Super-organiser comes with a heavyweight price tag

By PETER GRIFFIN

As we accumulate more and more entertainment devices in our living rooms, reaching for the remote becomes a confusing task - especially in the dark.

Take my father, for example. Positioned in arm chair, he likes to surround himself with a flotilla of remote controls - TV, video, Sky decoder, DVD player, etc.

Deeply engaged in Coronation St recently, he was disturbed by the phone ringing. Thinking the cordless phone was by his side, he casually put the bulky VCR remote to his ear and tried to answer the call.

There's a solution to such embarrassing behaviour - the universal remote control. I first saw the Philips Pronto three years back, when the monochrome model hit the market. It was a nifty, if expensive, device.

Now, with the introduction of a colour LCD touchscreen, its successor boasts a user interface more pleasing to the eye, if a similarly hefty price tag.

At its most useful, the TSU-6000 ProntoPro is an intelligent computer that organises infrared commands for the myriad devices that occupy your house, allowing you to fast forward, play, lower volume, change channel, increase treble, or switch them off, all from one easy-to-use interface.

And it will give you that flexibility - eventually.

The Pronto is no out-of-the-box gadget. That is, unless your house is full of devices from Philips or Marantz - a high-end producer of European electronics that Philips owned during the 1980s and 1990s. It takes some work to set-up - effort that really has to be put in if you're to extract the value Pronto can provide.

The new Pronto user is greeted with the task of selecting electronics from a pre-programmed device database - hundreds of device brands from "Akai" to "Zonda".

I've got at least five components - TV, video, DVD player, amplifier and stereo. Set-up was smooth except for my old Sanyo stereo, which steadfastly refused to talk to Pronto even when I asked Pronto to search for it and tried to train Pronto from my old remote.

Once the devices are programmed into Pronto you can go about custom labelling the touchscreen buttons using a pop-up Qwerty keyboard, or just use the pre-set format screens.

Nine main "physical" access buttons can be programmed with commands common to all of the devices you wish to control. Those devices can number in the dozens - the real number limited only by the Pronto's memory (8MB).

Packed with rechargeable batteries, Pronto has a little sensor that lights up the LCD when it is tilted to an angle of 50 degrees or more, saving on battery power. It even comes with a serial connector allowing you to connect it to your PC.

Using the included ProntoProEdit software you can become your own remote-control designer, positioning buttons where you want, or adapt remote designs found on the web. The depth of detail is amazing, enough to have a home-theatre enthusiast drooling.

But it's the device for the type of people who download mobile phone ring tones and customise their Windows desktop with The Lord of the Rings icons and screen savers - those who can be bothered.

There are a lot of cheaper, simpler universal remotes on the market from Philips and others.

The scary thing is, that for the price of Pronto, you can buy a top-notch handheld computer or a low-end laptop, or even a top-of-the-line mobile phone or a new TV ...

Philips Pronto

$1999.

Philips

Remote Central.

Pros: Nice userface, flexible layout design.

Cons: Expensive, relatively complicated set-up.

Rating: 7/10