Fab quality and the kids love them

Can't say a bad word about these that I bought used and new. Yes there's a few excess wires, but it all packs away nicely and you only use it for big journeys and not the school run ! Just wish somebody would drive me so I could sit in the back and watch a film myself !

DVD PLAYER

Cannot comment as was a gift, but recipient seemed pleased and was value for money

It's a good job Philips don't make pacemakers

I can only concur with reviewer Ash. I've had all the problems he's mentioned. What really bugs me is having to hit the eject button about 20 times before the damn thing will respond. HDMI upscaling is rubbish too. Freeview channels work okay though.

Historically, Philips have been one of the great innovators of the electronics industry, and I really do expect better from them. This machine is barely fit for purpose, and I should have taken it right back to PC World.

This Philips 5500 deserves NO STARS, but I must give it at least one before I can post my review.

Phillips PET831 Portable DVD player review

I bought this all in one to replace an earlier Phillips one with separate DVD player and screens that I broke! The DVD has a mount kit that fixes to the headrest supports. The picture is fine but the sound is poor to say the least. I have also found it very fussy with discs and the player hardly works in the mount on New Zealand roads (although the are quite bad) due to the amount of bouncing. In the end my daughter ends up holding the DVD player on her lap. I think I'll encourage her to look out of the window at the passing scenery instead, it always works....

Simply great

Simple idea, combine a DVD player and iPod dock and you have the best of both worlds all in one unit. Incredibly handy, just a shame the battery doesn't last a bit longer. Also the DVD player is multi-region, just google the part number for simple remote hack ;-)

well designed player let down by screen

Great looking player including remote & car adapter. Easily changed to Multi region which was my main reason for choosing this one. Video displayed on external TV is good, but internal screen has difficulty displaying text and subtitle captions clearly, the screen is a disappointment so overall just 3 stars.

head phones or not

can we use without head phones,be nice to hear,not even in shops to explain.does anyone have one to let me know please

Movies on the move

I bought this after a review in some newspaper recommended this, and have to say I (and the family) have been immensely pleased with it.

The picture quality is excellent, and viewable from a good range of angles. The sound through the intergrated speakers is fine, good enough for kids in a quiet room, although I recomend headphones to make the most of the unit.

The unit itself is exceptionally light, but seems sturdy enough. Claimed battery life is three hours - I've had two hours running time from it with no problems.

The included case at first appears lower quality, but again seems to do it's job well, and is the right size for holding all the chargers (car and 3 pin house plug chargers included) as well as a few discs. It also includes a remote control, although to be honest I would rather have sacrificed the remote for headphones - you aren't going to be watching movies from a distance so a remote seems an extravagance

My only other slight critism is that the disc needs to be inserted properly to work. Sometimes it looks like it is in, but it isn't quite.

Value for money, this rates 5 stars, picture quality 5 stars, headphone sound 4 stars, speaker sound 3 stars. It was in fact so good, we bought a second as a big family present. Recommended.

poor

started off ok. dvdbroke within 10 months.u cannot buy replacement dvd player.phillips do not have any spare parts 2 fix the problem.all the speakers are now in effect.USELESS.advise not to buy.

Great If You Like Everyone To Have A Red Face on HDMI

I bought this item yesterday from Tesco. Took it back today as everyone had a red face on the screen when using HDMI thru freeview.

Apart from that:

DVD Recorder: Seemed ok little difficult to use didn't really use that much in the 24hrs i had it.
HDD Recorder: I had a BT Vision box which was made by Philips which was very easy to use just click the (R) button when you wanted to recorded something and press it twice to record the entire series (like SKY+). I was hoping for the same thing with this purchase, i was so wrong. Very complicated interface it is like setting an old VCR, if you press REC it started recording from there (not like BT Vision where it started recording from the point you started watching it). Pausing Live (you had to make sure that the HDD was activated first) the screen went blank for bout 5 secs then paused. Picture Quality was good apart from everyone having a red outline when using Freeview thru HDMI, you could change the quality of recording so you can double the amount of record time on the 160 GB HDD. If you were recording a channel you had to watch that channel and there is no recording 2 programs at once (thou you could watch a DVD)

DVD Player: Very good quality especially using HDMI the pictures were Upscalled brilliantly almost to Blu Ray.

Overall:

Brilliant DVD Player in HDMI - 5 Star
Great Recorder using normal Scart - 4 Star
Rubbish Recorder if using HDMI - 0 Star

No Complaints

I bought this several months ago and I've been using it regularly ever since without any of the problems other reviewers have had ( apart from the stickers !!!). I can only recommend it if you can get it at the"right price"

none

I found this product great value for money,
The sound quality is great and does not have the exesive bass that is present in some systems.
would recommend this system.

Great all rounder

Great product - simple to set up and use.

Plays the usual plus DivX and can be made region-free - see KN for the code below - thanks for that KN.

good all rounder a great price

I got this from amazon about 6 months ago (6/2008), it arrived in good time and in good condition. The box is very large (1300 by 1000 by 600)
It is still working well, I would highly recommend this product for all ages, the olds (50's) have found the controls simple to use. The product is well made and has good sound, the issues about buzzing people mentioned i did not come across.
The only things i would change are: 1. the disc try is flimsy like a LG 2. The rear speakers are to large and the base stops you being able to push them against the wall 3. Loading a data stick is a bit fiddly on the controls as you have to hold down the AV button. 4. the data stick can be slow to load, i would not recommend using any larger than 2GB.
Overall a very good product from Philips.

Do not buy this DVD player

How this machine made it passed Philips testing I will never know, but please do not waste your money on it. Even trying to eject a Disk from the player is itself a heavy task. The Display comes up with Blocked 3 to 4 times before finally after you have pressed Eject for the fifth time (which takes about 2 minutes doing so) the player finally decides to give up and return your disk to you. Junk is the only way to describe this machine.