Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 LCD HDTV Review - Remote Control

Remote Control Summary
• Light and easy to hold • Good balance • Poorly designed button layout • Not a universal remote
	Viewing Effects	Page 8 of 16	Audio

Ergonomics & Durability (6.9)

The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's remote is the same design that we saw on the KDL-46W4100. This is good as we found the remote was generally well designed. It's thin and light, with large buttons. It's also well-balanced, with the light weight allowing you to hold it in just about any position without it feeling unbalanced. The buttons are mostly made of soft plastic with good key travel, although we would have liked to see a bit more tactile feedback when pressed. The textured back makes it a bit easier to hold and there's a rest for your forefinger when holding the remote with your thumb on the directional pad. Unfortunately there's no backlight onthe remote, so you'll have to memorize the button positions for use in a dark room.

Button Layout & Use (5.5)

The buttons on the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's remote are large and easy to find by feel. This is especially true of the most important buttons, the directional pad, volume, channel and keypad buttons. The problem is that Sony didn't place these most important buttons within easy reach of each other. The directional pad is located near the top while the channel and volume controls are at the bottom. This is a strange design choice as you will find yourself moving between these controls a lot, which will require you to shift your hand about a lot, which is a problem. On the plus side the remote is effective at a wide range of angles from the television.

Programming & Flexibility (1.0)

Sony offers a proprietary service called Bravia Sync, which allows you to use the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's remote with other Sony devices. Unfortunately it cannot be used with devices from other manufacturers.