COMPETITOR FOR THE ViPOD? KINDA...

Coby is a company well known for making cut-rate, but functional, CD players. Before that they were well known for making cut-rate, but functional, tape players. Back in the 80s, I recall having owned a couple of their tape players because they were so cheap, when one died, I just dropped another $20 on a new one. It wasn't even a bad idea to have an extra Coby player around just as a back up. These days, however, people don't want tape players or even CD players. They want media players.

Here comes the Coby TF-500. It looks just like a cheapy CD player only it's a cheapy DVD/mp3 CD player. What's even better is that it plays the video from the DVD on a little 3.5 inch screen. The whole thing is just slightly thicker than your average portable CD player, which is pretty sweet, really.

Is this a competitor to the ViPod, though? In some ways, yes.

Sure, it's bigger, over all, and it doesn't have any storage, but it does price in at around $115 or so, which is a reasonable trade-off, really. However, having it play only DVDs I think was an unfortunate choice for Coby. If they were smart they would have this thing play not only regular DVDs, but VCDs and SVCDs, too. In fact, they should have just programmed the damn thing to play DivX, mp4s and mp3s off of DVD data discs.

Since, at least for now, the ViPod only plays mp4s and H2whatsis, this would actually make the dealing with carrying around discs to play in the Coby TF-DVD500 a reasonable alternative. Sure, you've got extra crap to carry but a helluva lot more freedom in what you are able to watch.

Am I still planning on getting a ViPod first?

Of course. But for $115, it might be nice to have something like this around... just as a back up.

[http://us.gizmodo.com/gadgets/portable-media/coby-mp3-player-and-portable-dvd-138225.php|Check out coverage of the Coby TF-DVD500] over at Gizmodo.com or just cut out the middle man and hit up [the TF-DVD500's product page] at CobyUSA.com.