Lenovo Multimedia Remote with Keyboard Review

Finding the right Home Theater PC remote can be an exercise in frustration. For the last three years, I've been searching for the right combination of control, wireless range, battery life, backlighting, and price. Even as a reviewer, this is much harder than you'd think it'd be. Enter Lenovo with their second generation HTPC controller, the N5902 Multimedia Remote with Keyboard. There's a ton of improvements to be had over the older N5901 including backlighting, but how does it stack up overall? Click onward to our in-depth review to find out!

Pleasant ergonomic grip
Efficient keyboard
Comfortable scrolling
Dedicated media keys
Receiver stows in battery compartment
Arrow keys have raised nub
Decent wireless range

Optical trackpad is terribly slow
Lacks "Green Button"
Escape and Backspace keys hard to locate by touch
No recharging solution
Arrow keys are a stretch for lefties
Backlighting is uneven

Efficient Design, MK II
The Logitech Illuminated Keyboard comes well-packaged against possible damage from shipping and works straight out of the box with any operating system capable of supporting USB HID devices including USB keyboards. Both keyboard and embedded back-light are powered through the USB port on the computer as this can supply up to 500mA. No additional power transformers are required for the back light functionality or keyboard operation. With its thin 9.3mm profile, the keyboard can easily slip into a backpack for use as a travel keyboard but could be an even more revolutionary product should Logitech ever offer it in a fold-able variant.

I must say that I enjoy the new graphite finish of the N5902 much more than the N5901's glossy black that seemed to latch on to fingerprints. The underside is also matte, but replaces the topside's luster with a duller, lightly rubberized grip that does well for minimalist utility. Rounding up the visual splendor of the remote is the new chrome ring surrounding the keyboard, which also doubles as the left and right mouse buttons just underneath the space bar.

Another noteworthy change from the N5901 is that the trackball mouse has been replaced with "optical finger navigation", but we're going to call it an optical trackpad. Think of it as if you were dragging your thumb over the underside of a traditional optical mouse, only with a smoother feel and none of the inverted pointing or bright red lighting. Lenovo probably made the switch from a trackball to a trackpad in the name of solid state reliability, since fingers in a living room will invariably be covered with Cheeto dust. Remember Apple's not-so-Mighty Mouse? Lesson learned.

The center part of the N5902's trackpad clicks down for a left click for more efficient one-handed mousing, and this is made even easier by the addition of a touch sensitive vertical scroll bar just below the trackpad. A dedicated middle click is missing, but quite honestly it isn't needed since Ctrl+Clicking has the same effect when web browsing.

The keyboard layout has also seen some improvements over the older model, now backlit and sporting a total of 75 keys. Though there are some redundancies like the second Alt and Shift keys, the other changes are generally welcome. Dedicated Home and End buttons come in handy, as does the Alt-Tab button at the top right corner that doubles as Alt-F4 and a button that immediately launches the your default web browser. Notably missing from this assortment is a "Green Button", what Windows uses to launch Media Center. The Media Center application can still be called on by pressing Windows + Alt + Enter, but that's a bit awkward to press on a small keyboard. But by far the single most important change to the keyboard is a raised nub on the down arrow for quick navigation by feel only, similar to the nubs on F and J for touch typing.