5. The Remote

At first I was very disappointed with the remote. It looked like it had backlit buttons, but the only one that lit up was the power button. Also, I originally thought that it was one of the most finicky remote controls that I had ever had the displeasure to use. It was extremely picky about line-of-sight and I actually had to aim down the length of my arm to point it directly at the receiver before I could get it to work. After about a day, it stopped working altogether.

The not-so-great remote

A quick check with a voltmeter told me that the included generic "heavy duty" batteries that came with the remote had lost their charge and the remote did not have enough power to function correctly. I replaced the batteries with a pair of new ones and suddenly all of the buttons lit up and the line of sight issues that I had experienced improved dramatically. It's a small thing, but if Neodigits is going to include batteries, I think the cost of the X5000 warrants at least a pair that hold on to their charge for more than a few minutes of use.

The remote, while well labeled and backlit, looked a bit substandard when compared to the sleek brushed aluminum of the X5000. It's made of plain black plastic with rubberized transparent buttons that glow a dull orange when the remote is active. The standard multimedia player buttons (play, pause, stop, etc.) were very tiny and crammed off to one side on the lower half of the remote. The digit keys were large and centered on the upper half of the remote, which seemed a bit backward to me, as I would much rather have easier access to the buttons that I use most frequently.

I found the two "home" buttons to be a bit out of place as well. Both buttons are used frequently to jump to the player and server home locations, but they're located down at the bottom of the remote where I had to strain my thumb at an awkward angle to reach them. Also, the "display" and "DVD top menu" functions were placed together on a rocking-type button. While their placement opposite the similar volume button maintained the overall symmetry of the remote, there was no discernable reason that they should be placed together on the same button.