Mustek PL-607 7 in. Portable DVD Player

INTRO:
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When I started using the device, I noticed right away that it worked well for playing DVDs and it had a nice little screen without any dead pixels. (Dead pixels are small areas of the screen that do not light up due to manufacturing defects. My test unit did not have any such defects). This device did have an overall 'cheap' feel to it, but not horrible.

TEST OVERVIEW:
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After spending some time with the device, I noticed a few things that eventually caused me not to be pleased with it. First of all, it does not have video input. Since the device has a nice screen it frustrated me that I could not plug my xbox or camcorder or anything else into it - so as to make better use of my investment. On the other hand, the device does have very good video output, including progressive scan output which is theoretically useful if you have a TV that can support this format. It also offers S-Video and regular composite output, meaning it will work with practically any TV on the market. It also has what I consider very good sound quality, and furthermore it can output the sound in Dolby digital 5.1 as well as your regular dual channel stereo.

MUSIC (mp3/ audio CD testing):
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Aside from lacking any AV input options, my second biggest BEEF with this device is that it doesn't perform well with MP3 disks. It DOES play MP3s. But I put in a DVD disk full of MP3s and it sat there for about a minute scanning the disk, to make an index... that was very annoying, and I became very impatient. Once it finally started to play the MP3s, I noticed that if the MP3s were nested down in subdirectories, it could only play the first song in the directory. Very annoying. This is what I would call a 'firmware bug'. However, I checked and no firmware update was available. Also, it wouldn't read some disks at all on the first try. But if I removed the disk from the drive and tried a second or third time, it would work. This my dear friends, indicates a weak/bad laser. A good strong laser would work the first time -- causing me to worry about trouble down the road.

Once I did get the disks to read, the MP3s that were able to play sounded very good as did the audio cds I tried. The small earbud headphones that came with the player were of decent quality and produced satisfactory frequency response.

DVD TEST:
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I tested a few different dvd's on this player, including some that I mastered myself. The device played all the DVD disks just fine, including those I made on DVD-R which were recorded from my DVD recorder. The device had no problem doing its DVD playback duty -- but operation required the remote control - so make sure not to loose the remote or you won't be able to operate it except at the most basic level.

DVD test result summary:
- SUBTITLES: worked
- Fast Forward/Rewind: worked, player skipped frames beyond 2x (normal)
- DVD MENUS: worked

OTHER TEST:
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This device offers the ability to view certain other media files, such a JPEG images. A file menu, like windows explorer allows you to navigate through disk contents and select the file you wish to play or view. This worked as expected.



Conclusion:
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This device is good if all you want to do is play dvd movies. Not only is it portable, but it has enough features
to work as a regular home DVD player. However, the problems I had with recognizing some MP3 encoded disks caused me concerns about the drive quality.


Accessories:
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- battery pack
- a/c cords to attach player to a TV
- remote control unit with battery
- Power adapter for home
- Power adapter for car
- headphones (sound surprisingly good)

Pros:
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- The screen is nice looking.
- works well for just playing DVDs
- It comes with a lot of useful accessories, such as car power adapter for use in car.

Cons:
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- bad laser (difficulty reading some disks)
- cheap plastic
- requires remote control for operation.
- bugs playing mp3s from subdirectories
- no video input
- takes a long time to scan and index a mp3 disk to play it
- Does not support flash cards... some portable dvd players will also support Compact Flash or SD cards for certain files, however this player does not offer such a feature.
- power switch is manual and difficult to operate because it requires sliding but the force required to operate it makes it awkward, and it's in an inconvienient place behind a cord.

More information:
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www.mustek.com -- they have a spec sheet in pdf here:
http://www.mustek.com/html/prod_dvd/pl607.html