Sony DVPFX705 Portable DVD Player
Two more buttons needed . . .
This is a good player, but has limitations that may not be present on all portables.  Toyota is said to have once dispatched an army of observers to America with the sole purpose of watching Americans in their cars.  From this exercise came such ergonomic innovations as . . . the cup holder.  A similar exercise might improve the design of portable DVD players.  Manufacturers would quickly learn that the little players are often watched in ways that inhibit the use of a remote.  I typically watch mine in bed or lying on the couch with the player sitting on my tummy.  In this position it is awkward if not impossible to get the remote into a position where the player will register its signal and I can still see the buttons on the remote.  The ideal player would allow me to do anything I want to do without the remote, using the buttons on the machine itself, which are just a fingertip away.  But many portable players are designed like \\"mainframes,\\" with the remote needed to do important things, like navigate a menu, or skip a chapter, or fast forward.  This Sony player includes menu navigation and chapter skip on the \\"front panel\\" controls, but not fast forward or fast reverse.  The absence of these can be very annoying when trying to get back to a specific point on a reinserted disc, something you have to do often because, even when plugged into a wall outlet, the machine automatically shuts down when left to itself, and in doing so forgets where it was on the disk.  Not even the \\"Hold\\" switch prevents this.  A portable player should be able to do everything important without the remote (and, at least if left on while plugged into a wall socket, should be able to remember where it was on a disk when play was last stopped). I'm not sure how many players (if any) have these characteristics.