Polaroid PDM-1040 10 in. Portable DVD Player

Some months ago I bought a Phillips portable DVD, which I thought was pretty nifty (see my review, http://www.epinions.com/content_211724242564). I still do. Its original purposes were: (1) It's a toy. I'm a guy. (2) I was going to spend a lot of time flat on my back during a series of spinal steroid shots (much less awful than they sound). A 3rd use quickly showed up – namely, that it easily plays every DVD which my bit 5-disc DVD player reads as "no disc".

I recently had occasion to purchase 2nd portable. The purpose is a tad unusual, but if you have an elderly parent you might want to make a mental note. Mommy Dearest, who is 93, is unavoidably stuck in a care facility. Reading has become too difficult, and she can't operate the controls for satellite TV (which is all they allow there). It occurred to me that DVD films might be the answer if we could get sufficient volume through earphones and if the staff would get the films started for her. I loaned M.D. my Phillips – and we had a hit! So it was time to see that she had her own set.

The new set is this one, put out by Polaroid (but it just plays discs; it doesn't make instant pictures of them). As it turned out, I left the Phillips at the facility, since the staff were already familiar with the controls and it worked really well.

I kept the Polaroid. It turns out to be a neat little set. Noting the other reviews: Playing the set in my car isn't an issue since (aside from my toy poodle Bartles) I'm almost always the only one in it. (Bartles' brother is James; if the joke doesn't compute, you have my e-mail address). The fact that it has difficulty playing in a vertical position is bit of a surprise (my CD player does exactly that).

The Polaroid player has a very clean, sharp picture on its 10" screen. Only the Phillips 10.2" is larger, if not significantly. It features better speakers than the Phillips, and in fact it doesn't appear that the tiny speakers would produce such a good result (not gorgeous high fidelity, but not bad, considering). Like the Phillips, the Polaroid readily plays DVDs that my bigger player can't. There's only a few of these, and each appears to have a slight imperfection at the edge, apparently compromising the start-up command(s) for the big set but not the small one.

In addition to a power adapter that uses your now-useless cigarette lighter socket (at least, it ought to be now-useless), the set comes with a chargeable battery that's bigger than it has any right to be. It will power the set for about 3 hours, so LotR movies are right out. It will, however, power enough "Yu-Gi-Oh" episodes to leave you a babbling idiot.

By the way, the price of this set indicates that the cost of the larger-screen portable sets is coming down.

The Polaroid's controls, however, aren't quite as easy to use as those of the Phillips. The latter used primarily 2 sets of buttons circles around a central button. The Polaroid has one of those (menu controls), but other button controls are spaced out along the front of the base with tiny print telling the user what they are. Least easy to use is the "mode" button, which also changes the aspect if it's held down a few seconds. I gather it's geared to in-car use with the screen angled up or down because it sequentially presents the aspect choices both right-side-up and inverted. This is a tad annoying, but does accommodate hanging the player on the back of a front seat, to be visible from the back, in which position the screen is inverted. It's also redundant, since other buttons also rotate the screen.

This just in. Well, it's official. The Polaroid set doesn't play when it's vertical. The laser mechanism stops reading the disc when it's turned on its side. This is a real design flaw. I don't care, but obviously there are those of you who do.

As compared with the Phillips set, the Polaroid comes with a much more detailed and useful instruction booklet. No index is either one, however.