Sure, some reviewers talk about the layout of the remote, but only indirectly communicate usability issues. For the average consumer, video performance between DVD players is probably indistinguishable by untrained eyes. Granted once you know what to look for, you can quickly see the differences between them. The eye is amazingly forgiving of video differences. We are not nearly as forgiving of the way the DVD players allow us to view that content.
Usability often plays a second fiddle to clever industrial design.
Manufacturers think it is more important to seduce you with many features because those help sell the product when it is sitting next to another comparable device that, for example, doesn t have 5 reverse speeds. Consumer electronic manufacturers each have to make their mark with their own unique industrial design, but they don t always seem to have customer needs at heart. All manufacturers are guilty of this to varying degrees. Our task during the DVD benchmark was to evaluate the usability of the different players. This review will comment primarily on the remotes and only partially on the DVD player software.