Portable-TV Reviews

This TV has alot of great features! What it is missing is stereo sound and stereo jacks for input by a VCR or video game. The picture is super sharp, clear and easy to view in a dark bedroom without hurting your eyes. The sound is good, but could be better if it were stereo. The design of the cabinet makes it look better than your average square looking TV. This is a great TV for a bedroom or for kids and thr price is confortable too!

This compact TV from RCA is perfect for the bedroom where typically you don't want a big huge TV overpowering the overall design and making your bedroom look like a drive-in movie.

Each set includes a NITEglo™ Backlit Remote, so you can easily locate the buttons on the remote, even with the lights off. Each also features a quick and easy-to-program Sleep Timer Button. So when you're fast asleep, so is your TV.

The Sony 2.5 in. Handheld Color TV (FDL-252T) isn't a terrible buy. The price is good, and the screen is not that small. Yet, there are many bad qualities to the TV.
Pros: Good 2.5 inch screen, nice sleek design,
and good price.

Cons: Bad sound quality, hard to get good picture
reception, and it doesn't come with a case or adapter.

All in all this product isn't one of sony's best, but it fits most needs.

(...) It had a good picture once you adjusted the bright. Sound quality is good. The folding makes it compact and the antenna in the strap really works, you just have to position yourself to get the best reception. (...)

After going through the NYC blackout, unamused, I decided never again. There was no access to news, unless you had the right radio. Bought this little portable TV as backup. It runs on 3 AA's. Also invested in a kodak rechargeable battery system from [the website], since it was highly recommended by other users, and even got a solar-powered battery charger. The screen of this TV is small. But it does hook up to an external tv antenna, to get local broadcast. The adaptor is at any Radio Shack. Also discovered it works with the cable and VCR. For cable TV, you just hook up to the box and the TV will hunt for the right channel to broadcast from. For VCR, use channel 4, for signals, since there's no channel 3 on the TV. In the blackout, the cable company did not go down. The screen is small but the broadcasts clear, and larger TVs will consume larger and more batteries....

this is mini tv i got as a gift. it's made by sony, so you know it will be a good product. one of the innovative features of this product is the "straptenna", that is, the antenna and the neck strap are one and the same. this makes for touchy reception somtimes (you need to not move around a lot) in low reception areas. it also comes with an external antenna jack so you can put a big powerfull antenna on it. i am currently looking for an antenna that will fit it, and i don't think sony actually makes one. i am gonna take it down to Radio Shack soon and see if they can help me.

This is something I have been waiting for years. In fact, even had a business plan to manufacture travel companions of this sort. True to what it means, the TV has a crystal clear LCD panel and CD music with AM/FM radio. For the sight-seeing soul in everyone it is a wonderful companion during lonely hours and soporific stretches in a long-awaited vacation. Warning! try not to take this into the jungles ! It will turn out to be one lifeless companion !!

I purchased the Broksonic tv/vcr specifically for long car trips. It fits perfectly between the front seats of our Honda Odyssey. The passengers in the rear seats had no problems viewing or hearing the movies. Great buy!

Casio's portable color TV-980 is a great, inexpensive option for road trips or places you need a TV. It is small enough to fit in most jacket pockets and the antenna picks up stations well. In fact, I can pick up more stations with this TV than with my rabbit ears at home.

The screen is a passive-matrix LCD display. It is sharp and clear, and the colors are rather vivid. It is important to keep the brightness at the right level, otherwise the display is difficult to read. It is also tough at times to read small print on the screen, the display is clear but not when it has to be read that close.

The television is powered by 4 AA batteries, which will give you about 4 hours of viewing time. There is also an AC adapter option, however, you will have to either buy this separately, or get this TV in the package which includes a case and the adapters. For the money, this TV is a great choice.

Strengths:
Feature-rich, Sony quality, surprisingly decent headphones, excellent skip-free technology, battery life(?)

Weaknesses:
Slightly awkward button placement, sluggish (at best) SonicStage® software

Summary:
I spent quite a bit of time in the week or so before I bought this product researching the main players in the MP3-CD field. While my favorite based on everything I'd read was the iRiver iMP-550, I decided that I could get everything I wanted out of a player for less than $100. The features that I sought the most were:

1) an AM/FM tuner

2) the ability to fast-forward through MP3s, which I found many of the lower-end players could not do; and,

3) a jog dial or other implement that made navigating through songs and folders fairly simple.

I ended up narrowing my search to Sony and Panasonic products, and eventually went with Sony because I was curious about their ATRAC technology, which I'll get into in a bit.

STRENGTHS:
For the most part, Sony is going to put out decent products, and this player seems to be no exception in terms of quality and workmanship. I don't have any complaints yet, although I've only owned it for about a week. The D-NF400 has every feature I had looked for in my initial research, and then some. The TV and weather bands have turned out to be more entertaining than I would have guessed.

I didn't spend any time actually listening to other MP3-CD players, so I don't have a basis for comparison when it comes to volume output. I can say, however, that with all of my 192kb songs and most of my 128kb music, I can get plenty of sound at about 3/4 volume capacity even while commuting by train. At home or in my quiet office, I'm often only at about 1/2 the volume capacity. Although I've replaced the stock headphones with a set of Sony MDR-V150s (ear-muff style), the stock headphones are nearly as loud and reasonably clear except at very high volumes. They also let in a lot more outside noise, however, so if you really love your music, you're better off replacing them.

So far, I've not heard a skip from this player. As I said, my most frequent usage in on the train, which isn't the smoothest ride in the world. I've also hooked it up to my car stereo via a cassette tape adapter and driven all over the mean streets and freeways of LA without a hiccup. And, of course, since I commute, I do a fair amount of walking with it between the train and subway. So I'm impressed that I haven't had any issues at all here.

I haven't had the player long enough to truly comment on battery life except to say that I've put in approximately 20-25 hours of active play time, and the battery indicator still looks full. Certainly nothing for me to complain about.

WEAKNESSES:
I'll start with the biggest weakness, which is the SonicStage software. I've read reviews from several other people who have used it who have called it completely useless, and I can understand why. This software is designed to allow you to compress your music even beyond MP3 compression while still maintaining high-quality sound. Sony claims that at 48kbps, you can have up to 490 songs on one CD.

Now, let me start by saying that when the software does work, it does an excellent job. Using the default setting of 64kbps, I've recorded several CDs with over 300 songs on them. There is something very pleasing about being able to store your entire library of certain genres of music on a single CD. And although I'm no audiophile, I haven't noticed an appreciable difference in quality in my music, most of which was ripped at 192kbps.

The software operation itself leaves a lot to be desired, though. My main complaint is that it is e x t r e m e l y s l o w . The conversion from MP3 to Sony's ATRAC format is painful. The first CD I burned, which had 283 songs on it, took over 5 hours just for the conversion process. Thankfully, in this day of 100GB+ hard drives, SonicStage will keep the converted files on your hard drive so that if, for some odd reason, you ever needed to burn the same songs on to another CD, you would not have to repeat this tedious process. SonicStage is also buggy, but it does work most of the time. And it's fantastic when it does.

The only other issue I've had is with two of the buttons. The jog dial for navigation consists of the left, right, up and down directions, with a play/pause button right in the center. Because the buttons are so small, I've often found myself trying to skip to the next song and instead pausing the current song inadvertently. The other odd button is the one used for switching between FM/AM/TV/Weather Band. It's a flimsly-feeling thin rubber bar, and it just adds a cheap feeling to the player when everything else is so solid.

SUMMARY:
Overall, I have had a great experience with the player, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who prefers this format to the stored memory MP3 players. Good job, Sony!

I purchased one of these cute little tv's in 1999 and love it. I presently have a problem with the horizontal hold and lose the picture to a straight line of light after it warms up. Where can it be serviced? I tried calling the number given in the manual and got no answer. I love this little tv, it just fits on the kitchen table and is a great picture IN COLOR for such a small screen. Hope I can get it repaired.

I have seen this tv and tried it out in a store and i can tell you that this is one of the best tv's i have ever seen under [price]. The sound works great, realistic, and the picture quality is average. If you want cheap value from a reliable brand, this is the tv to choose.

The Jeep TV/CD/AM/FM Boom Box is great for boating, fishing, camping, etc. Buy a cigarette lighter adapter and it will save you on the battery bill!