Coby DVD-209 Ultra Compact DVD Player
Great Idea K.O.'d by Fatal Flaw
This pint-sized portable DVD player from Coby belies its compact form with a sleek, attractive design, a sharp, crisp image accessible through composite outputs, a full-functioned miniature remote and the ability to read and smoothly play virtually any disc format, including + and - RW DVDs,   <br /> <br />So why, you may well wonder, have I given this ostensibly marvelous little device a rating of only one star?  The answer is that sadly, it suffers from what is, for anyone with normal hearing, a fatal flaw: It is loud.  I mean truly unbearably, irredeemably LOUD. <br /> <br />On playback, the motor revs up to whir at such blaring decibels that it actually drowns out any quiet scenes that you may be watching, and yields an interminable din that competes even with normal levels of volume.  In other words, its sound is omnipresent and endlessly, hopelessly distracting, rendering the machine, for this user at least, completely useless. <br /> <br />If larger DVD players, as well as compact CD players of the same size, don't generate this kind of noise, then there's really no excuse for the DVD-209 to be doing it, other than just plain poor engineering design. <br /> <br />What a waste -- of both a good idea for a compact DVD player -- and my money.