Review:

The remote is marketed to and positioned for custom theater installers to sell to end users, it is packaged in 3 pack with one PC cable. Some retailers are breaking up the 3 packs to sell individually with the addition of custom made PC cables. Due to the market placement, URC has made some choices in the capabilities and pricing of the unit that may be at odds with the typical Home Theater SPot user, I’ll address some of these issues later.

The street price of the MX-700 is approximately 3 to 4 times that of the MX-500 remote. It has the same form factor and excellent ergonomics of it’s sibling.

Hardware (with comparisons to the MX-500)
The 700, as compared to the 500, gains one new button (the guide button) and loses 3 (the M1, M2, and M3). In addition there are labeling changes for the 500’s chapter skip forward and backward buttons. These are relabeled Menu and Exit with no sub-labels. In fact, all the sub-labels have been removed from the 700. The ‘Select’ button in the center of the thumbpad has a softer spring action than some of the previous 500 versions but is still slightly hard to trigger without getting a direction button instead. The LCD display appears to be brighter than my 500’s display. The case of the 700 is a matte gray. The case is from the same molds as the 500. Externally the only difference is the addition of the jack for the PC cable.

The MX-200 Sidekick remote is a solution in search of a problem as far as I’m concerned. The only thing I could come up with to use it for was a Kid’s remote. It is programmed by dragging functions from the 700 over to the 200 in the MX Editor software. It has a thumbpad, mute, info, 3 Favorite buttons, and On/Off buttons.

Firmware
The 700 has vastly improved capabilities over the 500. The 700 can have up to 20 separate devices with up to 4 pages of LCD buttons per device. Device pages can be hidden, this allows for macros or IR codes to be stored on a hidden page which will be accessed from other buttons. Any LCD button can now have a macro. This is great for complicated gear setups. For example, in my bedroom theater, I place several Macros in the SATELLITE LCD page to switch to various other devices (DVD, VCR, TUNER, etc.). When returning from the other device back to SATELLITE I can have a customized set of commands. For example, going to TUNER can turn off the TV and coming back turns it back on where DVD will only change inputs on the AMP. This was the biggest limitation of the 500, in my opinion. I could now use the 700 as my main theater remote where the 500 was just too limited for me.

The FAV LCD buttons can now execute up to 190 steps and are not limited to accessing any particular buttons. The steps can access any device (as opposed to only 1 on the 500) as well. This opens the FAV screens up to much more useful pursuits than just changing channels. For example, you might use screen one of FAV’s as a menu to organize the subsequent screens of FAV’s or use the FAV screen to switch surround modes. With the FAV’s convenient to all device screens, it can be handy to put items you might use from any device here.

The hard buttons can also execute macros, but only by aliasing to an LCD button containing the macro. This feature also lets you, in effect, punch through with any hard button as opposed to just the Volume, Channel, and Transport buttons.

Software
The MX Editor software is Microsoft Windows based and as such can only run on a PC (well maybe a Mac running some kind of emulator). The 700 is pretty much dumb as a bag of hammers if you don’t have a PC. It can’t learn codes, create macro steps, or use IR code tables without being attached to a PC running the MX Editor software. I can see the reason for this based on the intended target market for the product, but it’s somewhat frustrating for power users.

The Editor software is quite user friendly, and the “Guide to Programming the MX-700 Dual Remote System” manual is pretty well written and comprehensive. There are a few glitches, like the download to the remote cratering on occasion, but hopefully these will be addressed in future upgrades to the software. The Editor package has a ‘Live Update’ feature that makes getting updates to the IR code database, firmware for the remote, and new releases of the Editor software quite painless. The software falls down on usability in a couple of areas, like putting things in right click menus but not on the main menu, but overall is a good effort.

The software allows you to export individual devices (and import of course) and this should allow users to develop a good set of predefined MXD (the suffix for the export files) files for many of the components you might need to control. One major failing of the software is the lack of a method to import IR codes from other remotes. So, if you need to get discrete codes, you’ll have to have another remote (like a One For All) to teach them to the 700.

Conclusions
Overall the remote is a winner. The only reason to buy an MX-500 now is price. The removal of the restrictions imposed by the 500’s firmware make the 700 a huge step up in functionality. This remote can handle almost anything you want to throw at it, with the possible exception of dealing with mega changers (that is if you want to direct select from your 400 disk mega-changer).

In terms of value, if you need a hard button remote and great flexibility it’s a good choice. It would be much better at half the cost. URC could make it happen by dropkicking the MX-200 out of the package and increasing their volume by making it more accessible to end users. At a street price of say $200 to $225 the MX-700 would be formidable competition for the Philps Pronto.

Features:

* Controls Up To 20 Components
* Easy To Program
* Windows Based PC Software
* Extensive Macro Programming
* 50 Favorite Channels
* Software Package With Over 1,000 IR Codes
* Ergonomic Design
* EL Back Lighting
* Memory Back-Up
* Centrally Located Joystick
* Gemstone™ Buttons
* Sidekick™ Remote Control