Philips PET824 8.5-Inch Portable DVD / DivX Player

I did hours of research within Philips brand to pick this one out and this portable Dvd player is super excellant and better version then many offered before and after it and does all the things that regular philips dvd player does.
My main concern in purchasing portable player was multiformat like Divx ,mp3 and region free dvds (that Sony doesn`t do though great player)so i took the bet and bought it and i am very happy with my choice of picking this one .You need remote to fast forward as on dvd player it`ll just give you option to skip chapters not fast forward scenes .Volume is excellant and most important thing to look in portable dvd players in BATTERY and it does have solid 5 hours that i tested and then my flight was over so not sure how much juice battery still had.

Cons
There is no carrying case with this player you need to buy one
It is white in color
Amazon doesn`t sell it so you have to go through third party that will not be quite good experience for many.Try Target mostly they still have it in stock ( i found out after buying on line )

I really recommend this DVD. My son just love it. It's simple and user friendly. That's all I needed.

A lot of good features but rather heavy. Advertised to play "MPEG4" which is similar to MP4 format used in Video Ipod devices or Zune (assuming file of course, is not copy protected.) No one seems to have commented WHETHER a non-copy protected mp4 video on a DVD (not DVD formatted) which would play directly on a video ipod will play on PET824.

Overall decent, nothing exceptional to brag about.
Main gripe is it's extremely loud motor.
It also takes forever to recognize DVDs and start playing.
Have only had 2 weeks, will see what else comes up.

Great quality, doesn't skip when used in the car. Great resolution, has been a life saver when traveling with the kids. Would recommend it.

This is my second portable dvd player, my first was an akai 7" which lasted about a year then suddenly stopped working.
This portable dvd player is everything I expected and more. I've had it for at least a year and haven t experienced any major problems yet.
The main feature I was looking for was a multi-regional player which this wasn't but the region-free hack from a previous review fixed that problem and now I can watch all regions of dvd.
It s definitely a great idea to buy a big-brand portable dvd player (eg sony, philips, samsung etc) rather than a random low budget brand - it's worth the cost.

PROS:
Beautiful looks.
Decent display, not as great as i had hoped though...
Long battery life.
Plays many different video and audio files.
Nice remote, with many features.
The included headphones were surprisingly amazing quality!
Includes case.
Worth what you pay.

CONS:
No fast-forward and rewind buttons on the player, but on the remote.
Flimsy disk drawer.
Great sound with headphones, below-average sound without.
Fairly scratch-sensitive, unlike some other portable dvd players.
Whirring sound when disk is loading, but stops when it s playing.

It s very tempting to stop the disk before it stops spinning but I suggest you don t, I think it messes up the player...

Item came quickly. Packaged well and has all components. Does have a lot of scratches on the cover but the inside looks great. The picture is great but as other people have reviewed on amazon about this item, it is loud when you turn it on and while the dvd gets ready to play and while it's turning off.

This is GREAT DivX player. Phillips seem to be the best at this. Yes it is a little noisy at startup but this is because it is reading COMPRESSED files (DivX format and Mpeg4) and is normal and goes away once the movie starts. I get 6 movies (DivX) on a standard DVD so this is why i choose this player. The battery life is AMAZING and the screen is great. The sound also seems fine to me. I wouldnt buy anything different for my DivX movies. It is also easy to unlock to region-free as i watch a lot of UK movies. Another excellent point is that it will play all my music files (mp3) on a DVD. Be careful as most players will not recognise mp3's on a DVD only on CD so check before you buy! I had not realised this before. I now have around 100 of my CD's in mp3 format and record them onto a single DVD so i never have to change the disc on a drive from East coast to West coast!(I work all over USA). I then plug the DVD player into my truck sound system and use the remote to change tracks etc. Great buy!

I really loved this player however it doesnt play while charging, which isnt a great concern since it has a long battery durability, headphones are not included, not a great concern again since it has the jacks and you can purchase that, what bothered me the most is that IT DOESNT HAVE SKIP PROTECTION!!

Very good DVD player. We couldn't go anywhere with our 2 kids without it. We did have 2 7-inch (PET724) models crap out eventually over probably 1.5-2 years time, but the kids are rough on them and accidents happen. These are very sturdy, and ours would even get splashed with water from time to time. We upgraded to the 8.5-inch (PET824) this time and it has held up the best so far. The box included EVERYTHING that you would ever need and then some. Everyone who sees our player(s) comment on the high quality construction and the shiny ivory-like exterior surface.

Truly a great product, can be made multi region, is multi voltage, battery lasts 6+ hours (even on a plane), speakers OK.

Only downside is the lack of ability to reverse the screen so as to deny little fingers from presing buttons when the dvd is playing.

This was bought for use on long trips with young children..I am now a little too familiar with the jungle book

Bought this DVD player after much research and just love it. The battery lasts forever (6 hours) and the picture is great.

Battery life is great! Other people said it will last 6 hours on one charge!
Audio is crisp and clear without head phones! Especially great with Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones!
Resolution is great from 2 feet away, but looks a little grainy up close.
I am very happy with the Philips 8.5 inch PET824 Portable DVD Player!
Has a external battery, but that doesn't bother me. Comes with car adapter and palm sized remote and the other audio/video cables. Has two head phone jacks on the side. I'd give it 10 out of 10 stars if I could!
Side Note: When first putting in a dvd it does make a loud spin up noise, but that is normal on all dvd players anyway. It will not interfere with normal operation of the device.

I bought one at Amazon. As soon as I put the DVD in, it started making funny noise, like it's about to break, so I've send it back and exchanged it for the same thing. The second one did the same thing. I am very disappointed! For $180 you'd think they would make it a bit quieter! I've owned a less expensive DVD player and it did not make this kind of noise. Also open button is getting stock a bit. Other then that its good, picture quality is good, and plays all my dvds and vcds, even the ones we brought from Europe.

It broke in 5 months. Skips, and then stops and starts. It was never dropped, in fact, it was seldom moved. It just wore out. Used about 5 hours a week for 5 months, so after about 100 hours it failed.

As some have mentioned it is loud, but that never bothered me. I think a product should have more than 100 hours of life though.

The Good: Portable DVD players are absolutely wonderful. Finally a product that my retired mother can operate. A DVD player without a million buttons actually gets used.

Screen is bright. Controls are simple. You can choose the aspect ratio if you want, but that doesn't complicate normal operation. More advanced options are buried in menus, but are logically arranged. All retail DVDs play. So far, all our home-recorded 4.7GB DVDs play on this unit. Sound is OK for a quiet room, but much better when using earphones.

The Not-So-Good: Unit seems to be rather noisy. Lots of spin up clicks and whooshes. Battery is external and bolts on much like a laptop's expansion dock. (These pictures show the unit without battery.)

The Disappointing: After 5 or 6 months, the noise became excessive. It might take 60 seconds for a DVD to begin to play and the picture would freeze. A quick call to the support line and the tech determined that the unit was defective. He suggested the most likely method of repair would be to swap it out. I was given an RMA number for warranty service.


The Abysmal: There is no option to drop it off locally anywhere in the country; all repairs must be shipped (at your expense) to Siloam Spring, Arkansas. Unfortunately, Philips does not offer an option to ship the replacement immediately using a credit card as security, so I sent it off, thinking I'd have the unit back in 8 or 9 days.

Weeks after shipping, no replacement. A phone call to the 888 "repair status" line produced nothing more than (1) the date it was received and (2) it will take 10 to 15 business days for it to ship. There is no option to get a real shipment date. Philips will not notify you when your replacement ships, though they do invite you to call back after "10 to 15 business days" to see if it is ready for shipment. Add another 3-4 days for ground return shipping.

No amount of prodding would get any useful information other than it will ship from the repair depot, or that the corporate complaint PO Box is in Marietta GA. The polite, but scripted, customer reps could only offer that "we have to follow this process."

Given the potential for a portable device with mechanical parts to need servicing in its lifetime, I will skip Philips next time and look for a brand with local repair service or speedier and more customer-friendly manufacturer's repair.

We bought this DVD player for my 2 1/2 year old daughter to keep her busy during a 4 1/2 hr drive. We now use it for shorter drives as well and in the house. We haven't used the battery yet so I'm not sure exactly how long it lasts. We've used the plug in the house and the adaptor in the car. The picture is super clear and the sound is great. At first there is a little whirring sound while it plays but I understand that this happens with all players. I hardly notice it after a while. I highly recommend this DVD player.

I have a Panasonic LX-8 that costed me nearly twice the price of the Philips unit. The Panasonic has been showing its age so I tried to save some money and got this little Philips unit. So how does it compare to its bigger Asian brother, you ask? First, the Philips unit is attractive to the eye before opening it up. However, the reduction in size of the screen of the Philips unit compared to the Panasonic unit is dramatic, terrible--even though it is suppose to be only a half inch smaller. Construction is worst on the Philips besides the well documented noisy feature of the Philip's drive that is probably blown out of proportion when it comes down to actually viewing movies. The sound on the Philips audio is poor, not worth listening, so headphones are a must--compared to the decent sound on the Panasonic unit.
The Philips unit is also advertised to pay "anything," which is anything but the truth, as it play only a select number of disks. I backup my DVD disks before going on LONG trips so as not to scratch or loose my expensive DVD disks. This little unit only plays about 1 out of 6 of them, while the Panasonic plays 5 our of 6. The Philips will not play ANY DL disks. I did a search on the web and found a hack or firmware update for the Philips unit which greatly improved its ability to play disks; if you plan to buy this unit, this is a MUST--even though it will never play DL disks.
The one positive attribute that betters the Philips over the Panasonic unit is that it plays DivX encoded disks--again Panasonic showing its age. This is important as if you go on 10-12 hour flights like I do, you can store many movies on one DVD disk. Do note that this unit has six hours advertised battery life, though I have never had the chance to test it. Another of the weakness is that it doesn't have an auto turn on (like the Panasonic unit); instead there is a side switch to power up and off. When putting it in the carry case (you have to buy this separate not included with unit) it is easy to turn the unit on by accident, so when I tried taking the unit on a long flight it only lasted an hour before dying as the switch had been on for several hours in the protective carrying case and drained the battery. Poor design plagues this unit from top to bottom. The Panasonic unit has a basic battery life of a couple of hours but you can buy additional battery packs that give you an additional 5 hours each--I have two, so have 12 hours without recharging.
So if you use Divx movies a lot, then the Philips unit do you best; but if you are looking for quality, reliability, good design, good construction, better sound and picture, and a strong customer service (Philip's POOR customer service is legendary)then going with a Panasonic LX-8, used or new, is a no brainier.
Basically, the rule of thumb is never buy Philips (European) if you can swing an alternative, quality Japanese brand for near the same money or you can afford to spend the extra money to go with true quality. Some might see this as bigotry or Asian prejudice (I am American BTW), but it is just the way the products are made, nothing to do with the actual countries themselves. I use all American and European High End Audio products in my home audio system, but these little gizmos are a different story!

The most wonderful thing about this DVD player is the fact the battery lasts for 6 hours. That's a rarity. The screen is crystal clear and the audio is great. I love this DVD player and would highly recommend it to anyone. The only down side and it doesn't really bother me a lot is that the drive is a bit noisy. The way to fix that is by tilting the DVD up in the front.

This DVD player was recommended to me by my IT person, so I bought it without reviewing the "reviews" on this product and I am sorry I did...even she has taken it off her "recommend list" I returned the item and got a replacement and it was the same. It is just so noisy especially when the DVD starts up and somewhat noisy when running. Also the volume doesn't' go very high. In the car it isn't loud enough unless the player is sitting on your lap... ON a good note the screen/image is beautiful.

bought this so that my son (2yrs old) wouldnt drive me nuts on long flights. The battery is WONDERFUL, keeps going all the way to Cancun and then some. Screen is above average, what do you expect for something this small - its not hi def, but great for what we need (mostly cartoons).

Not a bad little unit. I read some reviews stating how it was sort of noisy but I kind of expected that anyway. If you're wearing headphones or have external speakers jacked in it's not an issue. All in all I'm happy with the picture and the performance.

Nice player in some ways (long battery life and good picture quality), but it doesn't handle any of my DVD's which are copies. It only seems to be able to play store-bought DVD's. Also, it doesn't seem to be able to do forward or reverse scans without the remote control. Overall, I'm not very happy with it.

Purchased these DVD players to replace 2-Audiovoxes. Kids really like the features. Longest battery life on the market. Motor is a little loud when loading a DVD but then it gets quiet once loaded. Compared to higher priced DVD players, consider this to be the best for the dollars. Would definately recommend for purchase.

Yes it is a little noisy on start up,but it has a great picture quality.We feel this a good value for the money.Great battery lenght,battery is a bit bulky but it is still lightweight. Even my 6 year old can use it.

This Philips is one of the best portable DVD players that I have had. Great natural colors, good black backgrounds, Battery goes for about three movies, great when your stuck in a plane going nowhere.

The battery-life on this player is phenomenal! I've watched 4 full movies on one battery charge. I am very pleased with this purchase. The player is sturdy and compact. The picture is great and the sound quality (without the headphones) is average. With the headphones, the sound is also fantastic. The battery IS a little large, but it's not like I'm going jogging with it. And yes, there is a loudish whirring as the DVD starts to play, but it is the equivelent to the sound of any notebook computer starting up. And the whirring resolves once the movie gets going. All in all, this is a fantastic purchase, great quality for the price.

I read the customer reviews before buying this product, and decided to give it a try regardless of the multiple mentions of it being noisy. It doesn't matter how long the battery life (and it is long), or how nice the screen, it is so very loud when operating that I would never use it in public. It whirs, it spins, it squeeks, and then it does it all over again. Yikes! And, as other customers mentioned, it does have a high pitched squeek that doesn't go away when playing burned DVD's. I returned the product and tried another of the same, thinking it was possibly defective. The second shipment was just as bad as the first. This is truly a piece of junk!!!

I bought that around $150 via Office Depot and Costco also sell for this price. And the pic and sound are great. If you need a zone free DVD player, this is the one. I did a lot of research and Sony & Toshiba would not be able to hack to zone free. Don't bother to try. The battery, no others could be beat. It's a long enough that you can bring it for long haul flight. About the noisy spinning, YES it's noisy. But when you are watching movie, it don't bother me. Very satisfy with the purchase.

Overall I am well satisfied with the product. It not only looks sleek and neat but the battery holds up for quite a bit longer than the last player I had. The only negative is that the mechanism is noisy, emitting a humming sound when running that is irritating.

I travel every week and alot of times my flight will be over 4 hours. Most DVD players don't last that long and sometimes the plane doesn't have a power source, or it doesn't work so I'm dependent on the battery. This player hasn't stopped on me yet! Picture and sound are great. Excellent buy!

After I had to return my first unit to the manufacturer for a replacement (it made horrible high-pitched whistling noises and wouldn't play DVDs), I've finally got a unit that consistently works. I upgraded to this unit because it plays DivX (*.avi) format--and it plays the format well; it has no trouble with the newer encodings that will not play on my full-size DivX DVD players.

People who want to play DivX files in addition to DVDs should consider this unit for all their needs: in addition to being portable, it also plugs into TVs, making it an all-in-one solution: in addition to taking it on trips, it can also be moved from TV to TV around the house.

The best thing about this unit is its long battery life. I haven't timed it because I rarely use it continuously, but it lasts at least 6 hours--probably more. The picture is large, clear, and beautiful. Widescreen movies or shows fill up the entire screen and look great. Although DVDs look best, DivX files are also clear and unpixilated. There are plugs-ins for two sets of headphones--the sound is best listened to through headphones, not through the unit's speakers.

The unit does have a few drawbacks, but the fabulous picture and the ability to play DivX make up for them. It does not seem sturdy to me. The bulky battery pack is too hard to put on and too easy to dislodge, and the screen part that flips up wiggles if the unit is bumped. I also dislike having to use the remote to do simple things like change the aspect ratio, alter the contrast (it doesn't have a dial on the side, and the button on the top of the unit confusingly throws you through a series of modes, contrast being but one), or fast-forward. I also have to continually remove and replace disks, particularly ones I burn myself, in an attempt to get them to play, although they usually play by the third try or so.

If all you want to do is play preencoded DVDs, this unit is good for its clear picture and incredible battery life, although these may not be enough to mitigate the unit's drawbacks, particularly its clunky fragility. But I highly recommend it for people who want to play DivX files.

The device delivers what the manufacturer promises. I played different formats, including DIVX. The unit would not recognize some sort of MP4 format, nor was the claim made to the contrary. Otherwise, the picture is fine, the sound is good. Some complaints of noise at start-up, in my opinion, are somewhat exagerated. It is there, it is a little loud, but it lasts seconds. I believe I got my money's worth. I am enjoying the device, a lot.

I purchased this item 2 weeks ago and am very happy with it. The screen is very sharp and clear, the sound through the speakers is adequate.
I haven't tried it with earphones yet. My only complaint is that it does indeed make some loud noises when you first put in the DVD, but it is quiet once it is playing. There was an incident the first day where I put in a DVD and it didn't seem to want to load, but after opening and closing the cover and it came right up. It has not happened since and I'm using it daily.

I popped in a CD my sister had made containing a bunch of short movies off the internet and the ones correctly formatted in a way the player could read played just fine.

It gets a 4.5 stars.

If you are looking for a portable dvd player then this the one you should nope not should you MUST buy.

You can use this without the battery! and has a car charger too.I love this thing, the picture is good and big 8.5" with different screen size settings.Simple is always good.4 stars because the battery is like quasimotos hump,its big(havent had time to comment on battery life).The sound is left to be desired,is that why they have 2 earphone jacks? hmm.I bought this 4 days ago and now its 20 bucks less :( a great buy.well now it is!

The player is very good and am very satisfied with its function so far.

I purchased this product after doing much research and am very happy that this is the one I chose. The quality of the picture is A+, the sound is good and my grandson loves watching his baby DVDs while grandma babysits.

My ONLY negative comment is if you have to call Philips with a question, they aren't very helpful. My question was regarding the battery. If you plug it in, will it bypass the battery, so the battery doesn't get drained? No one could ever give me an answer, so I am "assuming" it will and will work like a laptop computer.

Otherwise, A+ for this purchase!!

THE 8.5 INCH SCREEN IS NICE , PLAYS ALL TYPES OF MEDIA , EASY TO USE , COMES WITH ALL WIRING AND THE 6 HOUR BATTERY IS GREAT ON TRIPS .

I like this unit. Everything works like it should. My only complaint is that the unit is very noisey on the DVD motor. Spin up and Spin down is much louder than I've ever heard from any DVD player. Once its up to speed, its not nearly as loud, but louder than any other unit I've heard.

The unit is excellent, delivering the battery power rating as promised and has a gorgeous display and most importantly, plays DiVx discs flawlessly as promised. I love the "no dead Pixels" guarantee which is almost unheard of these days and is an excellent buy. Definitely better to stick with a "name brand" like Philips as I have had tried other cheaper units and they just never worked as advertised.

I did return the unit to Amazon though since they had no lower-price matching offer and ended up getting the unit from Office Depot which offerred 3-day delivery and had the unit for $50 less.

I bought this player because I wanted something to watch movies with in my room where I have neither a television or a dvd player. The slick look of the casing, the massive battery pack, large clear screen, and enough buttons to control the menus are the best highlights.

Down points:
DOES NOT PLAY DVD-R/+R/-RW/+RW well. If you play a working backup on this machine it will screech and scream through the entire movie. I have no clue where this sound comes from but a regular DVD... quiet as a sleeping baby. And by screech and scream the machine is making these noises. Like some door opening without any grease on the hinges times 10.

The player will also not play ALL backup DVDs either. The DVD may work in one machine, not in another. This is a typical behavior with backups so I'm not worried about it. But for those looking for a pancea to this problem, this is not part of the solution.

The player becomes hot during extended use. The heat is felt on the back, top right corner of the machine and weather the temp continues to go up or stays constant, this maybe of concerned for those who want a robust product that won't fail them when the machine is seated on carpet. Its even written on the back of the device, "The surface of the unit will heat in the case of longtime playback, but it is never a malfunction." True or not, I feel any portable device generating heat, means I'm losing battery life. Heat = energy. Fluorescent lighting doesn't generate a lot of heat and it consumes 1/3 of the electricty than an incandescent bulb for the same or greater lumen output.

I am more of a headphone kind of guy but I do agree that the location of the speakers on the bottom and not by the screen or inside above the buttons is bad design. Sound loudness and quality are good enough to draw attention from several seats in a busy airport.

The remote is what I come to expect from miniturization. It works and does what it does. Some may find that pressing the buttons take a lot of effort.

The software on the machine or "firmware" could use some intuitive programming. However it is as much as I expect from a corporate conglomorate appeasing standards. Things like skipping FBI warnings, trailers, long opening menus, basically complete control over the DVD. Opensource applications like VideoLan for for PCs is a good example.

All in all I am still satisfied with my purchase. I bought the product not just for quality but for brand name. Much like buying a new laptop or car. Are you going to trust a cheap KIA or an expensive Volvo to last you 10+ years. And for those wondering I dropped it once on the side when it slid off my lap and onto the laminant flooring without the movie skipping.

I would have scored this product higher but the noise from playing backup DVDs is just unbearable. No amount of hightech sound system is going to drown out the distinct sound comming from this machine.

It's everything advertised in the other reviews, I did notice that the cheaper DVD's are noisier than the "expensive" ones when playing. I bought this with an extra battery pack (can I name who here?) and the picture quality is awesome! The small speakers are usable but I recommend using this with head phones, if you want top quality sound! I'm glad I purchase this unit - no dead pixels either!

I read the other reviews about the mechanical noises this DVD player makes while scanning the DVDs. I thought it was much to do about nothing, so I bought one anyway because of the long battery life and sleek look...but then I tried to play my first DVD! The other reviewers were not exaggerating! This thing could wake up a sleeping spouse with the mechanical noises it makes while it's thinking about whether it wants to play your disc or not! Eventually it started playing my DVD after 3o seconds or so. To be fair, it then played fine if you don't need to use the navigation buttons much. But if you need to go back to the main menu, etc, it is slow to respond to the buttons. I got really frustrated, and I am returining mine tomorrow!

I "purchased" this with points that I received from work, but glad I used more points and got a better player than a cheaper one. The picture is perfect and it is a little loud and slow when it's loading, but I can deal with it as long as the picture and sound work, which they do.

Used it in the car and didn't have a problem with the sound and my husband (driving) caught glances and thought the picture looked good. The main use is to hook up to the tv in our study as a component, which I haven't done yet only because the tv is old/cheap and doesn't have inputs.

Haven't tried DivX stuff yet.

The remote is ok.

I purchaed this item for myself as a Christmas gift and I really like it. Althought the battery extens a bit off the back it's almost like a mini stand. The pix is great and the first night I recieved it I tested out the 6 hour battery and it WAS SIX HOURS! My only complaint is that it came with no maunal and I was wondering how long it waould take the battery to recharge, and a few other basic but none the less simple questions. Well it took the battery about 8 hours to recharge on a 110 voltage. I plan on using it on transatlantic flights so we'll se how long it take to recharge on a 220 with converter!

This thing sounds like an airplane taking off as the disk spins. Also, the speakers are mounted along the front, not up by the screen as other (better designed) players have. Even though it's a hassle, I'm sending this back.

Wanted a portable DivX and Burned DVD player, with focus on being able to entertain friends.

Frighteningly disappointing. Right out of the box, I put in a burned DVD. Player was having immense trouble playing just the menu! Kept making these horrible noises like scratching and grinding. Then before I even tried playing my movie, the player would spin down! Tried with DVD+ and DVD- same result. The manual is in like 30 languages and opens like a massive map, and when you finally find ENGLISH, you see that there is MINIMAL troubleshooting. Gave up on my Burned DVD's.

Tried the DivX function. Put in a DVD loaded with pictures, avi, mpg, mov, and rm files.

1. It takes an annoyingly long time to scan the disc before showing the contents.
2. It won't list any files it can't play (like QuickTime and Real)
3. If you want to display a picture, it thinks it is a movie and puts it on screen for less than a second! And forget about slideshows!
4. If your TV is NTSC, then you have to Scroll through the Player's menus etc. to change it over to PAL for any PAL movies!
5. It has trouble with large DivX files. Enough to make it unusable. If you need to fast-forward through a large part of the movie, forget it - it totally freezes up!
6. Worst but not least, the whole time, it kept making this insane, high pitch noise that sounded like an army of dog whistles in you ear, only more grating. It kept making the noise, then it would stop and start again after about 10 seconds and go for a long time. I knew this noise would never fly with ANY of my friends. I couldn't take it and I have bad hearing and am a very tolerant person..lol!

This is what I found in about 1 hour of testing, and I wasn't trying to test it at all! I just wanted to watch ANYTHING and it just so happened that the PET wasn't able to make that happen. Imagine what you would find out if you REALLY tested it? I didn't. I sent it back.

I have seen a better DivX player in a modded Xbox EASY! and MUCH cheaper too. All the problems I just discussed are NO PROBLEM on a modded Xbox. And that came out in 2001! The DivX player industry right now is basically non-existent. It is too experimental for real people to actually use it.
Bottom line: The only people who like this unit are rich, yuppie, loaded guys who just want every gadget and don't plan on REALLY using it. ..or, they just got ripped off really bad on a portable DVD player for just playing storebought DVDs.

I was blown away by the picture on the Phillips PET824 portable DVD player. The LCD screen is "liquid" crystal clear. You lose a little definition as you move side to side (as with most LCD type screens) which only comes into play if you're trying to share the screen in really close quarters (like if three of you are trying to watch in 3 side-by-side coach fare airline seats). But if the PET824 is primarily for personal use you'll love the picture.

The sound is fair without headphones, but I don't think that the idea was to use PET824 without them. Sound is fabulous with a good pair of headphones; your iPod headphones will do just fine (and if you don't have a good pair you'll need to buy one because the PET824 doesn't come with any).

The battery is a bit bulky. You'd think that with today's technology they'd be able to slim it down, but you can't complain about the 6 hours of life you get with it after a full charge. Some portable DVD players give you only 2 hours of life and that just barely gets you through a single movie. The PET824 is good for 2 full length features before charging and that's awesome for long trips where you can't use the DC adapter or car adapter.

The battery fully charges in apx 4 hours. And don't leave the battery attached after shutting down so as to preserve the charge.

The car adapter works great and has a nice long cord. So no need for the battery on car trips.

The PET824 fits in my small briefcase, and it's relatively light. Amazon sells cases for the PET824 that mount on the back of the driver or passenger seats. The one I got also mounts in between the driver and passenger seats. I'd highly recommend a case for your player. I went with the Case Logic Koskin DVD Player Case.

The biggest complaint I have about the PET824 is that the anti-slide pads on the bottom of the player are worthless. The player slides all over the place on a hard surface, and that won't do at all on an airline fold down tray. I put some good sticky anti-slide pads on my PET824 (available at any hardware store for less than a dollar).

Also the remote's a bit busy for kids, but my kids mastered it pretty quickly. For whatever reason the remote includes a bunch of useless number keys (0 - 9) that take up space that could have been used to make the primary function keys bigger. As is, the remote is useless in a dark car.

Finally, the DivX thing is a bit of a mystery to me. I've not tried it out yet, and I'm not clear as to whether or not you can burn DivX movies with just the DivX software or if you need a DVD burner on your home computer system in order to burn and be able to play downloaded DivX video on your Phillips PET824 portable (or DivX compatible home DVD player for that matter). I checked some DivX sites and they're all pretty (deliberately???) ambiguous on how exactly it works with burning a DivX DVD. And all the DivX movie sharing and downloading sites seem to want your email address before they'll even let you see what kind of movies are even available. So I'd welcome a review that is clear and concise on the matter.

All in all....The PET824 was a very satisfying purchase for me. I'm glad it's the one that I chose.

Got this for my wife and kid traveling outside the country and we liked watching the DVDs on this rather than our 27 inch tube tv. Colors are great, battery life is unbelievable. Short-listed Panasonic LS91, Sony FX8 and this and spent two days researching and decided on the Philips. GLAD I did that.
Panasonic is great no question about that but is pricey. Sony display is not good enough. Philips surprised me...its like all those great Korean cars that are surprising everyone