Coby TFDVD7008 7-Inch Portable DVD/CD/MP3 Player (Black)

• 7-Inch widescreen TFT LCD color display
• DVD, DVD±R/RW, CD, CD-R/RW, JPEG, and MP3 compatible, Compact portable design with anti-skip circuitry
• Dolby Digital decoding, AV outputs for use with home theater systems
• Integrated stereo speakers, Headphone jack for private listening
• Multiple language, subtitle, and camera angle support,Parental lock controls

The price is right on this little unit. The picture is a little better than my previous two portable units. The sound is a little worse (if I could increase the volume just a little bit more it would be perfect). It's very lightweight. Like most cheap units, I expect to get 1-2 years of play out of this unit before I'll need to look for another.

Unusually, this unit comes with a little remote control. This remote gives you a lot more control over functions than most portable DVD players; you can for example skip directly to a specified point on the disk. And you can do things like set a chapter to endlessly looped play, or pick two points on the disk and have it endlessly loop between those two points. The "zoom" feature the remote gives you is great and is the reason why I gave this unit a fourth star rather than the three stars a cheap unit normally deserves.

Now the bad thing about that remote is that (1) it's small, and (2) there is no way of attaching the remote to or within the player so that I can already see that it is easy to misplace the remote. (I'm already considering using velcro to solve this problem).

The manual is not so great. It gets points for actually using the English language well, but loses lots of points on what it doesn't bother to tell you. You have to experiment a bit to discover undocumented features and functions. For example, the forward and reverse buttons work differently when you are currently zoomed in; they become instead pan right and pan left buttons.

And the manual won't tell you what you have to do to shut the unit down so that so that it restarts at the point on the disk where you left off. (If you just try stopping or pausing it reloads the disk and starts from the beginning). I've had success two ways: (1) pausing the picture and letting the unit go into (the undocumented) power saver mode. If you then turned the unit off and immediately back on, it seemed to remember where it left off. An even easier way: (2) use the remote to turn the unit off. If you then use the remote to turn it back on, it picks back up where it left off.

Here's another little undocumented feature. Like most units manufactured for multiple markets, there is a programming sequence you can use to change what region this player can play. Here's how to set up this player to play other region-codes using the remote:

1. Open DVD tray

2. Press the "Menu" button (ignore message "Not allowed at this moment")

3. Press 8888

4. Press the "Display" button

5. Region Code Number shows up. Use the numeric keypad to select your

region code number (0 6).

6. Press the Enter button.

I've verified my unit plays both region 1 and region 2 disks.

Buy Coby TFDVD7008 7-Inch Portable DVD/CD/MP3 Player (Black) Now

We needed an inexpensive player to be used as a second player in a spare room and for road trips. The first glaring omission is the lack of included video/audio cable. This was solved by a quick trip to Radio Shack to get the correct cable. With that solved, the remaining issues are quality related.

As far as the player drive, works great. Sound is above average too. The unit itself is very light, but you quickly realize when it is open, the weight of the screen almost makes the unit topple over backward. If you are careful with it, this might not be a problem for you. The last thing is the clarity (or resolution) of the screen. It is what I like to call "adequate". I have seen better screens, but those units were twice the price.

The bottom line is this. It is a cheap player, but it works ... so far. We are taking a trip soon and I am sure we will put it in the car and it will really get a workout. If anything happens with the player along the way, I will try to report back.

UPDATE: Aug 27, 2009

Since I bought this in May, we have had good luck with this unit. It seems pretty tough, but we have not dropped it or have been rough with it. Through normal handling and use it has held up well.

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This little DVD player works really well for my 2.5 year old on long car trips.

Pro: works fine, satisfactory picture even at an angle, no bulky external battery, plays for 4 hours on battery, it can read CDs that my previous, more expensive portable DVD player could not read for some reasons.

Cons: does not come with a plug for the car, does not have a menu button! (I turn it on/off to go back to menu or keep fast-forwarding), it's very slow to start. It doesn't work with the toddler headsets I have.

I am satisfied with it just because it works fine and was a great value, the previous more expensive model I had kept stopping and I had to hit it for it to restart every few minutes, I don't remember the brand/model, so as long as my toddler can watch her cartoons uninterrupted while I'm driving, I'm satisfied.

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I wanted to have a unit that would play every format I could possibly run into as this was going to used to demo music and music videos in presentations. I was quite surprised that this is the only unit I found that would play all formats and was the lowest priced as well. I received the player, and it did not function at all, COBY techs said to return it, which I did. Amazon broke their neck making it right, shipped a new unit at no cost and paid for the return shipping of the bad unit! The replacement is working perfectly, longevity is always a question, but for the $ replacements are a serious option if and when needed! Internal speakers are OK for what they are, but add-on speakers make a world of improvement!

I've only used this acouple of times but so far it's working great. Good battery life, it's really light weight and the picture is good. I took it with on a plane ride and it was perfect.