Some of the early dedicated Media PCs came with remotes and some laptops still do, but since virtually every PC sold these days comes with a version of Vista that includes Media Center, there are way more media-capable PCs out there and not many remotes among them.

Adesso, who makes a variety of inexpensive but good quality input devices has stepped up to with the Vista Remote to provide an inexpensive solution.
The remote comes boxed with a USB receiver, the remote, batteries and a very brief manual.  It’s simplicity itself to install: put in the batteries, plug the receiver into a convenient USB slot, wait the couple moments it takes Vista to recognize the device, and your good to go.  No additional setup is needed. 

The remote has a large, green button to start Media Center and a set of dedicated buttons to control Media Center functions at near the top.  Below those buttons are the standard play controls, Play, Pause, Record, Fast Forward, etc.  At the bottom are the standard TV controls: digit buttons, volume and channel controls, etc.

Right in the center is a multi-directional circular pad which serves as mouse controller and which includes buttons above and to the left and right, which serve as a right and left mouse button.  A short press moves the mouse cursor slowly and a longer press accelerates the cursor across the screen quickly.  The pad has a very nice feel to it and responds smoothly in every direction and is surprisingly comfortable to use. 

The controller works very well with Media Center, but many of the controls work well with the normal Vista desktop.  The mouse, volume controls and mute do exactly what you’d expect when on the desktop.  The channel up and down buttons work to scroll the active window.  This means that web surfing or controlling a presentation using the remote is simple.

This can be a bit quirky, since in Word, for instance, some of the dedicate buttons map to odd formatting commands.  But I suppose that if you’re trying to do word processing with a remote, you deserve whatever you get.

Adesso claims a 10 meter range.  It worked fine across the full length of my livingroom and into my office.  It also was powerful enough to bounce to the receiver from just about any angle, which makes me confident that the placement of your PC isn’t going to be critical.  Even when I put the remote under my heavy sweatshirt and pointed it at the receiver from 10 feet away, the controller worked fine. 
Even though it works well, it’s not perfect.

The IR sensor’s cord is only about 5 feet long, which means that if your PC doesn’t have USB ports on the front you may need to use a USB extension to be able to place the receiver in a useful location.  It is also very light and lacks any rubber feet, lip, or other structure to keep it in place. When I first tried using the remote I thought the IR signal was very poor when, in fact, the receiver had simply slipped to an odd angle and wasn’t “seeing” the remote.  Not a terrible problem, since a piece of sticky foam tape would keep it from moving around.

The remote itself is a little lightweight and doesn’t feel terribly sturdy compared to the remote for a TV or DVD player.  It feels well made enough and is comfortable in your hand, but nonetheless the light weight makes it feel somewhat toy-like.

Since it isn’t programmable, you’ll still need to have you remotes for your other devices handy, so it’s not an all-in-one solution.

All of these criticisms are pretty minor, though, for a remote that costs less than $30 dollars and does just what it promises.  I’d definitely recommend it if you use your PC as a Media Center.

—Tucker Hatfield

http://www.adesso.com
$29.99