hello everybody its the techtipsta here doinga review of the minix neo a2 gyro remote. this is aimed as an android htpc remote controlbut also works under windows, mac and linux. i personally use mine on the windows platformto control and navigate kodi, and my review will be based off of this use case. overall this is a great remote that i recommendfor anyone who has a htpc, looking for an
Android TV odroid, all in one, compact remote control. but itisnt without its quirks. watch on to find out why. the minix neo a2 is packaged beautifully andgives a real sense of quality as you remove it from the box. other contents include aquick start guide, and a reciever dongle which
fits nicely into one of the battery compartmentsso you wont lose it during trasnportation. it runs off two aa batteries and these don'tcome with the unit so make sure to pick up couple if you don't have any lying around.in hand, it is quite large compared to a standard remote, but not overwhelmingly so, it hasa good weight to it, and doesn't feel flimsy or overbearing. on the front is usual affair, we see the androidicons as this is targeted as an android remote, along with the home and back buttons for navigatingandroid. we have a nice big 4 way directional pad, and media and volume buttons down thebottom. this button activates the gyro mouse function, and it can easily be disabled bypushing one of the direction arrows, or hitting
it again. flipping over we see the full keyboard witha function button for alternate key operation. the nice thing about the function button isthat it does not have a press hold operation, for example, if we want to get the hash tagkey we simply press the fn key, then 3, so only one hand is needed, not two. on the bottomright here we have the arrow keys which are super useful if you want to use this remotein landscape mode. if you are using this with android there isa built in microphone and speaker, so all those voice commands will work beautifully. so that brings us to the minix neo a2. itseems to fit my size requirements, operates
similar to a mce remote on one side, and witha quick flip over, you have access to a full keyboard. it also has an in built gyroscope,so you can activate a mouse pointer and control it in a similar fashion to a wii remote. so this all sounds great, but how does itoperate in the real world. no drivers are required to install, simplyplug the reciever in and you are up and running. in kodi the android key works as the enterbutton, and the back button works as escape. some of the android keys do not work out ofthe box in windows, so you will have some missing functionality out of the box, butthis didn't bother me too much. the keys all have a satisfying click, but one issue i didnotice with the 4way touch pad was that sometimes
an uncomfortable amount of force was requiredor the press would be missed, you would hear the click but nothing would happen unlessyou pushed harder. this was quite annoying but it is only limited to the 4way pad, andhopefully this will disappear with use as it loosens up. some annoyances using this with windows wouldbe the lack of one of the front buttons mapped to backspace, pressing the back button actsas escape, so will take you back to the home screen, rather than to your previous screenor menu. there is also no stop button which may annoy some. i found id reach around tothe back and simply press x to stop as that is the keyboard command in kodi. these areminor annoyances but can be mitigated by some
extra software on your pc, so don't let itturn you off. using the mouse is great, simply aim at thepointer, press the mouse biutton and you have a gyro controlled mouse. it is suprisinglyeasy to use and only falls down on really small tight movements, this could probablybe fixed by adjusting sensitivity but i did. since i have had this i have never had topull a proper mouse out and am able to complete all tasks i need just using this. flipping it over we come to my favourite part,the keyboard. we have almost all the keys we need, and i say almost because i couldn'tfind a backslash key which switches kodi from full screen to window mode. navigating usingthe direction keys is awesome, and they never
miss any strokes or require excessive forcelike the 4way pad on the front. i find typing suprisingly quick and comfortable, and neverbecame frustrated using it, the buttons are a great size, well spaced, and are easy totype on. range also seems to be pretty good, and i couldn't find anywhere in my room wherei couldn't get a decent connection. the minix neo a2 comes in around 30 dollarsin the us and for that price comes highly recommended. if you are looking for a compactremote that can act as a keyboard or a mouse
in a pinch, this would come highly recommended. so there we have the neo a2. thanks for watching,and let me know your thoughts on media remotes in the comments. if you did like this videomake sure to hit the like button, and subscribe
for more videos on my channel. see you guysnext time.
