There's no Such Thing as a Good Remote

My perfect remote control is an old Marantz RC2000. It was a hungry beast when it came to batteries, but it was an awesome remote when it came to behaving just like you wanted it to, visibility and reliability.

The Logitech Harmony 520 remote, by comparison, was svelte, a battery miser, and an absolutely selfish, manipulative bitch of an appliance. I took particular glee in recycling it's innards when it froze up on me and no amount of replacing the batteries would work. About a week after I had thrown it out, Logitech sent me a very nice e-mail informing me about the remote's "safe mode" boot process. Sorry, too late. I've moved on. Damned if I want an appliance in my life which needs a "safe mode" to boot. Damnit, would it have cost them that much to include a reset button underneath?

I purchased a new Marantz 1400 from Accessories4Less which made it a bargain, and it arrived promptly, with no fuss.

The good news:

1. Easy programmability, not only text, and buttons but especially, the MACROS are a breeze compared to the lame ass browser/wizard based interface Logitech uses.
   
2. Most devices were built in.
   

The bad news:

1. Really poor visibility of the LCD
   
2. Won't learn new Samsung TV commands (but built in Samsung codes work), leaving me without the compass buttons.
   
3. Theta commands not built in.

Am I happier than I was with the Logitech? Yes! Am I completely satisfied? No.

For those of you out there with remotes which do everything you need, tonight, when you are watching Stargate SG-1 re-runs in Dolby Surround, hold the remote close to your breast, and tell it how lucky you really are.