Toshiba SDP-1800 8 in. Portable DVD Player

Having the American Express Platinum card has a few advantages. One; no interest, two; a glossy magazine Departures that advertises things like Private Jets, and three; reward points that I can turn in for stuff I like. This year, I had accumulated enough points to decide to redeem some of them, and got this Toshiba Portable DVD Player. I love electronic gadgets, and I didn't have a portable DVD player. Even my ten year old son has a portable DVD player that he got a couple Christmas's ago. Well it arrived earlier this week, and I have had a chance to get it up and running and give you my thoughts on it. Although I received it for free, I believe it retails for $200.00.

Package Of course the DVD player is included, a remote control, a lithium battery for the remote, a large attachable rechargable battery for the DVD player, an AC power cord with adapter, to power the unit or charge the battery, and a car adapter to power the unit. Instructions come with it, and cords to plug it into your Stereo system if you choose. It does NOT come with a carrying case.

Overall Appearance The unit is very sleek looking, it is thin, and a shiny silver color. I liked the way the unit looked. You open it up, and the controls for the DVD player are on the right of the base with buttons for input modes, picture, menu and setup, and the familiar selection wheel and start stop pause fast forward and rewind buttons are here as well. The screen is a widescreen 8" diagonal LCD screen. Inputs and the volume control are on the side of the unit, and the battery if used, fits on the bottom and sticks out towards the back.

The Battery Right off, the battery sort of sticks out of the back of the DVD player, so it doesn't look quite as sleek, it just doesn't look integrated into the player. You also have to charge it while the unit is off, and it takes about 3 1/2 hours to charge. You cannot watch a DVD on the player while the battery is being charged! The battery life is about 4 hours. If you are taking a long international flight, I guess this is NOT the portable DVD player that you want to take along.

Car Adapter / Car Use I liked that a car adapter is included, but it seems to be limited to watching the DVD player in the car while parked, because it says right in the instruction manual NOT TO USE the player in a MOVING vehicle. So, although this unit is portable, it is not intended to be used by your kids in the back seat of the car while you are driving. I don't think it should be used in the car while you are stopped, because the kids shouldn't be left in a car. I thought perhaps I could charge the DVD player in my car on the way to the subway, and then watch a movie while I take the T (MBTA, Boston's subway system) into Boston. However, the instruction manual also warns against charging the battery with the car adapter. Sooo.. I guess for those times that you are sitting in your car, not moving, you can plug in this Portable DVD player and watch a movie! Myself, I don't spend much time at all in my car sitting still, once I get to where I am going, I exit my car, and go there!

Subway Use I did try watching a movie on the way into Boston, on our cities MBTA aka the T, our subway system. Although the unit is a bit awkward to hold, I was able to watch a movie on my trip, using the headphones.

The LCD Screen I was a bit disappointed in the clarity of the screen. Yes, I could see okay, but you have to have the LCD screen angled just right to see the picture well. Whenever the sun came through the windows, it was also more difficult to see. I also have a complaint about the sharpness of the screen. It is only an 8" diagonal wide screen, and since its portable, I would use it mostly in instances where I am sitting, riding a train or a plane or perhaps in a waiting room, so it will be about 2 feet from my face. You can notice the pixels or the screen door effect on the screen. It is only of television quality, and not the smooth look of DVDs that I am used to. I blame this partly on the lack of progressive scan, although I have had other DVDs that lacked progressive scan and still had a nice picture (such as my APEX 20" TV/DVD combo player). I looked at some other portable DVD players, and it seemed that some had sharper pictures than others. My sons Playstation Portable (PSP) for example, rendered a sharper picture. So the screen is suitable, but not great. For the record, I did fiddle with the contrast and brightness buttons and I did tilt the screen back and forth, but at most I obtained a television quality picture.

Playable Discs The DVD player will play commercial DVDs, CDs, and home recorded DVDs. I did have one commercial disc that it refused to recognize, and I am not sure why. It did play back up copies of movies that I had made on DVD-Rs with no problem. It also played CDs including those made in the MP3 format.

JPEG CDs and Memory Cards Yes, this DVD player allows you to view JPEG photographs on a CD-R or an SD memory card. I thought that this was a wonderful feature to include. I have a small Canon camera, and the view screen on the back is not very good for showing photographs, so the thought of having a portable DVD player to place the Memory card in to really see the photographs seemed wonderful! I give Toshiba credit for this really good idea. Yet, they managed to screw it up. None of the photographs appear in the proper aspect ratio. Instead of displaying photos as they were taken, the Toshiba stretches them out to fill the screen. It does this with memory cards, and photo CDs alike. I called customer support to see if perhaps there was something I had missed. Nope, Toshiba just didn't design this unit to actually display photos the way they were taken. So if you want to show off photos of you and your friends that make you all look short and fat, well the Toshiba DVD player is for you. (although to be far, depending on the photo, you may also look very tall and thin).

Customer Service I was very happy with the quickness and politeness of the customer service team at Toshiba. I called regarding the skewed aspect ratio of photos using the Player, and my call was routed to a real human within just a few minutes of waiting time. He listened to my problem, and after he couldn't get an answer, he asked a supervisor, who also responded very quickly. Regrettably, the final answer was that the Player just wouldn't display jpegs in the proper aspect ratio, but I did like their quick and courteous response.

Outputs The Toshiba comes with basic composite video out and left and right audio channels if you want to use this as a regular DVD player. With a lack of progressive scan and the better quality S-Video or component video outs, this too, fails to really achieve a desirable result. At least the unit allows you to choose whether your TV is widescreen or 4:3 format. It also has a digital out, but uses an output that requires a special cable, and it is not a standard digital cable, in fact I have never seen one like it before. (and I have seen a LOT OF CABLES). So theoretically, you can obtain Dolby Digital or DTS out if you can find a cable that will fit the 1/8 inch out jack. Perhaps its just a matter of an adapter similar to that for headphones, and if that is the case, I am not concerned. However, when I am at home, my DVD players that are plugged into my 27" widescreen HDTV and DLP Projector and 105" widescreen Dalight Cinemavision screen are so far above the quality presented in this unit, that to compare the two would be the equivalent of racing a Ferrari with a Pinto. Progressive scan for starters is just a must for a good HDTV picture. Even on my 32" traditional tube Philips Television, the lack of component or even S-video outs prevent an optimal picture from being displayed.

Sound Quality Right away I can tell you that the built in speakers on this unit are abysmal. I have heard BOSE speakers that sound better. I would say that at most they are suitable for dialogue, and dialogue is understandable, but these are quite tinny. However, when I used the unit plugging in my Koss Headphones, I was very pleased with the sound. Whether the sound output is set to surround or stereo, the signal sent to the headphones is excellent, and had great response. I watched A History of Violence on the subway today, and dialogue, gunshots, background music were all very clear, even over the din of the subway. I would also note that there are TWO headphone jacks.

The Remote I suppose if you set this up as your main DVD player, the remote is useful, otherwise, if you are so far away from the player to need the remote, the picture is really going to look tiny! The remote handles all the features on the unit, plus a zoom feature that is not accessible from the main unit. It is powered by a small specialty battery that you will probably have to search out when it goes dead. The remote is very small and thin, and looks to be the sort that will be very easy to lose.

Price Although I received this for free as a reward from American Express, it retails at Best Buy for $199.00. Looking at other units, it appears to be the same basic price as most of the portable units, but I really can't tell you if it is better or worse than the other units, I would really need to play with one of the units for at least a day to make a fair comparison.

Summary Perhaps I was expecting too much from a portable DVD player, but a number of issues earned this a 2 star below average rating from me. I am glad that I got it for free. To summarize

Battery is bulky, sticks out, takes 3.5 hours to charge and only lasts for 4 hours.

Car use isn't an option, not even to charge the battery.

LCD screen picture isn't that great due to narrow field of view and non progressive scan picture.

Feature allowing playback of JPEG photo discs and memory cards is rendered nearly useless by failure to display the photos properly.

Although headphones sound great, the built in speakers are terrible.

It does, to it's credit play DVDs, and if you have up to four hours (after fully charging the battery) you can watch a couple movies while you wait. You can also use it on a plane (local flights only), train or subway.