I bought this unit 3 weeks ago from Best Buy. I had previously purchased a Mintek 1710 (7 inch screen) from Best Buy in August 2002. The Mintek had a sharp picture but its build quality and its battery were exceedingly poor. I had two Mintek's go bad on me until Best Buy simply asked me to apply my initial investment towards any new DVD player.

Next, I acquired a Toshiba SD-P2500 with an 8.9 inch sceen. This unit has fine build quality and the sound is superb. However, after 2 days of fiddling with its controls, I could never get a good picture in lowlight scenes. The blacks were too milky. I watched the DVD of TWISTER and was really disappointed with the experience. Finally, I took it back to Best Buy and got the Sony.

The Sony is a beautiful unit with a 7 inch screen. It lacks the progressive scan feature (no use on the built-in screen) of the Toshiba and the component video outputs - it does have an S video out. The sound from the tiny speakers is nearly as good as... Read more

I compared the Sony with other available units costing half as much or less and bought the Sony based on picture quality alone. I figured the Sony would be worth the additional cash. Well, I was wrong. The price has been steadily dropping since I bought it so if you really want it, I suggest waiting.

Picture quality is good, but the resolution isn't anything spectacular. I'd never seen the specs listed anywhere but the owner's manual says it's 234x480. If you try to view JPEGs from a CD, it becomes painfully obvious the resolution isn't up to the task. DVD's look pretty good though and ultimately that's what this thing is for.

I'm content with the picture quality for DVDs but I am disappointed with this player's feature set. First, you absolutely can NOT fast forward without the remote control. I'd read that on someone else's review and couldn't believe it...well BELIEVE it. It's absurd that Sony left that feature off the console. You can fast forward with the... Read more

I recently purchased two of FX700's for a long flight to New Zealand from L.A. Like many other reviewers here, I was "wow'd" by the great display; there isn't another unit on the market that looks this good. Side-by-side, any other portable looks terrible in comparison.

I thought that the combination of this unit and Sony's NC-20 Noise Cancelling Headphones (the over-the-ear model, not the ear-bud type) would be an unbeatable.

WRONG.

When we set these up on the plane, the weak audio gain from the headphone jack was immediately apparent. At full volume, even with the NC-20's, movie dialog was virtually inaudible. "Unbelievable", I thought. "How could Sony screw up like this?" We stored the players away and I spent the next ten hours grumbling under my breath at Sony.

When we returned, I read thru the reviews here and found that many expressed the same disappointment.

One of the units was a birthday present for the teenager,... Read more