OTHER TECH

All three can learn codes from other remotes by pointing them eye to eye, and the Onkyo and RCA are preprogrammed with codes for many popular products from other manufacturers. And all three can be programmed with "macro" commands so that a stream of codes - perhaps turning on an entire home theater system - will be transmitted when you push one button.

RCA RCU1000B Just like me as a child, the RCU1000B is a real handful. Unlike me, it is also massive and hefty. It is the least expensive ($130) of our trio, and its design is fairly plain. Still, it has plenty of features. It can control up to nine devices and is preprogrammed with codes for more than 200 brands (a printed list is included). A photo sensor automatically turns on the touchscreen backlighting in low-light conditions, but the hard buttons are not illuminated. Soft keys can be added, deleted, or renamed. A timer can be set to activate up to four events per day, each of which can be one command to a selected device, like turning on the bedroom TV to wake you in the morning.

The touchscreen can display an array of up to 40 buttons, all the same size. The number of buttons and their functions depends on the mode you select, but the basic display architecture doesn't change. The very simple labels and readouts work fine, but overall the display isn't as attractive as those on the other remotes.

Operation is fairly straightforward. For example, to set a timer event, you hit the Setup button until "Setup a Timer?" appears. You select a device, such as a TV, and a function, such as on/off, then use the Channel buttons to select the time, and finally click OK. Macro programming lets you store up to 20 commands under each of nine macro buttons. In addition, you can program delays of up to 9 seconds within command sequences. An Audio Punch-Through feature lets the remote's volume buttons control the volume on your A/V receiver or TV even if the remote is currently set to control another component, like your DVD player or satellite receiver.

You can change the soft-button labels or delete an unneeded button so it doesn't appear on the touchscreen. However, because the LCD doesn't use a dot matrix to construct its readouts the way the other two remotes do, you have at most three label choices for any individual button; for example, one button can be labeled Time, Info, or Count. On one hand, this limits flexibility, but on the other hand, it does enforce a degree of consistency - the power key has to be at the top right corner, and the numeric and cursor keys must always be in the same places no matter which component you're controlling.

The RCA remote performed very well, if not flawlessly, and had a good set of features for its price. I was almost able to control some of my components simply by looking up their codes in the manual and punching them in. Why "almost"? Since the remote allows only three possible labels for each button, sometimes the labels didn't fit the functions very well. And in some cases, the assigned button didn't provide the correct function.

For other components, I had to turn to the learning feature. At first the handset would not learn any commands easily, needing several attempts before a new key worked correctly. Guessing that the high ambient light in the room was the problem, I dimmed the lights. After that, learning proceeded pretty well, with only an occasional need to rekey commands. This quirk is not unusual, but the RCU1000B was pickier than the other two in this group.

Because of its relatively low price, I assumed that the RCA remote's memory capacity would be limited (the company does not specify how much it has), but it was enough for my purposes. It learned most of the codes used by four of my remotes with room to spare. The touchscreen was legible under most lighting conditions, but, as you'd expect, it became progressively harder to read as the light dimmed. When the room was completely dark, the backlighting came on automatically. I wish there was a way to adjust the sensor's sensitivity so the lighting would kick in sooner.

The RCU1000B comes with a stylus, but its soft buttons are big enough for direct finger stabbing, and the glass seemed relatively forgiving of fingerprints. Though it doesn't use flash memory, it will hold its contents long enough to let you change the batteries.