For my birthday last October, my boyfriend bought me an Oritron DVD-100. He had just gotten a job after graduating college, and he didn't have much money. He figured it might not be the best DVD player in the world, but it was a DVD player that he could afford. How much of a difference could there really be?

I'd never heard of Oritron before. When he told me how much he had paid for it ($120), I thought it sounded a little low. I did not accuse him of being a cheap boyfriend (I mean, $120 is still a lot to spend on a girl), but I thought, "Couldn't you have at least picked a recognizable name brand?" He couldn't have, though; that would have meant paying for the parts that make the DVD player work.

Well, the Oritron player did work the first few times I used it. But it always had problems. The disc tray would almost never open on the first try. I'd also have to hit Play repeatedly to make the player recognize the DVD. Oftentimes, I would have to unplug the player from the wall to sort of 'restart' it when I couldn't get the disc tray to open or the disc to read, because the Power button wouldn't let me turn the thing off. On all of these issues, I tried both the remote control and the console itself.

The remote control also is cheaply made. Buttons would get stuck under the cut-outs after pressing them down, and I wouldn't notice (they're very small buttons) until I tried to figure out why the red light on the DVD player wouldn't stop blinking.

Additionally, other remote controls seemed to confuse the Oritron. Using another control (to change the TV channel, for instance) would cause the machine's red light to blink, and subsequent attempts to turn off the Oritron would fail.

I filled out the 90-day warranty form a few days after receiving this present. The form was fraught with typos. I pointed them all out and told them that their company couldn't be expected to be trustworthy if they had all of these mistakes on such a small piece of paper.

Well, I was right - I had no reason to trust Oritron's products. Shortly after the 90 days were up, the DVD-100 broke for good. When I put a disc into the player, it returned the message "Wrong or Bad Disc." The discs weren't wrong or bad at all. You know what was.

My boyfriend, wonderful and generous person that he is, rescued me from DVD hell. A couple of weeks ago, he bought me a nice, above average Sony. I can finally watch DVDs without interruption or frustration.

Avoid the DVD-100. It's cheap for a reason. Pay a little more and save yourself unnecessary frustration.







Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 120