Polaroid Portable DVD Player - Not so portable anymore.
Written: Jun 05 '06 (Updated Jun 05 '06)
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Pros: Great picture, excellent sound, swivel LCD screen very convenient, feature packed.
Cons: Unacceptably poor battery life.
The Bottom Line: If this model had a decent battery I would highly recommend it, but as it seems Polaroid has a problem with batteries I will not buy another Polaroid DVD player.
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| mongkut's Full Review: Polaroid PDM-0722 7 in. Portable DVD Player with S... |
Preface
My wife had been bugging me about buying her a portable DVD player for work. When we travel I often take my laptop and usually a few DVDs in case there is nothing decent on TV in our hotel. Many a rainy day on vacation has been eased by a good movie or two. During her work day my wife has a fair amount of down time and a portable DVD player would make a great way for her to relax a bit before work resumed. It would also be handy to take both my laptop and the portable DVD player on trips so that I could do some work at the same time that she or my son watched a movie.
In looking at the various sizes available and the price ranges we decided that either a 7" or 8" player would be ideal and that we'd try to keep the price somewhere around $150. In shopping around local electronics stores I noticed something I haven't seen nearly as much with other product searches, a huge number of unrecognizable brand names. I'm used to seeing one or two odd names when searching for TVs, especially LCDs. In one store alone they had 5 manufacturers I'd never even seen before. A quick search of these brands didn't provide much information and I wasn't crazy about being a guinea pig. At Best Buy they heavily focused on their house brand, Insignia. The problem with house brands is that it almost always means the product is made by a third party manufacturer under contract and it is usually difficult to find out who that is. Although, years ago I got a heck of a good deal on a Sears brand Hi-Fi 4 head VCR at a time when high-end units were going for upwards of $300. A little research and putting two and two together and I found out the unit I was interested in was actually made by Panasonic and the Panasonic label version was selling for over $150 more than the Sears labelled model. In the case of Insignia I just wasn't going to take the time to find out who their source is, and I might not recognize the name if I did.
I finally ended up looking at Sony, Audiovox, and Polaroid. Sony had a great picture but at $199 was $70 more than the $129 for either the Polaroid or Audiovox. The Audiovox had the largest screen at 8" but the picture was the worst and it did not have a swivel screen as did the Polaroid. In the end I chose the Polaroid as its picture was excellent and it was feature packed including being the only one of the three with a swivel screen.
The Player
The Polaroid PDM-0722 7" portable DVD player is a very lightweight unit at slightly under two pounds and comes with a wireless remote control, rechargeable lithium-ion battery, car power adapter, AC adapter/charger, and a splitter to allow for two head phones. The unit is very compact and measures 1.3"H x 5.94"W x 7.68"D making it easily stowable. The 7" TFT-LCD screen has a resolution of 480 x 234 and a 16:9 aspect ratio for widescreen DVD playback. The PDM-0722 plays a wide variety of formats including DVD, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, music CDs, CD-R/RW, and JPEGs. It also is compatible with a number gaming systems via an adapter but we have not used this ability so I can't comment on how well this works.
Along with the excellent picture one of the things that impressed me the most with this model was the wonderful sound coming from such a tiny integrated speaker. The PDM-0722 has a built-in Dolby Digital Decoder that really enhances audio playback which is especially noticeable when viewing my favorite action movies. The LCD screens ability to swivel 180° is fantastic as this allows us to use it in any vehicle as a back seat DVD player for my son or turn it into a tablet DVD player. Other features I find very nice are the level of controls right on the player itself making the remote more of a luxury than a necessity as it is with other players. Besides the standard stop, play, and pause buttons you can control fast forward and reverse scanning, slow motion, and skip to the next track right from the player. On top of this you can access the set up and DVD menus from the player as well. The remote is handy in a hotel room when we're relaxing after a busy day strolling through a theme park and don't want get up. But in a car I'd rather be able to pack the remote and just press a button on the player to activate the function I need. The PDM-0722 makes this easy.
The Downside
The lithium-ion battery is rated for 3 hours which we found to be pretty accurate. As the PDM-0722 comes with a car adapter the only time we use the battery is if it needs to be used in a building too far from an outlet or on an airplane. Unfortunately the battery died after less than 6 months usage but longer than the 90 day limited warranty. That to me is very discouraging and to make matters worse a replacement battery is $59.99 or roughly half the cost of the player. In reading the information on Polaroid's website it appears they have some serious issues with portable DVD player batteries including a voluntary recall of batteries in models manufactured between 2003 - 2004. Current model owners are advised not to allow the battery to charge more than 8 hours, so I guess unlike most consumer electronics with the Polaroid models you need to disconnect and remove the battery when using AC power. I guess they've never heard of trickle charging. Very poor design.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 129.99
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