Coby TF-DVD7100 Portable DVD Player
Worked great when it worked
My mother bought this for my 1 1/2 year old for a road trip. When it arrived, I took it out of the box and plugged it in. Popped in a DVD and got an error message... \\"WRONG DISK\\". Tired another disk. Same thing. I tried a dozen disks and they all got the error message. I was sorely disappointed and brought it to my step father to look at. He put a disk in a viola! it worked fine. I took it home, and I kid you not, I could not get a disk to play. My step father then came over to look at it again and had no problem. I was convinced the thing was posessed. Finally I got it to work without finding any apparent cause for the malfunction.<br /><br />Over the course of the past four months, I have had at least as many error messages as successes, which was frustrating to say the least. We got it to keep my daughter happy in the car. Watching me fiddle with the machine did not make her happy at all. In fact, it quite often exacerbated the situation. It got so  I would actually hide the machine when I turned it on until I was sure it was going to actually work. Finally, last week, it bit the dust. No matter what I did, it would not, could not read any DVD I put in there. I called Coby and was told that if I sent them a money order for $25, plus all the original pieces, including the instruction manual, the would send me a new one even though the 90 day warranty had expired. If I had sent it in the first 90 days (which I should have) it would only have cost me $6 plus shipping.<br /><br />I am of two minds about this. I'm glad they are willing to send me a new one, but at the same time, I am aggrivated that the thing didn't work consistantly from the start and yet I still have to pay for it. Even if I had sent it in under the warranty, it would have been $10 more or less.<br /><br />When the player *did* work, it was just fine. I really don't have any complaints about it. The picture seemed fine, but not spectacular. But it is a 7 inch screen. So I guess it was about what I would expect. Oddly, the picture on many of the DVDs  - most notably Baby Einsteins - was stretched horizontally. It would have driven me batty, but my daughter didn't seem to mind in the least. Movies all seemed to play normally.<br /><br />The sound was, as others have said, not spectacular. Again, my daughter didn't seem to mind. When I really wanted to turn the sound up, I plugged a cassette adaptor into the earphone jack and  put the sound on over the car speakers which worked perfectly.<br /><br />Everything else just fine. The little remote was handy for working the player from the front seat. The case got scratched up, but I honestly didn't care. The battery worked fine for those times I used it without a cord, though I can't say how long it might have lasted.<br /><br />I would definitely say that it was worth the price *if* it had worked all the time. I will send Coby $25 for a new one, but if I get another dud, you can bet I'm going to go with a higher end model with a brand name and a service agreement. And as for the Coby? If I were to buy it new, I would definitely get the service agreement. The service pack is just a few dollars more than it would cost to get a new one from Coby, and it is good for a year as opposed to 90 days.hat I would expect. Oddly, the picture on many of the DVDs  - most notably Baby Einsteins - was stretched horizontally. It would have driven me batty, but my daughter didn't seem to mind in the least. Movies all seemed to play normally. <br /> <br />The sound was, as others have said, not spectacular. Again, my daughter didn't seem to mind. When I really wanted to turn the sound up, I plugged a cassette adaptor into the earphone jack and  put the sound on over the car speakers which worked perfectly. <br /> <br />Everything else just fine. The little remote was handy for working the player from the front seat. The case got scratched up, but I honestly didn't care. The battery worked fine for those times I used it without a cord, though I can't say how long it might have lasted. <br /> <br />I would definitely say that it was worth the price *if* it had worked all the time. I will send Coby $25 for a new one, but if I get another dud, you can bet I'm going to go with a higher end model with a brand name and a service agreement. And as for the Coby? If I were to buy it new, I would definitely get the service agreement. The service pack is just a few dollars more than it would cost to get a new one from Coby, and it is good for a year as opposed to 90 days.