Review: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro All-In-Wonder

Being a discrete package anyway (you can buy RW seperate from any other ATI product it may be bundled with), it deserves its own page. Here's the remote itself. I've linked the picture to an ATI press shot, since my shot isn't that great.

As you can see from the combination of shots, the remote gives you pretty much everything you need to control Windows (the middle arrow pad does what you think it does), including mouse control, mouse buttons, a number pad, shortcuts to MMC applets like DVD and TV, controls for manipulating the DVD player etc. Everything needed to get going with MMC and manipulate your new hardware from the comfort of your armchair, bed, love-seat, beanbag, whatever.

Being a remote control, it needs to send its signal somewhere. To this end, you get a natty little receiver that hooks up to a free USB port. It seems to be a radio device, so the tail you'll see shortly is the aerial for the receiver. Here's the cute little thing.

The red LED lights up when it has power and is working OK. Radio signal means no line of sight issues you'd encounter with an IR style setup. It also has a fairly silly range too. I was able to change TV channels from halfway down the stairs, a good 40ft from my bedroom and where the receiver was sat. I couldn't see the TV from the stairwell, but it sure was cool. Got a big lounge room or bedroom? You'll be happy with the RemoteWonder. Despite my hand getting in the way, the aerial is lengthy and snakes about 7 inches out from the receiver. Jokes about "lengthy" and "7 inches" welcome, email them in.

And that's it hardware wise. The card, mountains of cable tomfoolery, the RemoteWonder parts and the purple VIVO breakout box. Hopefully you know what goes where and how you'd hookup video for input and output, along with a TV. Software next, the best bit.