Great DVD/Game Player for Small Children

This product both surprised and delighted us because its design features and build quality were well above what we expected from Coby.

We have a very precocious almost 3-year old. He loves classic arcade games like Pac-Man and Dig Dug that he plays on one of those Jaxx plug-n-play joysticks, and we wanted him to have the same sort of experience in the car (OK, actually we just wanted to keep him occupied).

His portable DVD player by GoVideo was turning into a real pain. First it had lost the ability to operate with a DC adapter (so we couldn't run without a charged battery). It also had trouble keeping the DVD cover down so that it wouldn't stop playing in the middle of a DVD, and it also couldn't stand to be jostled, reloading a disk when that happened on many, many occasions.

We considered headrest-mounted DVDs, but he sits in the center of the rear seat, so they would be off to the side for his viewing. Also, he could kick them from his child seat.

We decided to buy the player I review here because it was the only one that had built-in games, but like all good products, there are also delightful surprises about it that make it worthwhile.

First, the anti-skip feature works very well. This player can be jostled hard and not lose its place.

Second, the battery is a very thin Li-Ion type with a long life and quick recharging.

Third, the design and build quality. Think Sony, not Coby. I've always thought of Coby as a bottom feeder brand, and they would have been the kind of folks to take an obsolete unit and spray it a different color, change the model number and pitch it to a different market (that's what GoVideo did with our last portable DVD player). Nope. First of all, the color is molded in. Second, the quality of the case's plastic is, again, Sony-grade--with a soft urethane strip surrounding and protecting the edges and corners. The audio comes not only from speakers in the front, but from the back as well, all with secondary stainless grilles behind the plastic grilles to keep debris out of the speaker cones. Somebody sweated the details. Another nice feature is the easel stand that folds out from the bottom. We use it to stand the unit on the top of the center console in the car, and have fashioned a hold-down for it out of a piece of industrial-strength velcro.

The screen, though small at 3.5" is quite bright and clear and is perfectly adequate for viewing DVDs while handheld or at short distances.

The video games are heavy on Sonic titles, with a Tetris-type title (Supercolumns), a swordfighter (Golden Axe), and some other games as well (Astro Blast, Psycho Fox, etc.). I wasn't familiar with any of them, but despite the lack of instructions all of them play OK. Golden Axe was difficult to start, but eventually I was able to do so. Graphics quality is so-so on the small screen, and doesn't scale up well when you use the supplied cables to transfer the picture to a larger TV. But these are games to please kids, not adolescents or adults. Our son loves them.

The unit comes with a remote (more for parental control than anything...why would the user need a remote for something that's within arm's reach?), a cigarette lighter plug, an AC adapter, cabling to attach it to a TV, headphones, the aforementioned battery and instructions.

P.S. 4/24/07 - The socket for the power cord lost its center post sometime in the last couple of weeks and consequently no longer accepts the power cord. Unlike my old GoVideo model, this is a showstopper because the battery can't be charged if separated from the unit. I'm sending the unit to Coby for repair under warranty. I'll let everyone know how it goes.

P.P.S. 5/31/07 - Yesterday we got a package back from UPS, and it was a 5" CRT color television with AM/FM ... Coby says we need to send it back with a cover letter explaining that they sent us the wrong warranty item. ;-<