Review of the Sony DVP FX-810 Portable DVD Player with Screen
Like everything Sony, a lot of time has been spent on the design of their affordable DVP-FX810 Portable DVD Player. It’s almost too appealing to let the kids gets their sticky fingers on it, but we gave in and chucked it in the back to give it a good ‘kid compatibility test’. Design |
| Gorgeous is the only world to describe the Sony DVP-FX810 DVD player, with the best looking chassis we’ve ever seen on a portable DVD player. It’s matt black in colour, with a flip up 8-inch swivel screen which rotates and lays flat on the main body, turning it into a tablet form, or you can choose to take advantage of the multiple viewing positions. A small collection of modestly labelled buttons keep the design smart and simplistic. Very lightweight at just 1.02kg, the Sony DVP-FX810 measures up at 226 x 160 x 32.4mm. |
| Features |
| All looks and no brains could be the case with the Sony DVP-FX810 if the features list is anything to go by. It’s got a fraction of the features on some other portable DVD players, but taking the low price into comparison we appreciate it can’t offer top of the range features. On the positive side, the FX810 is particularly compatible with a range of playback options, for example disc compatibility includes playback of DVD-R/-RW, DVD-R Dual Layer, DVD+R/+RW, and DVD+R Dual Layer. Audio playback includes CD and CD-R/RW with audio MP3 and JPEG files. And you can also playback DVD-R/RW/+R/+RW and CD-R/-RW with DivX. It is also MP3 compatible and photo viewing is possible too. The screen is LCD and is coated which causes a few glare issues which will be mentioned later on. Connectivity is great with an A/V input and output, dual headphone ports with volume control, and power port. For use in the car an adapter is supplied which will fit into your cigarette lighter. Also included is a remote control, which is rather grey and quite large, but the clearly labelled buttons are a pleasure to use. Sitting underneath the main body is the removable Lithium-Ion Polymer battery pack which gives you a generous six hours of movie watching time on the lowest brightness settings. Once charged and in full swing, the FX810 gives you a load of on-screen options, one being a handy quick set-up option. This takes you through all the settings giving you the chance to personalise and optimise the performance levels. There are loads of picture control options, but if you want the battery to last you must be careful of how bright the screen is as it will run the battery down very quickly. Search options include high speed smooth search, advanced smooth scan, smooth slow, and step rewind and fast-forward. When the display is on but there is no media source being used, a screen saver takes over the screen. We should mention that there is no parental control, so watch out there. Taking care of the audio is a powerful embedded speaker. |
| Performance |
| As far as the kids were concerned, the Sony DVP-FX810 was ‘great’, ‘really bright’, and ‘loud’, so we don’t really need to say much more. Sorry Sony, you can’t get off that lightly, because unfortunately for you, we copped a load of the picture performance and we weren’t impressed with what we saw. Initially we were distracted by the constant glare, but once we’d overcome that hurdle we though the screen was wishy-washy, had rubbish contrast levels, and was overall far too soft. The kids watched Batman Forever on DVD which is a really dark movie, so we cranked the brightness up to give them a chance to see what was happening, but this meant that the battery only lasted just under 3 hours. On the bright side, sound was powerful, and dealt with dialogue well giving a crystal clear performance. |
| Overall Opinion |
| Taking into consideration the design, features, picture and sound performance, we would recommend the Sony DVP-FX810 as a perfect tool for using on those rare occasions, maybe for the kids in the back of the car on a long-distance journey, for example. The picture performance and glare is easy to put up with every so often, but if a commuter had to deal with it every day it would eventually become annoying. |
| By Lisa Malyon |
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Pros + Gorgeous smart design + Well labelled and substantial remote control + Powerful audio levels |
Cons - Screen coating causes glare - Poor picture performance |
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Overall Rating 
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By Lisa Malyon
1/12/2006 at 12:54:50pm
1/12/2006 at 12:54:50pm
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