Many high definition movie fanatics have proclaimed that the PlayStation 3 is one of - if not the - best quality Blu-ray movie players on the market. As a result, there's an army of people who have bought the console simply to watch HD content rather than to play games. On the downside of that, though, controlling Blu-ray content with a gamepad is odd and hardly intuitive. Not surprisingly, Sony has a standalone Blu-ray remote to fit the bill for a few extra shekels.

Selling at £17.99 (and that's a price that's easy to chop under £15 by shopping around), the remote is a fully featured beast and surprisingly large. It's also one that takes a small amount of work to get going.

Basically, the PS3 needs to be told to recognise the remote, which is a simple process done through the on-screen menu. Once done, it's ready to use, and one of the interesting features of the remote becomes obvious. That's because, rather than working on infra-red, it works via Bluetooth. This means no aiming the remote at a receiver on the machine, and it does mean that direction and range are less of an issue than usual with a remote (although the latter still does have an impact, which we'll come to shortly).

It's hard, working through the selection of options the remote provides, to think of anything Sony has left off this. The buttons are clearly labelled and there are also PlayStation control buttons mounted on there too, although you'd be a fool or daredevil to attempt a game of Motorstorm with the thing.

Crucially, the main buttons you'll need the most are easy to locate and where they should be. It gets a little fiddly when you try to get a pop-up menu, but experience quickly negates that as an issue. The buttons themselves are also satisfyingly comfortable, and it does feel that you're being rewarded for forking out for a proper remote control.

But there is one slight problem, and that's the aforementioned range. We tested it in quite a large living room, and while it worked well enough and was suitably responsive when obscured from direct sight of the PlayStation 3, as we crept towards the edges of the room (to curious glances from our family), one in every three or four button presses seemed to be going astray. To most people that won't be a problem, but if your living room is large - as the one we were able to borrow was - then it's a consideration.

On the whole, though, this is a well-priced, high quality remote control that offers greater convenience than utilising a gamepad and more comfortable, direct control.

A slight issue over range aside, this Blu-ray remote is hard to quibble with. A good quality, good value addition for an HD enthusiast.