Sony DVE7000S DVD Walkman
Wanted to love it, but no dice
I'll say right off the bat that I'm a fan of Sony's slick design and neat products. That said, I thought this would be a big step up from my old-school Sony DVP-FX1 DVD portable. However, I ended up re-gifting it and sticking with my PSP/iPod for portable video.<br /><br />Speaking of the PSP, the DVE-7000S's screen has a similar resolution (480x234 vs 480x272 for the PSP). On a 7\\" screen, the video and menus look more pixelated and grainy due to the low pixel density. If you see a demo model, just check out the on-screen displays to see what I mean. They're not crisp and clear, the text appears muddy, for lack of a better term. The screen is nice and bright and has good contrast, though there was some blurring apparent during fast action scenes.<br /><br />The two headphone jacks are nice when you want to share the movie with someone, but they're both on the left side of the portable, which led to some problems with the person sitting on the right because their headphone cord wasn't long enough to reach around. A better design would have been to put one on each side. Headphones are the only way besides the speaker dock (more below) to get sound out of the unit, because it has no built-in speakers.<br /><br />Battery life is adequate, and I got about two and a half to three hours of usage. One thing to note is that the lithium-ion battery is embedded in the machine, which means you can't carry extra batteries and swap if you're running low on juice.<br /><br />With most DVD portables on the market using a folding clamshell design, it was interesting to see Sony go with a one-piece format. By going with this design, the screen isn't protected from dirt and scratches as a regular clamshell would. A small kickstand foot folds out of the back of the player to support it during viewing if you choose, though it seemed a lot less stable than just a regular clamshell player. I've uploaded a photo above, you can see how a 1.5lb+ device leaning back on a one-sided tiny littlefoot isn't exactly confidence-inspiring.<br /><br />A nifty feature is that with the input options, you can use the player as a video monitor of sorts. The video quality isn't all too great, but in a pinch, it's not a bad option. The speaker dock included with the player was also a nice addition. The sound is good from such small speakers, and the dock also serves to charge the player.<br /><br />The disc-playing performance is fine for the most part, though things can be a little sluggish booting up and during navigation. I also ran into a couple of movies where the DVD layer change caused a pause noticeably longer than on a regular deck. I guess that's the tradeoff for getting a portable, but you'd think they would have had it ironed out by now.<br /><br />I wanted to love this sleek new player, but there was always one thing or another that bothered me about it. If you check my past reviews it's clear that I like Sony products, but this one definitely had a half-baked feel to it in many ways.