LG DP781 8 in. Portable DVD Player

I need access to movies and entertainment at all times, it seems.  I can't help it.  Car trips over 90 minutes, waiting rooms, long elevator rides - anymore my patience for killing time without videos or music is nil.  I'm not sure what happened.  The older I get the weirder I get, I think.

So it occurred to me last year that what I might really need is a portable DVD player, something with a decent screen that I could see from the driver's seat.  And when I started looking around the one that caught my eye first was an LG.  LG makes DVD players?  Up until that point, the sum total of my LG experience was my first cell phone, which was indestructible and worked perfectly.  My follow up - a Motorola - was a disappointment, so I've always had a profound admiration for LG.  And this DVD player only enhanced that.

Let me just say, I love LG.  I love everything about them.  I went back to LG for my current cell phone, the newest generation Chocolate, and it's been near flawless.  Those folks at LG really have it together.  If they made cigarettes, I'd be smoking three packs of LGs a day (not that I'm advocating smoking).  If they brewed beer, I'd curl up with a six pack of LG Lite every night (not that I'm advocating excessive drinking).  If they made actual chocolate - well, you get my point.

So this light, compact DVD player suits me fine.  It's got an eight inch screen, which is just right for one person to watch (backing away to allow someone else to see makes it a little harder).  The video quality is excellent, very sharp and clear, and the audio is very decent.  I've done a fair bit of watching this while driving (I know it's not the safest thing, don't judge me), and the speaker isn't quite loud enough to compensate for the traffic noise, so I had to pick up a radio converter, so I could pull the sound in on the car stereo. 

There doesn't seem to be any significant difference between playing DVDs and DVD-Rs or RWs.  Sometimes you find DVD players that either can't play burned movies, or play them stuttering and poor.  This LG works fine.  Also nice is there is an USB port, so you can plug in a flash drive and show people pictures through the player, or listen to MP3s or WAV files, if that's your style.

I'm leery to play CDs on a DVD player, so I've never tested this alleged feature.  A few times in the distant past I'd done this and really, the DVD players were never the same after doing so.  Maybe it was just early generation models that couldn't handle it, perhaps now it's okay to do, but I'm too nervous of ruining it.  My mom told me as a kid not to stand in front of the microwave while it was running, and to this day I still don't, even though I think the risk of radiation is considerably less now with modern technology.  Point is, if I learn something early on, it is not likely to change.

The package claims that the battery will last five hours on a full charge, and that's pretty generous.  A better estimate would be four hours, depending on how loud you have the sound, how careful you are to turn the device off as opposed to pausing, and if you watch things one after the other, or stop in between.  Still, you get decent life out of the battery considering the size of the apparatus. 

Anyway, you shouldn't need the battery too much, as the adaptor cord is fairly long (if you're near an outlet) and it comes with a cigarette lighter plug in cord as well (practically inviting you to watch movies while you drive!  I feel vindicated!).  I only really use the battery in airports (why can't you ever find outlets in airports?) or on the train (no cigarette lighters!).

I've never had occasion to utilize the screens folding capability, but it seems like a nice feature for some folks.  You can turn the screen around and fold it down onto the unit so it's flat, if you so please.  This really isn't too useful in the car, where you need it propped open to see from just about anywhere, or on the train, or really anywhere I can figure.  It's a cool thing to do, but I'm not hip to where this would be handy.

It comes with a fairly basic little remote, but I really don't see why you'd ever use it, unless you've got this DVD hooked up to a regular TV.  Really, if you're so far away from the player that you'd use a remote, you won't be able to see the screen anyway, so why should you care to pause or rewind?  Still, the remote has what you'd expect from a remote, sans volume control.  You still have to use the wheel on the side for that.

The key pad on the unit takes a little getting used to, as you have to keep hitting the diamond shaped button to unlock the others, but I suppose this is for the best.  The impressions (in lieu of raised buttons) are so sensitive you'd always be changing something every time you brushed by them.  The black button and DVD cover area smudge very easily and drastically, so if you're anal about streaks, you'll have a conniption keeping it streak free.  It distracts me a lot of the time, but I'm sort of anal that way, unfortunately.

It's not completely perfect, this LG.  It could have a longer lasting battery, a bigger screen, a louder speaker, but it works very well for my purposes.  As a side note, for all the concerned motorists reading this, I no longer even have a car, since I moved to the public transit happy big city of Chicago.  So don't worry about me not seeing you while I'm distracted by Amadeus and blasting us into a ravine.  Rest easy!