themicah
Mar 18, 09, 12:01 pm
We've finally reached an age with babymicah where we've given in and let him watch a video here and there. And we have a transcon trip coming up where a little Elmo time would probably be very relaxing for mrsmicah and me--assuming we can get him to wear headphones.
I was thinking about buying a portable DVD player as I'm not sure how long our Macbook's battery will last playing videos. But then it occurred to me that I've seen posts around FT about families ditching the portable DVD player in favor of a video iPod or similar device.
Poking around, it looks like some of these PMPs are in the same price range as a portable DVD player, so my interest is definitely piqued.
I'd prefer to keep the cost under $150, including any software needed to convert DVDs and FLVs to be playable on the device. I'd prefer a flash-memory device (preferably with an SDHC slot) to a hard drive and a "hold" button would probably be a good idea, given that babymicah is still pretty little. Otherwise, I'm not that picky feature-wise. I don't need gigantic memory capacity, because I have some 8GB SDHC cards laying around. And a big screen would be nice, but certainly isn't crucial.
Does anyone have any specific model recommendations? At the higher end of my price range, the Cowon O2 ($140 at Amazon for the 8GB model) looks pretty slick. Are there any cheaper options with similarly-sized screens from Creative, iRiver, Meizu, Archos, etc.? Is there any reason to pay $20 more for a refurbished 8GB iPod Touch? We have both Macs and PCs at home and are totally comfortable converting and transferring files manually, so the only ease-of-use factor is whether the little guy can control the actual device.
I was thinking about buying a portable DVD player as I'm not sure how long our Macbook's battery will last playing videos. But then it occurred to me that I've seen posts around FT about families ditching the portable DVD player in favor of a video iPod or similar device.
Poking around, it looks like some of these PMPs are in the same price range as a portable DVD player, so my interest is definitely piqued.
I'd prefer to keep the cost under $150, including any software needed to convert DVDs and FLVs to be playable on the device. I'd prefer a flash-memory device (preferably with an SDHC slot) to a hard drive and a "hold" button would probably be a good idea, given that babymicah is still pretty little. Otherwise, I'm not that picky feature-wise. I don't need gigantic memory capacity, because I have some 8GB SDHC cards laying around. And a big screen would be nice, but certainly isn't crucial.
Does anyone have any specific model recommendations? At the higher end of my price range, the Cowon O2 ($140 at Amazon for the 8GB model) looks pretty slick. Are there any cheaper options with similarly-sized screens from Creative, iRiver, Meizu, Archos, etc.? Is there any reason to pay $20 more for a refurbished 8GB iPod Touch? We have both Macs and PCs at home and are totally comfortable converting and transferring files manually, so the only ease-of-use factor is whether the little guy can control the actual device.