I picked up this Philips SRU8010 remote control for $40. I was at our local Circuit City browsing for outdoor antennas (prepping to get the new Knight Rider show in HD!) when this remote caught my eye. The weird thing about it was the rack beside it with identical SKU codes but the price said $79. Which I later found out, that's about how much they're going for online. Don't ask me how or why. But I got it for $40.

I've been juggling several remotes since the home theater shake up and I've been too lazy to dig out my old universal remote and reprogram it. But I figured for $40, this thing was at least worth a try. If nothing else it provided motivation to consolidate the remotes.

It's a pretty nice little remote. By far the coolest feature is the "favorites" channel listings you set up. You can have up to 10 different favorites list and each list can have 20 channels in it. 2 of the lists are designated "His" and "Hers" so you can jump straight to them from the hard buttons.

Another neat thing is the full color display and all of the channel logos stored in the phone. I was impressed with the choices. The learning functionality is a must in any modern universal remote. Because this remote did have learning capability, I was even able to set it up to control my Xbox 360 which I use watch all of my DVD's and downloaded videos. Actually, after some tinkering, I was able to get my entire system controlled from this one remote. The only hitch is the Harman/Kardon receiver has separate on/off buttons as opposed to a single power button like the Philips remote has on it.

This is totally the type of thing I would've ordered online if I were seeking it out. Just goes to show there still can be value found by browsing around the real world stores sometimes.