[quote name='HuBu']my wife bought one of those and i hate it so much. the remote doesn't use a standard battery (AA or AAA). At times it would skip around, yet the dvd would work fine in another player.[/QUOTE]
The button battery in the remote was indeed weird. As for the skipping... I vaguely remember some skipping problems when I first got it. Oddly, the player seemed to need a 'breaking-in' period, and worked better the more it was used. *shrugs*
It's all kinda moot now tho', cuz that Phillips is almost certainly a better machine.
[quote name='Sporadic'] Anybody know of a good/cheap region free player? [/quote]
I've actually heard that any player can be made into a region-free machine by entering some 'secret code'... for example, that Cyberhome one I posted? Apparently pressing 'menu, 1, 9' while there's no disc in the unit lets you change the region-coding. Wish I'd known that before I got rid of it...
Anyway, you might look up info for whatever machine you currently have...