Review on 📀 Panasonic DVD-LS850 Portable DVD Player: 8.5" Diagonal Widescreen LCD, Deluxe Version with Carry Case, Car Headrest Bracket, DC Adapter & 6-Hour Battery by Luke Cotton

I recently switched to portable DVD players to make my 1-hour+ one-way train ride a little more comfortable to design . I started with a lot of research and settled on an 8.5 inch player from Philips - 6 hours of battery life and a screen that beats the competition (mostly from Sony). I ordered online after reading the specs on multiple websites. , and make sure it looks perfect. The product has arrived - and guess what I missed in weeks of research - the battery weighs an additional 1.5 pounds and protrudes significantly from the packaging. to a 4 pound DVD player. Might as well take a Thinkpad with you. Luckily (or not) the product stopped working after just 2 weeks - and I've gone through a full refund and refund. My next stop is Panasonic here. It looked great right out of the box - multiple viewing angles, no hidden heavy batteries (product weight 1050g / 2lb 5oz with batteries as measured by my kitchen scale) and the battery slides into a loop - like some Sony laptops - a big one Plus that the 6-hour battery lasts with minimum brightness and headphones on - that means if you select anything other than "moonlight" as the brightness setting (there's daylight - I like the brightest best, of course - as well as custom brightness and contrast settings ) the battery lasts less. To be honest, I only need one feature film, maybe two - so I'm happy with the battery life so far - but it won't be less than 3.5 hours. Battery life aside, everything - everything again - is better than the Philips. My Costco purchase came with a tote bag — maybe not a standard accessory — but Revain's list has it too. The case is larger but quite nice - well lined, with a main zip for storing the player and a side compartment for 4 DVDs, a couple of cables etc. As for the box, here's what's inside - player and battery pack, power supply power supply, Car cigarette lighter adapter, mounting kit to mount the player on the back of car headrest and AV cable. Enough to get started. This requires a 12V DC input, so the car adapter is pretty simple - Philips used a weird 10.5 volts (IIRC). Philips also had a super-minimalist design, which meant you had to use the remote to fast-forward as the device didn't have an FF button. This saves you pain. The buttons are neat, clear and conveniently placed on the front of the device. Another big win over Philips is hard drive reactivation. I watch about half a movie on my morning commute and need to pick up where I left off last night—simple. Just press the play button. The next win is the on/off button. Philips had it on the side - with the big, heavy battery, the brush on the side of my bag could flip that switch - which meant the battery was dead by the time I finally sat down to watch a movie. Panasonic protected this with a clamshell design - much better. Additionally, the power button (like stop, long press) smoothly dims the screen and turns off the player - a nice touch. Another plus is the noise level. The Philips was quite loud - people sitting next to you could easily hear the DVD's loud hum unless you took off your headphones so the soundtrack could distract them. Not here. As for the screen - both are equally good - Panasonic is a little tighter as the size of the player is around 16 x 9 and Phillips has a little more room around the bezel because. the player is a bit out of 16x9. In any case, this is a tight situation. All in all I'm glad Philips is dead and this came out just in time. Panasonic released similarly styled DVD players much earlier than the rest of the market, but back then they were priced at $400 and had a 2-hour battery life. I'm really glad they got things moving while still being light enough to carry around. Models have changed slightly in these 18 months, the basic functionality has not changed much. I'm surprised to see how and the price. I guess the market has calmed down to some extent and that makes Panasonic the clear winner - no amazing releases from anyone else in this space. FYI, the DVD player still works.