For Xbox, it allows you to control the entire dashboard, as well as use media controls in apps like YouTube and the Blu-ray player. Bottom line: PDP's new Media Remote for Xbox is compact, features backlit buttons, and makes using your Xbox to stream media a much better experience. The design doesn’t match the stark right angles of the Xbox Series X/S or Xbox One, but it’s much more comfortable to hold than if it had sharp corners.

It boasts up to 4K resolution and 120 FPS, full backward compatibility across four generations, and ray-tracing support. But it’s an infrared remote, which means you need to point it directly at your Xbox when you want to use it, making it a bit cumbersome compared with most modern media streamer remotes that don't require a line of sight. As it turns out, both the Xbox Series X and S still have IR receivers, meaning they're still fully backwards compatible with the best Xbox One Media Remotes for easy and powerful media controls. The Xbox design team very cleverly hid the IR receiver behind the Bind button present on all Xbox consoles for pairing with wireless accessories, leading to many people believing at first that the feature was flat out missing. The Silicone Protective Case for PDP 048-083-NA Talon Media Remote goes around the entire remote, adds grip to the back, brings drop support protection, and has precisely made cutouts.There was a first-party option for the Xbox One, which should work well enough with the S and X (as most Xbox One accessories do), but it appears to have been discontinued. com and PC Magazine are among the federally registered trademarks of Ziff Davis and may not be used by third parties without explicit permission. The smaller size makes more sense for those without cable channels and instead rely on pure streaming media apps. You need to have line of sight between wherever you’re sitting and your Xbox, and you need to remember to point the remote directly at the console when you’re using it.

It also meant you could use a wider range of compatible third party remotes whenever you just wanted to stream or watch a movie on Blu-ray.Of course, such a feature inevitably eats into those batteries, which will need to be changed in six months or so depending on usage.

This remote relies on simple IR and line-of-sight with your Xbox, and it works with all the modern ones. And I know better than to promise that HDMI-CEC will work reliably for your particular setup, but at least for me, it has.The Long Edition of the remote moves the playback controls to above the A/B/X/Y buttons, and places a number pad below the rockers. HDMI-CEC is a relatively new tech that stands for "Consumer Electronics Control," and it allows devices to communicate over HDMI for adjusting TV controls, interacting with apps, and so on. The forward and rewind buttons also functioned with Disney+ and YouTube, though they did nothing with HBO Max (but I could still move around a video’s timeline using the direction buttons).