Patriot Box Office Media Player Review

Control at Your Fingertips: The Remote

Patriot calls the remote which accompanies this unit “full size” and we do have to take issue with this statement. While it is technically correct to call it a full sized remote based on length alone, it is not exactly hand filling. To be honest we would call the Patriot remote a ¾ remote as it is down right thin.

Ergonomics also takes a back seat with the sides being totally flat without any curves other than a small notch on the bottom of the unit. We prefer hour-glass shaped remotes (like the one found with the Asus 0!Player) as they are easier to handle and your hand just seems to fall into the proper place. However, what annoyed the heck out of us the large number of ultra small buttons. We don’t mind small buttons for seldom used options, but when the Play, Fast Forward, Rewind, Previous and Next buttons are small and poorly laid out we have to down grade a remote from “adequate” to “less than optimal”.


In all reality, it feels like very little thought was given to the functionality of this remote even though the rest of the unit exceeds our expectations. We have a funny feeling that Patriot went with the generic, off the shelf remote and just silk-screened on the appropriate control descriptions. This becomes abundantly apparent when you are watching a movie with the lights out and flail around in a vain attempt to find a button.