Well I’ve been using this

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February 18, 2012 at 8:13 pm #6877
Camaroon

    Well I’ve been using this remote now for about 2 weeks and I’m pretty sure I have a final opinion on it.

    Quality: it is very light and does not feel very substantial in your hand at all.  My wife and I are used to the remotes from Verizon for FiOS which I’ve always liked.  The plastic on the remote feels like it would break if dropped, and since it’s got a glossy smooth finish if your hands are sweaty for any reason it gets slippery and attracts smudges and fingerprints very easily.  Although a lot of the buttons are small they do have a nice solid feel when you press them.

    Layout: this is probably the most frustrating thing about this remote.  Again, I’ve always felt Verizon’s remotes had the stuff you used the most in the right places.  This remote has the buttons we use the most spread out everywhere.  The Live TV, Recorded TV, and Guide buttons are these tiny little things way down at the bottom, where the playback buttons are all the way at the top.  In my opinion, the Live TV, etc. buttons should be right between the playback buttons and the aarows/OK buttons.  It just makes it awkward when you’re constantly using the aarow buttons to navigate and you have to move the remote around in your hand just to get to the tiny little guide button at the bottom.  I don’t think the size would matter as much if they were in a better place.

    Response: when pointed at the IR receiver the response is actually very good.  Very few dropped presses and things happen fairly quickly.  No real complaints, just a nitpick about having to be pretty accurate with where you’re pointing the remote.

    Set-up of other functions: this was another sore point.  Although the instructions made it sound very easy to make this remote learn a function from another one, it took me forever to get it into discovery mode.  It’s a very precise combo/order you have to hit to get it in this mode and I stumbled on it by accident.  Once I did, however, it learned the on/off function of my TV remote and volume up no problem.  I figured since I did the volume button it would do both up and down, but that’s not the case.

    Controlling other components: this was the main feature I was looking for in a remote.  The ability to simply turn my TV and the PC on with the same remote.  Although it does do this, there’s one thing that really makes it annoying.  When I press the TV function button at the top to turn the TV on, it freezes on this function and won’t let you do anything else.  So basically, I hit the button and the TV button lights up blue to let you know you switched functions.  But then it just stays blue for like 20 or so seconds and doesn’t let you switch to the PC function until the light turns off. 

    Bottom Line: I’d probably give it 2.5 stars out of 5.  It works well as a Media Center Remote, but is just overall frustrating to use and feels cheap.  One day I’ll probably switch to the Harmony line of remotes, but we’re sticking with this for now.