28 out of 28 people found this review helpful.
Samsung DVD-M101 - Cheap DVD Player That Delivers
Date of Review: Nov 6, 2001
The Bottom Line: The M101 is a great choice for people who want a basic DVD player –; inexpensive, but good enough not to have issues that some sub $100 machines do.
The Samsung DVD-M101 is one of the cheapest DVD players today and I would say it belongs to a different class than Daewoo and Apex players that sell for less than $100. The major difference is the fact that Daewoo?s player freezes/skips and rejects some discs, Apex AD600 has poor picture and sound quality (for a DVD player) and Samsung M101 produces much better results.
At less than $130, this player is a very good deal, but you can see that it?s not an expensive model ? the player represents a black box with similarly-looking buttons for basic functions. The tray does not have solid feel of a tray of Panasonic RV31...
The player does not have issues with playback that some cheaper models (and Samsung?s older models) have ? there is no freezing or skipping.
Picture and Sound
The picture quality is very good , although a little softer than some other players. The sound is excellent, but the mechanism is somewhat slow when you request a track change. The player has component video, composite video and an S-Video outs; analog 2-channel and optical digital audio outs.
Features
In addition to the features that are virtually standard for all DVD players (language select, subtitle select, angle select, virtual surround sound, etc.), this player has some interesting features like 2x audio playback with normal pitch, and motion zoom at 2x and 4x.
Menus
The menus are not as intuitive as they could have been ? the player came with S-Video output selected and I spend several minutes trying to find the menu to switch it to the composite video (the person who got the player has an older TV with no S-Video input). Still, I was able to find everything I needed without opening the manual.
Bottom Line
At less than $130, the M101 is a great choice for people who want a basic DVD player ? inexpensive, but good enough not to have issues that some sub $100 machines do.
