VIZIO VO47L

Ergonomics & Durability (5.25)
The Vizio VO47L's remote measures 8 ^1/8 inches long by 2 ^1/16 inches wide and tapers from 1 ^1/4 inches thick at the base to 7/8 inches at the front. The remote has a soft touch finish on the back that makes it easier to hold, and it is also contoured to provide a better fit in your hand. There are also a couple of ridges on the back near the middle that we believe are meant to help hold the remote better, but we did not find they helped.

When holding the remote with your thumb on the main directional pad (D-pad) we found the remote was a bit bottom heavy, something that only gets worse as you shift your hand up the remote to access controls above the D-pad. The Vizio VO47L's buttons are backlit in a brownish/orange light whenever you hit a button. The light is easy on the eyes, which is nice to see when you are using the backlight in dark conditions.

The buttons on the remote are soft rubber, with good key travel but not as much tactile feedback as we would have liked. We do worry a bit about the durability of the buttons as the soft rubber could be torn easily. The remote is constructed of relatively soft plastic overall, which makes us worry about scratches. The battery cover slides off with only medium pressure, and there's no latch to press down on. This design has a tendency to wear out over time. Overall we were not impressed by the remote's durability.

Button Layout & Use (5.5)
The Vizio VO47L's remote is pretty long at 8 1/8 inches, with buttons laid out along it's entire length except for the very bottom of the remote. This means you'll inevitably have to shift your hand up and down quite a bit to reach some controls. Of more importance are whether the most important controls are within easy reach. Sitting with your thumb on the D-Pad we found that most users could reach all of the central controls without a major shift of the hand. This includes the D-Pad, Menu, Last, Mute Channel and Volume controls. Those with smaller hands may need to shift a bit, but not too much.

If you want to get your hands on the number pad or playback controls, however, you'll have to shift your hand quite a bit. In particular we found the number pad to be annoying to use as shifting your hand up makes the bottom heavy remote more difficult to use. This also makes it a bit of a pain to switch to another channel that isn't in easy reach using the Channel up/down buttons. We were able to control the Vizio VO47L with its remote at an angle of twenty degrees from the plane of the screen.

On the plus side the Vizio VO47L's remote is well labeled. As with most remotes there are a few arcane items, what does MTS mean for instance? That said the number of unintelligible labels is far fewer than many other remotes and most are easy to understand, making it easy to pick up the remote and use it without too much confusion. Programming & Flexibility (5.5)
The Vizio VO47L's remote can be used to control additional items in your home theater setup. To test this functionality we set up the remote to control our cable box provided by Comcast. We found the process simple, set the remote to the cable mode with the button found near the top. Point it at your cable box and press and hold the SET button until the LED blinks twice. Then enter the appropriate code for your cable box or other device, a list of codes is found in the back of the Vizio VO47L's manual. Sometimes there are multiple codes for a single manufacturer so repeat the process until you get the LED to blink twice letting you know the process is complete.