<p>We are going to take a car trip this summer that I already know will be much too long for my teenage daughter. I would like to get a portable DVD player, but I made the mistake of reading on-line reviews for them so now I’m a little gun shy. I’ve decided that maybe only the unhappy people make the effort to write a review so I’m asking for recommendations.</p>
<p>Also, any other ideas to keep her busy for about 12 hours would be appreciated. </p>
<p>She’s not a reader, she’s a talker and it drives my husband crazy.</p>
<p>Rather than buying a purpose-built portable DVD player do you have a laptop you could bring to play the DVDs? It’d be cheaper and she could also play games on it and then use it to access the internet at the hotel. </p>
<p>If you have an iPhone you could load it up with movies and she could watch on that. The screen’s small but it works surprisingly well. I watched a number of movies on mine while making cross-country flights.</p>
<p>You’re right about the review sites - it’s mostly the negative reviewers who bother to post. Sometimes they have useful details to share but I ignore general griping. You also never know if the posts are from a legit person versus the manufacturer/provider or the competition.</p>
<p>We don’t have ipods or iphones in our family.
We bought a generic (cheap) portable DVD players at Costco for just the situations you describe. The screen in about 7 inches I think.
The picture is incredible. We have had many ‘picnics’ in our old minivan, watching movies and dining, while DD attended school functions. You know, too far to drive home, too long a time to sit and stare. It’s been fun.</p>
<p>I get the impression that you can’t expect a long life from those portable DVD players. You could consider getting an Ipod or CD player and grabbing a few audio books from the library instead of or in addition to the DVDs.</p>
<p>The Nintendo DS is also a great car ride aid!</p>
<p>Also, my D was and is a talker. We finally had to tell her to talk to the passengers, not the driver, since it’s too distracting at times. We allow her periods when talk to the driver was OK, then told her to shift to others. But the electronics help cut down that talk time on very long trips.</p>
<p>I like that it has up to 5 hours of batter as opposed to 2 or 2.5 for a lot of other DVD players. I haven’t used it a lot, but I really like it so far. The only minor concern is that the green light that indicates that it’s on is pretty bright and can be a little distracting.</p>