Review on Sylvania SDVD1256: 11.6-Inch Portable DVD Player with USB and SD Card Reader - Watch Movies on the Go! by Gary Stringfield

My brief review is based on a very brief experience with this DVD player. I've tried several portable DVD players over the years, including other Sylvania models. They all failed before they were 1 year old. The problems I had with all of them were: * Blocking when turning on the player when memory was on. * When switching on, no inserted DVD is recognized. * Hanging during playback. Based on the appearance of the settings screen, I can say with confidence that the internal organs of different players of different brands are the same. So it doesn't surprise me that their faults are the same. This Sylvania player is no different when it comes to the appearance of the settings screen. Of course it works now but honestly I expect it to fail like other players I've used. So why reluctantly 4 stars? It looks different from other portable DVD players. The build quality also seems to be much better. Screen brightness is more even across the screen. An obvious downside that I noticed right after the first use is the volume. The speakers are located on the back of the display panel, facing away from the viewer. They had to take this into account and add a few extra steps when adjusting the volume. The remote control is a decent size but the buttons are small. As a result, their labels are small and a bit harder to read. But at least the button labels on a black button are white. As with every other portable DVD player I've owned before (besides the Sony), most remote control functions interfere with my Grace Digital Internet Radio. It's ok since, being small, this player is usually at arm's length from the viewer, but it's still annoying. Let's hope this portable DVD player performs better than others I've used in the past.