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Usage
The remote...is abysmal. Firstly, the feel: it's ultra light, and cheap. If I were to spend as much time reviewing this product as Phoebe spent in designing the remote, I would not have written anything more than the introduction. It's really That BadTM.
The buttons aren't well spaced, or shaped. The volume up/down is the same size and shape as the channel up/down - not usually an issue, as they tend to be arrow based, or the two control types tend to be orthogonal to each other. Nevertheless, Phoebe found a way to deviate from the norm, and screw it up: not only are the buttons the same size/shape, they are also equally spaced from each other, thus making it easy to get the volume down confused with channel up, and vice versa. Surprisingly, this is not so much of an issue, because the buttons don't work half the time anyway.
The remote receiver is a piece that is connected through a jack into the back of the card. However, either that, or the remote itself (both?) really, really sucks. I tried new batteries, and pressing the buttons in varying ways, but it just didn't work consistently. All the buttons worked, but the problem was getting it to recognize that I had pressed a button. Changing volume or the channel sequentially isn't a big deal, because you can just push up and down a bunch of times. But it doesn't work out that easily for jumping from one channel to another. In this case, it becomes very difficult to be able to get the card to acknowledge that I've pushed, say, the numbers '1' and '2' in the right order. Often times I end up pushing them repeatedly, and ending up with a channel I hadn't expected (such as 11, or 22). The only work-around I found was to press the channel number button enough times for it to change, and then press up or down enough times so as to get to the desired channel. Not a nice, or viable, option.
However, what is nice is that by double pressing the TV/FM button, it will switch from one to the other, and behaves the same way to go from full screen to windowed mode. The power button will turn the software off, but unfortunately, it doesn't turn the TV (or radio) on. Bummer.
The actual usage of the TV is similar in concept - click on the button you want, and it does what the words next to the buttons say they will. One problem is that the lagginess of the remote is reflected in the software as well. I haven't any idea why software would be made as such, because it takes a full second (maybe more) to even change the channel up, or the volume. Even the resizing of the window is laggy. The good news is that it is very easy to move the screen around, as there is no zoom (like the TV Wonder has), which means you can just click anywhere on the image and drag it around.
Radio
The above is the radio interface, and is straightforward just as the TV one is, with the exception of the red button. The red button is NOT the record button. It is instead used to save the pre-programmed buttons to specific stations that you set. The scan is a digital one, and can go up/down in increments of .05 MHz. Such fine adjustment is a welcome change from my stereo!
The remote works similarly for the radio as for the TV, where the volume is still the volume, however, the number buttons don't do anything, while the channel up/down selects the preset stations after you've selected them.
The included antenna is rather long, and I ended up merely taping it to the wall, which has worked out beautifully.
>> Pros & Cons/Conclusion
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