Gadgetory

hi I'm David Katz Meyer from CNET I'm here to tell you a little bit about samsung's new smart remote for 2014 this little guy is actually the best TV remote I've ever seen included with a television the real key here is that Samsung has adopted the sort of motion control used by Nintendo and more recently LG with their own TVs Samsung's motion control adds another little twist though you can actually just rest your thumb on the remote itself to activate the motion control you can see here that as long as my thumb is on it the thing actually reads the motion control is able to select items I take my thumb off and it doesn't so you can actually drive around to the regular cursor control in this configuration motion control really works great for typing in things on an on-screen keyboard for using Samsung's little remote keyboard here that comes up that actually can control your cable box and things like that of course the downside is that you don't get direct access to a lot of those commands if you kind of person who types in channel numbers a lot you might actually find yourself using the remote the commuter cable box or even a universal remote in preference to this little guy on the other hand if you're the kind of guy that does a lot of web browsing for example this remote is a godsend it actually allows the cursor to move really quickly around the screen you can scroll really easily using the touchpad so all things considered it's really one of the more advanced remotes out there unlike a standard IR remote of course you don't have to aim this thing at the screen it uses bluetooth so you can use it from across the room or even without having a name of the screen at all the TV itself can actually control your cable box by an IR blaster so again you get full control using this remote it'll also control other devices such as a blu-ray player or a home theater system but it doesn't do it as well it's a good universal remote such as a harmony but again if you're keeping everything within the TV or using the TV that could provide your control you're also using the TV to browse your cable box this remote works really well and again one of the nicest most responsive clickers I've seen I also love the ergonomics on this little guy it actually has a really nice feel in the hand it's got sort of a textured backside here with just a few buttons on here the main ones include transport control for play pause rewind and fast-forward there's also the little touchpad channel up and down which you can use to browse quickly your on-screen program guide on your cable box there's also a voice command button on here so you can use this to enter in voice searches for example to control the TV to turn on different channels to choose different apps and even to search for different ders and also program types so really the search works pretty well it's Universal on the flip side it doesn't hit Netflix or Amazon instance so Samsung has a little bit more work to do to make the search even as good as something found on like a Roku of course Roku doesn't offer voice search so again there's some trade-offs so despite the fact this remote is the nicest I've ever seen included with a TV overall I'd still probably choose a universal remote to control my own system because I have a lot more devices but with a simpler system so that doesn't include a whole bunch of different devices or something we're going to use the TV to use most of the smart apps via the TV itself Samsung Smart Remote is a clear winner that's a quick look at Samsung's new motion-activated touchpad Smart Remote for 2014 this is included on all Samsung TVs of the h-60 400 series and up for 2014 I'm David Katz Mayer from Cena