0Motorola NYXBoard QWERTY RemoteLooking beyond the boxee remote-keyboard

Published by & filed under Media PC Hardware. Last updated .

For a long time I’ve been search­ing for the ideal HTPC remote con­trol.  I want a fairly stand­ard remote, but with a QWERTY key­board on the back, or inside a flip/slide out part.  I’ve been track­ing the options in an art­icle from Jan-2010, and even­tu­ally ordered myself a Boxee remote a few months back.  The boxee is an excel­lent wire­less key­board, but unfor­tu­nately, boxee have opted to go the “Apple route” (aka dumbed down) on the non-qwerty side.  There are a total of 7 but­tons, non of which is a power but­ton.  There is also no “back up” type but­ton.  This makes the boxee pretty use­less for Media Cen­ter 7.

I decided that if I was going to get yet anoth­er remote, I wanted it to offer addi­tion­al fea­tures, as well as address­ing the prob­lems with the boxee.  The 2 most use­ful options are to be pro­gram­mable (i.e. uni­ver­sal) and to fea­ture an RF com­muni­ation to the PC, so it can be tucked away out of sight.  The remote I was most inter­ested in is the Philips Home Con­trol Dual / uWand, but I can­’t find any­where to buy that in the UK.  I’ve seen some pos­it­ive reviews of the Motorola nyx­Board and loc­ated a retail­er that ships to the UK.  £40 isn’t cheap for a remote con­trol, but the nyx­Board does offer both RF and uni­ver­sal­ity, as well as clearly hav­ing the required but­tons.  I’ve ordered one, and am optim­ist­ic it will do the job.  Its just a shame its a bit chunky, one of the nice things about the boxee remote is how slim and slick look­ing it is.

Please send us your thoughts by commenting below! If you would like to subscribe please use the subscribe link on the menu at the top right. You can also share this with your friends by using the social links below. Cheers.

Leave a Reply