Sony DVP-FX930/W 9-Inch Portable DVD Player, White Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)For the family looking to put a DVD player in the back of the minivan, or in children's hands, there are less expensive alternatives that are probably a bit more rugged. Look to brands like Coby, Toshiba, Audiovox, Philips, and the lower end Panasonic players.

For the person looking for unparalleled portable picture quality, this is the awesome, outstanding player. It will work just great in the minivan, in fact the fold flat feature with the right hanging on the headrest case is a fantastic combo. But in their hands, on their laps, kids will likely destroy this player's hinge.

The reason for this recommendation, Sony's hinge is a bit fragile compared to all the other players. There is a single pivot point on this player, little hands getting frustrated twisting the screen will likely turn the screen the wrong direction or push too hard and break the hinge. All the other players have dual hinge points that are much harder to break. An older person - teenager, adult - will have a lot less trouble and will likely never break this hinge.

The great about this player:
The dimensions are about the same size as netbooks, in fact a netbook carrying case is the perfect case for this player. Set this down next to an Acer Aspire One, its hard to tell the difference. The Sony is thicker, the Aspire One is wider. They are about the same weight.
The screen, oh the sumptuous, gorgeous, screen. I have owned three other portable players starting about 10 years ago for my first (three Panasonics). I have never seen a better screen on a portable player than this one. Those extra lines of resolution, almost double the vertical lines, pays off huge. DVD's are crisp and sharp, detail is amazing. Watching side by side with any other player; this player is like the difference between standard def television and high def. No, this is not a high def screen, it simply packs in more pixels and more resolution to show off what a DVD has inherently.
Almost all players give you, color and brightness controls. The Sony goes way farther, backlight brightness, contrast, and hue. I can actually come close to calibrating this monitor.
Viewing angle is pretty incredible. Left to right of the screen, well near 170 degrees with absolutely no compromise in picture quality. Vertical viewing angle is a lot narrower (but infinitely wider than most LCD's I've seen) maybe 45 degrees off axis. It is very easy to adjust the screen for perfect viewing.
The speakers are very clear. For normal listening in a quiet room, the volume goes up to 20, 4 is perfectly loud. This is no home theater, its an inexpensive portable player, so high fedlity is not expected. Considering those constraints the player sounds really good.
It plays everything. DVD's with full face labels. DVD-R, DVD+R. And most importantly, DVD+R DL, or dual layer. Portable players have a lot of difficulty with dual layer DVD's. Commercial discs play perfectly. CD's, yes. MP3 and JPG discs, yes. DiVX, NO. That is about the only format it doesn't play.
Disc load time - very quick. Much quicker than my Panasonic players. On par with my standard full size DVD players.
The remote control is very nice for portable size. There are two IR sensors for the remote - on the screen and on the main body. I was able to pretty much point the remote anywhere near the machine and it worked.
A bonus - this player will accept video input. That's hugely rare in this business. So you could potentially feed an iPod or iPhone into this. In addition to the proper cable out for your iPod; you will need three female / female RCA adapters (I don't believe anyone sells an iPod video / audio out cable that is mini connectors on both ends). This is the type of connector, (Female to Female 3-RCA Coupler). The other option, you could use a 3.5mm male jack on both ends cable, and use the player as iPod speakers. That would work very nicely for audio only (Cables To Go - 21062 - 6ft 3.5mm M/M Stereo Audio Cable (Black)).
There are: Two 3.5mm headphone jacks. Video and Audio line out jacks. 9.5V DC input. Power on slide switch. Hold switch so the power doesn't turn on or off accidently.

The Mediocre:
The video controls are touch sensitive surfaces just below the screen (in the photograph, the band is just below the Sony logo on the screen), and there is a four direction toggle / nub with a press in to accept, for navigating menus. They are touch sensitive surfaces, not capacitance (thank goodness). That means you can touch the button with a fingernail, a press does not require a damp fingertip.
The screen hinge design. Already mentioned, but this hinge just begs to be broken. The screen hinges all the way back so that the player lays almost flat, with the DVD player part open and the screen above it, like a book. If you tilt the screen up to about 90 degrees, the screen can be rotated 180 degrees clockwise. So the screen now faces backwards from the DVD player. Turn the player around 180 degrees to face the screen, and the screen angle can be pushed back all the way to the player. The player now looks like one of those PC tablet computers. Its complicated to explain, and it does, after some learning, allow you to put the screen about any direction you want it. With all that twisting and turning, the hinge still feels fragile. Its also easy to accidently touch one of the control buttons while you are doing all this movement.

The bad:
The disc and laser transports make a lot of noise. When you first load a disc, the spin up sound is louder than I expected. None of my Panasonic player ever made this much wind up noise. The laser head starts searching for the lead in track, and it makes a strange, not 100% pleasant sound moving. Once the movie is playing, the sound level goes down to normal levels.
There is no S-Video, HDMI, or Component video output possible. Then again, S-Video connections on televisions are getting rare these days. And the DVD format resolution is on S-Video high; way below HDMI or Component standards, so Sony would have had to build in an upconversion processor at great cost; and for what? The rare time this is connect to a television. Still, somebody needs to make an HDMI out portable player to connect up in hotel rooms (Hyatt Place and many Holiday Inns now have these simple connections).
This beast is heavy. Its not the battery - in fact the battery is fairly light weight. It is much heavier than anything Panasonic. I made the choice to trade off the weight and slightly shorter battery life for a gorgeous picture. You'll have to decide what is important to you.

Battery life - this is neither good nor bad. Sony reports 6 hours. Nobody will ever get that many hours out of a full charge in the real world. That 6 hours is at the lowest backlight setting and the lowest contrast setting; with headphones. This player will easily show two movies with battery to spare. After two moveis, best to do something different for a while anyway. Recharge time is long, 6 hours from fully dead battery.
One wonderful thing about this battery - it is the bottom portion of the player, nice and flat. There's no wart sticking out the back or the bottom.

In the box - the player with battery, a remote control with battery, A/C adapter (which is 110-220V input, so it will work in Europe), a 12V cigarette lighter adapter, and A/V composite video / audio adapter. There is no carrying case in the box.

All things considered, the image quality, the battery life, and the screen size sold me on this player versus everything else available. Just hope you never have to buy a replacement battery, it alone is the almost the same price as a whole new player.

This review is posted under all five colors available for the DVP-FX930 Sony Player. There is no difference between these models, save the body color. It comes in Blue (the model I own), Pink, Red, White, and Black.

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Product Description:
Enjoy sharp, crisp images with the high-resolution Sony DVP-FX930 stylish portable DVD player. The DVP-FX930 features a nine-inch (diag.) screen and six hours of battery life, allowing you to watch your movies from virtually anywhere for an extended period of time. Convenient touch-screen keys and a 180-degree swivel and flip screen make it easy to operate and watch your favorite movies.