote Central website. I managed to find config files for the ProntoNEO that had the STR-DB930 IR codes it. You can then cut'n'paste the buttons onto your own layout using the PC software. (Thanks Remote Central!) It would be nicer if Philips either had a larger database of IR codes with A/V amps it, or just published the raw IR codes somewhere. (Note you can only copy IR codes when they are attached to buttons.) However, the PC contectivity is pretty good, so maybe this is something that will happen in the future. Quality: Features: Value:

Written by Brian Blain from MSP. The reviewer has used this remote control for 1-3 months.

Review 39 made on Monday February 24, 2003 at 7:55 AM. Strengths: customizable Weaknesses: Learning, pre-programmed codes Review: I got one of these very cheap at my local pawn shop. Nearly new in the box with everything included, $50. I was very excited to get a pc programmable/customizable remote. Problem one, codes for my Bell & Howell TV did not work. Ok, no sweat, I will just learn them. Good luck, took about 20 attempts to program each function in....bogus. Ok, the TV is old, lets try the Panasonic SAT receiver. Some of the Pre-programmed code functions worked, but then more problems learning the remaining functions. These frustrations were enough for me to know that I refuse to waste anymore time, I returned it. I decided to use my old Marantz RC2000 Mk2. Learns codes easily without fail everytime with every component I have ever tried. Quality: Features: Value:

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