Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony DVPFX810 8-Inch Portable DVD Player, Black

Let's be realistic. It's a PORTABLE DVD Player, not a HOME THEATRE module or the centerpiece of any entertainment center. It's fairly lightweight for having an 8 inch screen. I did get 6 hours out of the first charge, even now(6 months later), I consistently receive 5 solid hours. The screen swivels for a flat-viewing option on a decent color display. It is not a HD display, but what portable device is going to do that for under $200? I've owned two other brands for this price-or less-and remember, you'll get what you paid for. For the price, I've not seen a better quality product.

I purchased the Sony DVP-FX810 DVD player for use while exercising. The one standout feature of this model is that the screen flips up, pivots around, and folds back flat, making it look a bit like a tabletPC. This is great for my purpose, since I need to put the laptop on exercise machines much like others are putting magazines.

The player feels quality built - definitely not a cheapo wal-mart special. If I was handed it and asked to guess the price, I'd say $300+. It comes with a full-size remote (not particularly practical for me), but everything is also accessible from the unit itself. There's a very practical rubber nub built in (sort of like that on IBM laptops) that lets you move around menus without using a remote. It also comes with a car and home charger.

My only negative on this player is that it is rather thick. The battery fits to the bottom of unit - measuring the full size (l x w) of the player. That makes the unit feel a bit thick. That said, it still fits on the exercise machines without difficulty. Despite other reviewers, I have not complaints about the quality of video. It looks fine to me - though I am not an expert. Overall, I would say that I'm very pleased with the purchase.

Written by Arthur Bradley, author of "Process of Elimination" - an intense thriller in which a martial artist, a greedy corporate attorney, and a sexy conspiracy theorist team up to stop a world-class sniper from killing presidential candidates.

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This unit has very good picture and sound quality. However, the speaker on our unit malfunctioned in less than a month. What a disappointment after paying over $200. To top it off, the customer service from Sony has been frustrating. It has taken close to a month to receive a replacement for a defective unit.

I got mine in the airport to kill time on long flights and it was the battery stamina that draw me to the Sony when I looked at all the available DVD players. That turned out to be a bad decision.

After charging and trying to watch my first movie I thought I had got a broken unit because the screen viewing angle is vertically maximum 20 degrees. Basically you have to tilt the creen forward and look on the screen slightly from above to even be able to see the picture. It is almost impossible to view the screen straight. Secondly the picture quality is really poor and the image becomes pixelated (you can actually see the individual pixels in the screen) due to the low resolution in the screen.

The contrast is bad and all dark areas merge together in a movie. Initially I thought the DVD I was looking at was a poor copy because the image quality was so bad. I was so convinced that the unit was broken that I took it back and changed it for a new one. Then I relaized that the unit wasn't broken, it was the design that was broken. Since the replacement unit was equally bad.

Then I happened to read the specs for the display used by Sony and it turns out that the vertical resolution is only 200 pixels on an 8" screen. That clearly explains why I could see individual pixels in the screem while wathcing a movie.

So, the bottom line is that this player has a very nice design, long battery life but completely and utterly useless with the built in very low-resolution LCD. So, the point of the whole device is lost.

So now I have it in the Office purely as a DVD player and use it with a small Denver LCD TV which has a magnitude better screen.

I can only speculate why Sony chose such a poor display but I suspect that it was very power efficient to allow them to have the exceptional battery life.

I got this thing to use by the hot-tub, but am using it for my regular DVD player to connect to the big screen in the house. It works well for both purposes, and is more reliable than my supposed top of the line Phillips player. First off, it is an 8 inch portable player, so the screen is not HD and the speakers are not surround sound, but the screen quality is great and I actually like the shiny flat screen (haven't experienced the reflection problem that others did--then again I have only used this at night). The speakers are beneath the screen and point toward you, not up from the base like some other players. I already have supplemental speakers by the hot tub, and they plug in quickly through the headphone jack. I chose this one becasue the screen flips around to any angle, and you don't have the distance of a notebook, so it worked best for my purpose. You can control it easlily with full function features from the front of the screen, or use the remote which is very ergonomic with logically placed buttons that are easy to memorize. There is a separate sensor for the remote on the screen side, so it works great no matter how the screen is positioned. I never expected to use it in the living room, but I was getting so frustrated with my Phillips that I finally smashed it. To my surprise, the little Sony was easy to plug in with two jacks on the side, and the image and sound transfers to the big screen even with the player closed! And the remote still works with a separtae sensor on the front. Kind of like the refrigerator light, the little 8" screen shuts off when the screen is down, so this thing actually works great in the living room too! The remote has a much better layout than my old Phillips that never made any sense. So far I've had no battery issues. I plan to take this on vacations, and could imagine easily plugging it into any hotel TV to use just like I do at home. I was skeptical of the fiip around screen, but the twisty hinge is very solid and works great. In a nutshell, I congratulate the designer of this product. Sony thought of everything.