Sony VPL-VW50 "Pearl" Home Theater Projector Review - General Performance-2

Click to enlarge. SO close

Starting at the top, there is a green power button in the upper right. (Once to power up, twice to power down.) Immediately to the left is the Input (source) select button, and on the right, the backlight button. The backlight isn't very bright. I would have liked it a touch brighter, but, in fairness, it was enough to illuminate the buttons (which are all labed so that they are readable when lit), sufficiently, even in a fully darkened room.

Moving to the next two rows of three buttons: These are your presets:Left to right are the normal - Dynamic, Standard, and Cinema, and below them, User 1, 2, and 3.

Below them comes Sony's somewhat funky arrow key setup. A small up arrow button below it a wide bar for left and right arrows (Enter is in the center), and another small button for down arrow.

Next come six major controls (left to right): Lens (for focus, zoom, and lens shift), AdjustPic, which lets you toggle through most Picture controls including brightness, contrast, gamma, etc., and on the right, Menu. The second row has Wide Mode (aspect ratio functions), RCP (the advanced color processing) and Reset. (I really wish manufacturers would stop putting reset buttons on remotes. A reset button just makes people nervous - especially when it's close to the Menu button.

Lastly two really large controls, one for Brightness, and the other for Contrast.

Overall, a very good remote - uncluttered, and I found I had learned where everything was in just a couple of days of normal use.