All for one and .... (One For All URC-7540 Remote Control)

Member Name: Slim Lee

Product:	One For All URC-7540 Remote Control
Date:	04/04/01 (3448 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Less clutter and no screaming when the video controller disappears (again)

Disadvantages: May lose some of the more complicated/specialist features on some devices

Ever lost the remote control? Spent hours searching for it down the back/side/underneath of the sofa? The chances are that you have done, as with so many electronic gadgets easily affordable now you are likely to have a nice collection growing in your front room.

One for the TV, one for the video, one for the hi-fi, one for the DVD, one for the amplifier, one for the satellite/cable …. The list is ever growing! I have all of these items in one room now and the pile of remote controls is getting way out of control.

The other day the TV remote finally gave up the ghost and was put out of its misery (i.e. chucked in the bin). Then the full horror of my reliance on it became quickly apparent. The TV has buttons on the front only for changing the channel and volume, but this means getting off my lazy arse to change anything. I have become so ingrained in channel surfing now, that the alternative of sitting on my knees (no jokes about me down on my knees thank you!) changing the channel manually is almost as appealing as a week locked in a small room with only Vanessa Feltz for company.

So, with this crisis situation in full bloom I rushed out to get hold of a new remote control. Then it dawned on me that why should I just buy a remote for just the TV when I could get one to run all the TV related gizmos I have accumulated over the years. The time had come to buy an all-in-one controller! Then I could hide away all those controllers, and hence stop tripping over them each time I walk into the room or sitting on them (how the TV one finally met its maker).

I’d used a few of these all-in-one controllers before, and picked the “One For All 4” out from the rest mainly because I had used the next model up from it previously, and had found it very easy to use. This one is not the top of the range, but it can cope with four different devices, which should be ample for most households.

The only devices I donR
17;t use it on are my DVD player and amplifier, which both have pretty good controllers anyway. The next model up just didn’t seem that necessary anyway and I couldn’t justify spending and extra £10 to add one more device on it.


Features
~~~~~~~~


• It can control up to four separate devices (TV, Video, Satellite/Cable, Auxilliary). The cable function includes cable converters (such as my NTL Scientific Atlanta box) and not just standard satellite receivers. The auxiliary function can be used to control a second TV/Video/Satellite device (e.g. that you may have elsewhere in the house). If you want an all-in-one remote to control other devices such as an amplifier or a DVD player then you will need to check out the next model up from this one (it has a device key for these).

• Lots of nice big(ish) chunky buttons, including four huge ones for the channel and volume changing in the center of the handset. The major problem with lots of other remotes is that they make the buttons far too small and fiddley to use unless you have hands the size of a small child, so this for me is a big plus point.

• Nicely laid out design and placement of the buttons. It all makes sense and you won’t find yourself scratching your head to find the button you need. It’s not too large and bulky to hold in your hand either, nor is it small and fragile (and likely to get damaged easily). Simple and robust. Oh and it comes in black too (I’m not a huge fan of these silver styled controllers).

• It is capable of all the TV functions and will support teletext too, including the four Fastest colour coded buttons.

• TV features to control colour and brightness are supported, as well as those that have Menu control.

• Sleeptimer, similar to many standard features on TVs, allows you to set any of the devices to turn off after a given length of time. Very importa
nt feature for me as I tend to fall asleep with the TV still turned on (and waking up to breakfast TV is not a pleasant experience!).

• Scan is a new function that allows you to flick through the available channels on the device you have selected. It will stay on each channel for roughly three seconds until moving on. When you find a channel you want to stop on a quick stab on the device key will stop the scan. Quite a nifty little feature but not one I will use that often.

• The device keys are interchangeable so you can swap them around (if that’s what turns you on). For instance, the order they appear on the handset is TV, VCR, SAT, AUX but there is no reason why you can’t change them around to control in any order.

• It comes (as all electronic products should) with One years guarantee against defects.

• It takes two LR6/AA sized batteries (the normal sized ones that most controllers take).


Verdict
~~~~~~~

After using countless controllers for each piece of electrical equipment then having to use only one simple, well laid out remote is a real pleasure. It’s quite simple to set up (hey it HAS to be for me to do it) and even easier to use day to day. The only annoying thing about setting up the devices on it is the amount of attempts you will have to make keying in codes from certain manufacturers. It’s a trial and error thing until you find the right code that works on it, which can be a real pain when some of the manufacturers such as Akai, Bush, Goodmans, Hitachi, Phillips and Sanyo can have over sixteen different codes to try for each device. Even with this slight bad point it still won’t take you too much time to set them all up though.

As a downside it doesn’t do all the features that my cable remote does, such as the last channel and favourites buttons, but to be honest I didn’t use them that much anyway. You may lose a
few of your video features too if you have something fancy like a jog button to fast forward/rewind/pause with.

If, like me, you’re not really that impressed by those features anyway then this controller will keep you pretty happy. It does the job required of it without too much fuss and gets rid of a few controls from being kicked about the room. Nice and easy to use and a fairly respectable price tag to boot. I’ll be using this until the buttons either fall off or wear away …


Where to get one
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I got hold of mine from my local Argos superstore (catalogue number 535/1431) for £19.50 of my hard earned cash. When you consider a remote controller that can handle only a single piece of equipment retails at around £10 then an All-In-One device is a very sensible alternative. Especially if the remotes you had with the equipment are fairly poor in the first place. My video remote is particularly bad in design and placement of its buttons so using this controller is far easier and simple.

Check out www.argos.co.uk (ugly site but lots on it!) for their range of generic controllers (including this one). Alternatively, why not get off your lazy arse and walk to a store to pick one up ...

The Universal Electronics website for this product range can be found at the rather uninspiring and highly original www.oneforall.com

Universal Electronics Inc can be contacted by traditional means at the following address:

One For All (UK) Ltd,
P.O. Box 5363,
Northampton.
NN5 5YN



P.S. bet you didn’t think someone could right so much about a remote controller eh ;)

P.P.S. I tried to keep it short too!!

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