Good value for decent player

OVERVIEW
--------

I've tested a few small DVD players with 7" inch
screens and this one is my favorite so far.
Every function I tested is well designed and easy
to use. Simple things work as expected, making this
a fairly safe bet.

WHAT'S IN THE BOX?
------------------

In short, the box contains everything you need
to use the player:

- at home, with included DC power adapter
- in car, with included vehicle power adapter
- or anywhere else, using the included battery pack that
attaches to the bottom of the device.

In addition, the box includes a set of headphones
(not earbuds) and the AV patch cables to connect
to external AV devices.


WHAT DOES IT DO?
------------------
Highlights:
- plays DVDs
- plays music CDs
- plays mp3s from DVD/CD
- outputs audio/video to TV/Sound system
- has audio/video input (composite) to act as a monitor.


The player is primarily intended to play DVD
movies, and in this regard it works well. It has
all the customary features, such as support for
subtitles, angles, zoom, fast forward, menus,
chapters, etc. It's compatible with pressed media
such as purchased movies on DVD media, as well as
disks that you burn yourself using a separate
CD/DVD burner (I tested with DVD-R and had
no problems).

The player also functions as a music playback device.
It supports music CDs as well as MP3s. As part of a test,
I put in a DVD loaded with MP3's and a simple yet
functional little menu popped up and let me navigate through
the file system and select music from various folders on
the disk. The sound quality from MP3 playback was excellent,
and I was happy that all the MP3 features worked well
such as fast forward and rewind. Many inexpensive MP3
players don't support fast forward, and so this was a
nice surprise!

Besides playing DVDs and music, this device also can
function as a small screen for viewing video from other
devices. A switch allows you to set the device to a mode
where it accepts a video input signal. This device does
not have a tuner, so it won't work as a TV. But you can
send a signal to it from a VCR or a game console (PS2, xbox,
etc).

PROS - what it does well
------------------------

- The price. I got this player for 100$ at
Albertson's (the grocery store).

- This device has a decent sized remote with logical
button placement. However, unlike some of these portable
players, you can fully operate the device without the
remote as all the same buttons are on the player itself.

- The player has a solid quality feel out of the box and
doesn't seem 'cheap'.

- I found the sound quality to be quite good. I tested
connecting it to my home stereo and was pleased with
the quality, and I do consider myself somewhat of an
audiophile. The player has digital sound output, but
I only tested the analogue.

- Probably my favorite feature is the AV input. It
allows me to connect the player to my video game consoles
or any other device like a camcorder that has a regular
composite signal. In addition, the device can output
AV so you could hook it up to a television set using
standard composite (RCA) connectors. Some other players
offer more output options such as progressive scan,
s-video, but those features are not important to me.

- Overall I was quite impressed with this player's
design. I got the impression it was not rushed to market,
but rather tested well and with consideration.


CONS - where it could improve
-------------------------------

- The screen is not particularly excellent. I've seen
better screens. It has some color variation around the
edges, which is not uncommon with inexpensive LCD screens.
If you ever slightly warp an LCD screen, you can see this
effect. Also, the screen contrast was not very bold. At
the full contrast setting, the picture was still washed
out a little bit. In one dark scene I watched on a DVD
video, details were thus a little difficult to make out.
It's not BAD, but it does mean that for best viewing you
should be in a dimly lit room. I don't consider this a major
shortcoming as the screen is still very usable.

- In testing, I had trouble reading files from one
particular disk. I never understood why and I even
burned it a second time and that did not fix the problem.
However, the files did have very long names and this
is known to create compatibility problems.