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Sony DVP-FX1 Portable DVD Player

Sony DVP-FX1 Portable DVD Player

List Price: $1,599.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: After One Year --- even happier
Review:

Gooddog back again !

I reviewed this Sony in comparison to the Sharp DV-L70U (see) about a year ago.

I am even happier with it now.

I have one correction : the Sony built-in speakers DO produce stereo and even image sounds if placed near a corner of a room!

I have since purchased an infrared transmitter "LaserLink" and receiver set (available from Sony only) to send excellent picture and sound, without wires, across the room to my Sony 27" Trinitron.

It is awesome how well this works and how convenient it is when friends want to watch a film together !!! The little matchbox sized sender plugs into the side of the player and the burger sized receiver plugs into the big TV and sits on top of the cabinet or wherever (within 3 meters of the player) . The picture is as good as with the wires and the sound is good, clear stereo (DTS ? Don't know yet).

Only the marginally better picture quality of the Sharp haunts me a little. But my Sony is still free of ANY bad pixels etc.

I am VERY happy with it and now own about 100 DVD movies.

I HAVE seen an 8" Sharp with improved fit and finish advertised... will look and see those and report back --- Sharp could beat Sony easily if they sack the guy who designs slipshod plastic cases for them , and if they reduce the heat given off by the unit, and if they get a decent 5 hr battery (that's how long my DVD-FX1 battery lasts) !!!

WHY DON'T THEY HAVE A PLUG-IN DIGITAL TV/CABLE READY RECEIVER MODULE SO WE CAN USE IT'S 16 X 9 MORE OFTEN ????

----gooddog

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very nice player except sometimes lacking in video.
Review: I bought this three days ago in a trip to Chicago and so far am very pleased. The sleek silver metal design is very good looking and the sound with headphones is excellent. I highly recommend using them because the sony feature headphone surround sound is excellent. I have watched 3 movies on the wide-screen display and one movie fit perfectly onto the widescreen display and the other two were distorted and had to be adjusted to be a little smaller. Another person wrote that a sony rep told him that he couldnt use an adapter in a car but i bought an adapter and was pleased with it while watching a two hour movie on the trip home. The video quality is good when close up on people but when looking at say a person in the distance is not so good. I would still recommend it and also enjoyed using it in my hotel.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best machine
Review: I bought this unit about a year ago it has performed like a sony should a bit pricey then compared to others now but the fun aspect of a portable dvd player slash viewer is phenomenal!I rate this product 5 stars because of the ability to change screen
modes for what or how you care to watch it small big etc and it's ability to play with extreme quality no kidding it will rival all if not most other units plays well on it;s output to other video sources!so cool factor it's surround sound is uncanny and when plugged into a stereo it's ability to output digital & dts is very good good separation spatial effects excellent.good buy!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best machine
Review: I bought this unit about a year ago it has performed like a sony should a bit pricey then compared to others now but the fun aspect of a portable dvd player slash viewer is phenomenal!I rate this product 5 stars because of the ability to change screen
modes for what or how you care to watch it small big etc and it's ability to play with extreme quality no kidding it will rival all if not most other units plays well on it;s output to other video sources!so cool factor it's surround sound is uncanny and when plugged into a stereo it's ability to output digital & dts is very good good separation spatial effects excellent.good buy!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: damaged DVD's
Review: i can't belive it. First, my PS2 ruins a DVD and a Game of mine. Then, this! whats up with sony! I asked them for tips to try to aviod damaging DVD, they didn't give me any except, "don't scrach them." Thanks sony, your tech support is as good as your products

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Sony dvp-fx1 9/01
Review: I had just purchased this tiny piece of electronic wizardry from sony. after playing it for awhile, i found a few things that could have made this machine nicer, lets start with sound quality, it could have been better. 2 earphone jacks would have been nice. the brightness switch doesn't seem to change the picture too much, after all, it is sony's first attempt at a portable dvd w/monitor. so we all know they'll improve in all aspects of this machine. one last note. It was quite pricey....

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: What? No power cord?
Review: I have always been a fan of Sony products and recently eagerly awaited the release of their new portable DVD, the DVP FX1. However, I was told by the Sony rep in its Chicago store that FX1 cannot be plugged into a car or airplane outlet; extra batteries would have to be bought and carried instead. I intend to use the portable DVD almost exclusively on car and airplne trips so I will find another brand instead.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Beautiful Machine (updated)
Review: I hit the "Buy" button as soon as I saw this was available. It's a beautiful machine.

Despite the metal body, the Sony is still small and light, and probably isn't as prone to scratches as its plastic-bodied counterparts. That's a good thing because despite tossing mine in my briefcase daily it still looks brand new.

The battery adds about a 1/4" to the height and doubles the player's weight, but it snaps into place with no cable connector to get tangled or broken, which is why I didn't buy the second-generation Panasonic. I've watched two movies back-to-back on one battery charge without a problem.

The screen on my unit is bright with no burned out pixels. Color reproduction is good with no noticable color shift. In certain situations, there is a slight halo visible along high-contrast edges, although this is inconsistent (playback on my TV is perfect). The screen pivots almost180 degrees, so finding an optimal viewing angle is easy.

There must be a BIG memory buffer since playback isn't affected by hard shaking (I mean REALLY hard shaking), so I'm guessing it will be popular with the minivan set.

Basic controls--play, stop, etc.--are located along the front panel so you can still use them with the screen closed. Interactivity controls are on top and are similar to that on Sony's high-end computer monitors (you'll either love or hate the joystick toggle). Flipping through the five screen size options is as easy as pressing a button beside the screen, which is also where the brightness control is located. Smart design that.

Onscreen set-up controls could be less arcane. The onscreen icons aren't labeled, so it's difficult to understand their purpose.

Sound is fine through the built-in speakers when watching DVDs, but this machine really rocks when hooked up via the optical connection or when using digital reference headphones. Headphones are pretty much a must have when listening to CDs, unless you really miss AM radio.

The disc location memory is a great feature. If you turn the player off when a disc is playing, all you need to do to start up where you left off is to hit the play button. It turns itself on and finds the location as soon as the disc spins up.

As a self-professed gadget freak, I have to say that this is the coolest thing I've craved for some time. Happily, it was worth the wait.

-----UPDATE 05/27/2002-----

After almost two years with this player, I'm still very happy with it. Since I rarely travel anymore, the machine sits on top of my TV 90% of the time, or in the kitchen while I cook.

Sometimes the machine will refuse to play a disc. It will spin up, sound like it's getting lost, and then stop with a flashing code onscreen. The way to fix this is to carefully (I mean very, very carefully) clean the laser lens. I usually use a Q-tip dipped in plain water and then blotted until just damp.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Close to perfect, doesn't like cold weather shipping
Review: I'd thought about buying the Sharp but Sony sounded better so Idid some shopping around and found it for (a relatively low price), that took care of the most often heard complaint of high price. The construction of the player seems fine to me, not much you could do to make such a small device better. I've just run a couple of DVD's on it so far but the color and picture seem to be perfect as long as you don't try to view the picture at some off angle, no need for color adjustments that it doesn't have anyway. I'm still learning to operate the DVP-FX1 but all I can really find to complain ( the battery power conservation mode is hard to find but you CAN get 4+ hours out of a charge with it)about is the sensitivity to cold. I got my player late one December afternoon and took it out of the shipping box, but not the Sony box, and set it next to a heater vent to warm it up. After getting set up five or six hours later the player still couldn't recognize that I had put a DVD in it. I had to put it near the vent, no box this time,30 minutes,to warm it up directly. This finally allowed me to play a CD but the best it would do on a DVD was indicate that the perfectly clean DVD needed cleaning, it would not play it. I tried again the next day and couldn't have been happier with the way the player operated.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: too many cut-backs
Review: it seems that sony took out a lot of the extras just to cut the price down a little. no powercord, an annoying interface, not a lot of thought went into this.


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