I got the basic 300 a few months ago because I lost the remote to my WDTV. It handles my TiVo, TVs, and WDTV flawlessly. It's great! The newfangled ones are nice, with the touch screen and things, but way too expensive for me for just a remote.
This one doesn't have the touchscreen, just a little 1.5X1.5 inch screen that reminds me of my first color screened phone.
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I would update you folks on my experience, since the Harmony's came up again, here goes.
When I added the blueray to the home entertainment mix not one of the three native remotes worked with all three devices. With the wife, three kids, and a dog having to keep track of three remotes in order to do simple tasks like watch tv, a dvd, or dvr was too much. I read online as much as I could b/c Ive been down the $30 find your code route before and only ever had 90% functionality (so 10% of the time I would have to grab the native remote).
So when I researched, I found that the Harmony remotes had over 5,000 supported devices and all I had to do was choose Sony and put in the model number (on my PC no less) and all of the appropriate buttons on the remote were configured correctly. Mint, ten minutes out of the package and I could do everything with one remote.
I plugged it in to give it a full charge overnight and kind of left it alone for a few days (I was doing my guide homework). I then went onto my computer and played with the "actions" I think they call it. I went through a few wizards and within 5 minutes I had set up:
- Watch TV (TV on, set to HDMI1, Blueray on, set to Audio, Cable on)
- Watch Movie (TV on, set to HDMI2, Blueray on, set to DVD function, Cable off)
- Watch Netflix (TV on, set to HDMI2, Blueray on, set to Ntflix, Cable off)
I also set up favorite channels (for my 4yr old) that display in the LCD (not touchscreen, four soft buttons on the side) so he can go to his favorite channels without having to click 107, or 130, or 753 (Hub, Boomerang, and Nick Jr HD for those in central MA).
All set, hook the remote to the PC and sync it up, wow. I still have not figured out how it knows that the TV is already on, say when I am watching TV vs it being off, when I hit Watch Movie. And cycling the different inputs on the devices is cool too. I swear it uses some funky voodoo to do it.
I would have been happy with a single remote that allows me to control 3 devices. But this really does so much more and for me was worth the $90. I just use the remote without having to think of what device I'm controlling, it has just abstracted that entire layer out of it. I sit down, press watch tv, and everything goes.