Good Traveling Companion
Written: Jun 29 '01 (Updated Jul 01 '01)
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Pros: 7" screen; compact size; excellent battery life
Cons: Bulky, heavy battery; malfunctioned after 2 weeks
The Bottom Line: A five hour battery life and 7 inch screen make this unit hard to beat. While the picture quality could be a little better, it's still an overall winner.
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| roobin's Full Review: Panasonic DVD-LA85 7 in. Portable DVD Player |
The LA85 is an incredibly compact device that delivers a good picture. In general, I'm pleased with my purchase: I travel frequently and it's proved a great way to kill time on long flights. While everyone else is straining and squinting to watch a "B" movie on the airplane's awkwardly located screen, I am comfortably viewing a film I actually wanted to see!! I seriously considered buying a PC with DVD drive, but the LA85 is much, much cheaper (I got mine for $650 on UBID.COM) and lighter to carry around. And, I doubt you could power a PC's DVD drive and screen for 5 hours.
Size, ease of use - It's small size makes it easy to slip into a carry on bag for use while traveling. While the DVD player itself is very light, the battery is on the heavy, bulky side (however, I imagine this is the tradeoff for the long battery life -- see further comments below). The controls are fairly intuitive...which is good since the instruction manual is cluttered, somewhat confusing and not very well laid out. I especially liked how the on/off switch design prevents accidental power ups while stowed in a carry-on bag.
Screen/Image quality - When I first purchased the unit, I was concerned about watching a movie on such a small screen -- though at 7 inches , it seems to be the largest available on a portable unit. But, it really felt surprising comfortable, I suppose because you're viewing it from about 12-18 inches away (as opposed to a small screen TV, which you might be watching from across the room). While I would rate the image as good, I was a little disappointed at the slight grainyness (pixelization?), especially if the screen was tilted to certain angles. Nevertheless, the overall viewing experience was very positive, and the LCD emits a very bright image with good contrast.
Battery - the battery lasted a full 5 hours as advertised, although the manual specifies that the brightness must be turned down to the lowest setting in order to achieve this. I used the next-to-lowest setting, which I found to be perfectly adequate for viewing. The 5 hour battery life is perfect for watching two movies, since most movies run about 2 hours. And, there is still some battery time left to view the extra features that are included on DVDs, or to watch slightly longer movies. As noted above, the batteries are fairly heavy, and I would think twice about carrying a spare.
Sound - The speakers are adequate for listening to a DVD's audio output, but they are very poor if you're wanting to play a music CD. On the other hand, I thought the sound was excellent when listening to a CD (or DVD) with headphones. I used a pair of Aiwa HP-CN5 headphones which are specially designed to drown out the background noise on an airplane -- these worked very well, and I would highly recommend them when flying. (I've given the unit a good grade for sound, since I assume most people would normally be using headphones with this).
Unfortunately, after viewing only 6 movies, the screen developed a vertical line down the center and I had to ship the unit to a repair facility. Of course, I don't know if this is an aberration, or indicative of overall poor quality (hopefully the former!!).
As a side note, I would also recommend CAFEDVD.com, a website that allows you to rent DVDs for $3.00/week, plus a small shipping fee. They include a prepaid envelope for returning the DVDs. This is a great program if you want to rent DVDs while traveling.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 650.00
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Epinions.com ID:
roobin
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Reviews written: 6
Trusted by: 0 members
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