trueblu

We need to make a long (2-3 day) car journey soon, and our 2 year old daughter will need some entertainment. She'll be sitting in the back on her own, so ideally want something not too fancy, and that can tolerate a degree of punishment/ aka love and attention from her!

Furthermore, we'll be relocating to China in the very near future, so a dual voltage device would be preferable.

Any recommendations on what brand/model I should be looking at?

thanks,

tb

cb1111

Most all portable electronocs are dual voltage these days. Whily you should still check before you buy, you can pretty much assume that the player will be dual voltage.

No electronics are kid proof and you should really consider her safety when using a portable player. What you really need is one that attaches to your headrest. That'll keep it from being flung about (either by your daughter or in an accident or sharp manouver) and will improve her posture as she'll be sitting erect looking at the screen rather than hunched over.

trueblu

Good advice -- re: attaching to headrest. I'm new to all this, and frankly don't like the idea of my daughter watching hours of videos instead of sleeping or singing songs or watching the scenery, but trying to be a pragmatist.

I asked about dual voltage since in the US, my experience hasn't been so universal, and I wanted to buy from amazon, where this information is not so easy to come by.

tb

cb1111

Right. I always go to the manufacturer's website to check specs.

cb1111

There is another advantage of having the DVD at headrest level - you can always "look at that" and the kid will look - they won't if they're looking at the DVD in their lap.

weekilter

Not only will you require dual voltage but you will require multi-region if you intend for it to be used in the US and in the far east.

cb1111

Good point. That'll be much harder to find that dual voltage.

trueblu

Although China is officially a different region, it's v. easy to get region 1 disks. And a quick browse on amazon suggests multi-region is relatively easy to get these days.

Thanks for the tips, but given there have been no specific recommendations, it seems that I might have to actually venture into a store.

tb

escog

Have you considered something like an iPod touch or iPad instead and using that for movies? More expensive, certainly, but more versatile as well. And, you can get cases like this:

https://store.griffintechnology.com/woogie

trueblu

For various, not v. good reasons, don't own any Apple products -- this will solely be for my daughter's benefit so the apple stuff is just too expensive.

And I wanted to avoid ripping dvds onto another device: otherwise could do so onto my android phone.

tb

trueblu

Thanks for the advice. We went for a Sony FX970 in the end: a little pricier than the most basic dvd players, but with a 6 hour battery life -- which given we won't have a car soon but will fly a lot -- was an important consideration.

The sales rep said it was multi-region, but it isn't -- I think there is a multi-region version available at twice the price or something. However, the dvds most buy in china are region 0, so will play fine. It's also dual voltage (as are most devices these days).

We didn't buy a special carrier thingy to hang it from a head-rest: I was concerned that would encourage our daughter to just keep watching the thing. Luckily, this player fitted snugly between the two front seats on the storage thing, and it was easy enough to just close it (despite protestations) when we felt she had had enough.

Picture quality is good. Sound quality is not as good, which I've found with most sony devices (including my v. expensive z laptop). It looks pretty durable, but we've not had it that long, so can't definitively comment.

tb