It could be considered tremendously geeky to fuss over, or to even discuss, the remote control that comes with your TV. But a solid, well-designed remote is a key feature of the best TVs, and if you spend several hours every day watching, it’s something you’re getting plenty of hands-on time with.
As someone who reviews TVs and other AV gear regularly, remote controls are something I pay close professional attention to. When I reviewed the Hisense U8N TV, I’m not ashamed to admit feeling a sense of delight when I held its solid, well-designed remote, which even featured a backlit keypad.
It was a huge upgrade over the cheap, plasticky, and basic remote that came with the Hisense U8K that preceded it, and it added more value to an already high-value TV.
Conversely, I nearly shuddered when I saw the remote control that came with the Panasonic Z95A, the company’s 2024 flagship OLED TV, and one that marked the brand’s triumphant return to the US market. In my Panasonic Z95A review, I generously called it “disappointing given the Z95A’s otherwise premium build quality (and price!).”
The Z95A’s remote was essentially the same one you’d get with any cheap Fire TV set you’d buy on Prime Day for a bargain price from Amazon, which supplied the Fire TV smart TV interface for Panasonic’s new 2024 TVs.
LG’s Magic Remote control is a long-standing feature of its TVs, including many of the best OLED TVs over the past decade. The Magic Remote differs from other TV remotes in that it has both a scroll wheel and a pointer wand control that lets you hover a cursor over items in the TV’s webOS smart interface and click on them to make a selection.
The Magic Remote operates like a wireless computer mouse, and I’m sure that was a deliberate design choice back in the days when companies like LG were first adding a web browser and other computer-like features to their TVs, thinking people were going to eagerly use them for web-surfing and work.
The Home Office Quick Card in webOS 25 provides strong evidence that LG still thinks people want to use their TV as an oversized computer monitor for work, which is something I can’t ever see myself doing.
I’ve always found LG’s Magic Remote to be fine to work with, even if I’m not using it to actually do work on a TV. But it’s certainly a divisive design, even among longtime fans of LG OLED TVs. Fans such as TechRadar contributor Dave Meikelham, who said this of the Magic Remote: “The aging peripheral now possesses about as much sorcery as a drunk magician unsuccessfully trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat at a crestfallen child’s birthday party.”
Magical thinking
Part of the resistance to LG’s Magic Remote is a feeling that the cursor function is inaccurate, with the arrow whizzing randomly around the screen when you attempt to select an item on the smart interface or in a menu (the cursor’s speed can be adjusted in the TV’s setup menu, a setting critics may not have bothered to mess with).
But another big part is that LG hadn’t updated the basic design in years, and worse, the remote had a cheap build quality that seems out of step with a premium, pricey TV.
When I recently reviewed the LG G5, the brand’s flagship 2025 OLED, I was very happy to see that it came with a redesigned Magic Remote. Finally! This new AI Magic Remote version abandons the old shoehorn-like design for a more modern flat form factor with gently rounded corners and a streamlined keypad with a limited button count.
Yes, the scroll wheel is still there, and as with the previous version, clicking on it will trigger the cursor control to use that function. But the new design appears to favor the more conventional navigation disc control option, which works perfectly well on the speedy, responsive webOS 25 smart interface.
The new design also adds a few buttons that previously weren’t found on Magic Remotes, specifically Accessibility, Home Hub, and AI shortcut buttons. That last one also facilitates voice commands, which is clearly something LG now wants us to be using on its TVs.
What’s missing in the new-look AI Magic Remote are number buttons and, crucially, an input select control, which is something I griped about in my G5 review. Yes, you could use voice commands to create a shortcut for selecting a specific input on the TV (which supports Google Home and LG’s own ThinQ smart home protocols), or you can, as I found myself doing, jump to the Home Hub and select an input from there.
But I guess I’m old school that way: I want an input button on my TV remote control (and backlighting too, thanks).
Regional realities
Now that I’ve pumped up LG’s AI Magic Remote (for the most part), I need to step back and share that the new design isn’t available in all regions – the UK, for instance.
Certain regions have legal requirements that prevent TV manufacturers from removing buttons such as a numbered keypad from remote controls, and for those regions, LG is retaining the same old Magic Remote design.
The good news here – if you see it that way – is that this design is a new-old hybrid AI Magic Remote that includes the AI and Home Hub buttons. The bad news? The input select button has been removed from this one as well.
I wish it didn’t have to be this way – there’s been a history of companies such as Samsung including two remotes in the box to get around these rules – but for those of use who get the stylish new remote, I think it’s a much-awaited step forward.
You might also like…
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/yEBD5G2UgmTw4uWZUNLfYF-1200-80.jpg
Source link
al.griffin@futurenet.com (Al Griffin)
