[Pxtl]

I like this one:

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPo...

It's purely meant as a mouse-and-keyboard thing, and in that vein it has some failures (the mouse-buttons are face-buttons instead of console-style triggers, and the keyboard lacks a way to use the F function keys)... but in general? I used its predecessor (the N9501 instead of N9502) and found the design lovely.

I could navigate my set-top PC easily with the trackball and mouse buttons, and when I needed to do text-entry I could hold it like a thumb keyboard. I even got pretty far in Cipher Prime's Auditorium with the trackball - it was quite pleasant for low-stress mouse-only games (as long as they only need click, not drag). The problem with my old version was that the trackball was not user-servicable (trackballs get dirty, fast) and it wasn't backlit.

The new one uses a touchpad and has backlighting.

[mjbraun]

I bought the predecessor as well and you're absolutely right: the design is lovely. While I'd say it's more of a full-featured HID than a remote it's well designed and comfortable to use. I didn't know about the new one and I'll keep an eye out for it.

A problem I see is that the tasks of set-top-boxes and displays are relatively constrained, so having a reduced input device seems like a good idea. But how to support free-text searching without a full keyboard (on-screen menus are painful) or having to deal with limited battery life due to a touchscreen?

[5555624]

I lucked into a N5901 -- note that it's N5901 and N5902 -- when I picked up a used Lenovo IdeaCentre Q150, which included one. It beats a wireless keyboard for controlling a set-top PC. I use a IOGEAR wireless compact keyboard on the other set-top PC, but will probably pick up another M5901/N5902 at some point.