The first of several gadget reviews.....

I had a few people tell me I ought to start doing gadget reviews seeing as how I am picking them up left and right lately. I'm going to do my reviews a bit differently than most people do them. Instead of getting the device and writing a review as soon as possible, I am going to use the device for a while and then write the review. That way I will have a better grasp of the pros and cons of the device.

I am going to start off my micro reviews of gadgets with a review of the Harmony Advanced Universal Remote for Xbox360®.



This remote is what most people would call a "universal remote" but it is actually a bit more than that. It does have the ability to serve as the remote for all your devices that use IR remotes, but it also has another function that makes this much more than a simple universal remote.

This other function is the ability to record macros. A macro for those who don't know is a series of events. Why would that be such a cool feature? Well how's this?

Let's say I want to watch an HD-DVD. On my Harmony remote all I have to do is click two buttons. First I click the activities button, this shows me a list of activities that I have set up on my remote. Next I click the Watch DVD (there isn't a setting for HD-DVD that I could find, but then again I didn't look too hard).

Those two clicks will trigger a series of events as follows.

First my Vizio LCD TV will turn on (unless it's already on *the remote "remembers the last known state of your devices), the TV is then set to my secondary HDMI input. Next my Onkyo receiver is turned on and switched to it's secondary HDMI setting. Finally my Toshiba HD-DVD player is turned on and set to start playing.

So two clicks on the remote takes care of 8 clicks using three remotes. Snazzy isn't it?

So how do I accomplish all this? Well Logitech provides excellent software that interfaces with the remote. You just plug in the remote to the provided USB cable, connect it to your Mac or PC and launch the Logitech software.

You will then be asked to provide information on what kinds of devices you want to control from the remote. There are THOUSANDS of devices listed...Everything from TV's,VCR's to computers and game consoles. It's amazing really. And speaking of game consoles, as the name implies this remote has features that are tailored specifically for the Xbox360. It has the same colored buttons that the Xbox's controllers have, so you can use this instead of a controller to play DVD's or to navigate the Xbox's menus.

Once you have told the software what kinds of devices you own (it will ask for model numbers)you will then be asked if you want to set up any activities. From here you just follow the simple instructions to create your activity macros.

I've had this remote for about one year now and have nothing at all to complain about. Battery life is very impressive considering that almost the entire remote glows at night so you can see the buttons. The only complaint (and it isn't really much of a complaint) is that it doesn't have bluetooth capabilities. I knew that going into it so it isn't a bother so much as a feature request. So the only thing in the house this won't control is the PS3 as that uses Bluetooth for communications.

I even have this set up to control my Mac mini so I can use FrontRow in my LCD tv.

Verdict? Buy one, if you don't have an Xbox360, buy the Logitech Harmony 550, it's pretty much the same remote minus the Xbox360 buttons.

And finally the cost. At the time I ourchased it it was $120 usd. But it has since come down in price to $99 usd.

I guess that's all for now. My next review will be in a few days and that will be a review of the Newertech miniStack external hard drive enclosure/USB-Firewire hub.

So until then...happy gadgeting!