Customer Reviews

Panasonic DVD-L50 Portable DVD Player

5 star:		(105)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I bought this unit a little over two weeks ago, and have used it extensively. Here's what I've found. Everything good that's been said about this gadget is true, and out of everything bad, only one statement is true. The bottom does get hot. Not overly so, but it is just something to watch out for when watching very long movies. But think about it, are you really going to hold it in your hand for 3 hours? No. Overall, I recommend this to anyone who can afford it. One last thing though, to those of you who don't know, there are actually five different palm sized units on the market, the DVD L-10, DVD L-50 (both by Panasonic), the PDV-LC10 (by Pioneer), the PBD-V30 (by Sony), and the DV-L70U (by Sharp). I have had the opportunity to see ALL of these DVD players in action, and the L-50 blows them all away, it's cheaper, sleeker, smaller, and easier to use then the other players. This one is a great buy!

I admit I am a bit of a gadget lover, but that aside, I thoroughly enjoy my DVD-50 Player, and use it all of the time.

ONE: The screen. Although the screen is small, it is bright enough to view comfortably in just about any indoor setting, and the swivel is such that it is easy to adjust to just about any viewing angle. The pixel quality is equal that of many high-end laptop computers, and it offers an acceptable viewing size for an average 2 hour film.

TWO: The controls. The mini-remote control is functionally complete, but a bit difficult to use in poor light. Perhaps back-lighting or glow-in-the-dark buttons would have been a good addition. However, the size of the remote is perfect as I can slip it in my travel bag with the player, and it takes up minimum room. It is not much larger then a credit card. While in hotels, I use it quite a bit and feel that the size and functionality is exceptional.

THREE: Is a laptop better? Often, a comparison is made between this unit and a laptop computer with DVD. However, if you already have a laptop which has sub-standard DVD support and you do not wish to go out and get a new one, this unit is your best choice. If you have $3000 to burn, then perhaps a high end laptop with DVD support is the way to go, but then you have a large laptop to deal with instead of the nicely compact DVD-50.

FOUR: A secondary DVD player. One of the greatest uses I have found for this marvel is to simply grab it, run over to a friend's or relative's house, and plug it in! It is always a hit to hook it up to another's TV and offer DVD to the "un-enlightened". Also, I can move the unit around the house and connect it easily and quickly to TVs that don't have DVD drives hooked up to them.

FIVE: Sound. This is probably the weakest area of the unit, but you really can't blame the unit too much because the sound problem is really due to the small size of the unit. Essentially there is no BASS. The speakers tend to sound like just the tweeters from a home audio system so the sound is very high and "tin-ey" sounding. With headphones though, the sound is quite acceptable.

SUMMARY: I enjoy this unit and use it almost daily. It is the smallest unit I found and offers the greatest bang-for-the-buck, especially since the recent price drop.

I see all the negative reviews here in which people say you should get a laptop with a DVD drive instead, but I completely disagree. The laptop is heavier, more expensive, sucks up battery life faster, and isn't as readily connected to various pieces of audio-visual equipment in your home. I bought this unit so I could have the best of both worlds: I keep it hooked up to my home theater system on a day to day basis, then unplug it and take it on the road with me for long car trips and flights. Its value cannot be exaggerated when you're looking for a means of keeping a four-year-old happy and quiet while buckled into a seat for two or more hours. Also, it's perfect for family cabin and timeshare trips since you can bring a whole library of movies and plug the unit into virtually any TV once you get there. And if there's no TV just use the flip-up screen. About that screen---I've found that my movie watching experience is different when using it, and in fact I feel MORE "pulled in" than when watching on my bigscreen TV. Finally, regarding the speakers on the unit: if you use headphones instead of the speakers, the dolby surround effect will amaze you. I don't know how they did it, but it's just like being in the theater.

I ordinarily wouldn't consider myself to be a gadget freak, but knowing I had an 8 hour flight to Hawaii coming up, I decided to buy this as a birthday present for myself. All I can say is "wow". This is hands down the greatest electronic gadget I've ever owned.

Now that I've had the unit a few months, I thought I would share my thoughts. First, although a number of people have complained about overheating (and it does get hot), I have watched nearly 100 DVDs and not had a single problem. The battery life is adequate (3 hours as advertised) which is fine for just about everything. However, I would definitely recommend getting a second battery ($150). For one, this is nice on long trips. More importantly however, it takes nearly 6 hours to recharge the battery--making it impossible to simply jack into an outlet during a layover and get a fresh charge (sigh). Finally, in comparing this to a laptop computer, I find that the display on the L50 is much brighter and crisper than that on my laptop (so crisp in fact, that if you look closely, you can sometimes see slight artifacts left by movie special effects such as wire removal in action shots). Also, there's no way I would be able to use my laptop and eat an in-flight meal at the same time (something that is easy with the L50).

My only complaints with the unit are the long battery recharge time (see above) and the fact that it is sometimes difficult to get enough headphone volume on noisy flights. I'm not sure if this is really a problem with the L50--movies seem to have a lot more dynamic variation than a music CD (and I suspect that listening to classical music on my discman would be equally difficult in this environment).

The only other minor gripe (which is not related to the L50 specifically ) is that non-anamorphic DVD's look absolutely terrible on the 16x9 widescreen. This is because a non-anamorphic widescreen disc shows up as a small letterbox inside a 4x3 square in the middle of the display (utilizing only a little more than 50% of the available display space). Although it is possible to blow this up to fill up the entire screen, the resulting image looks fairly pixelated due to the lower source resolution. The bottom line: make sure that you look for discs that are labeled as "anamorphic" or "enhanced for wide screen TV." Most new releases fall into this category although a few studios (such as Disney) still haven't gotten the point.

Overall, great unit. I love it.

This little DVD player is the best possible thing one could have. It fits perfectly anywhere you want it and fits into most overhead storage compartments. There are several things that make this an excellent buy though.

First of all, the quality of the picture is outstounding. This is almost as good as HDTV (High Definition Television) because you have a crystal clear picture projected onto an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) screen. Secondly, when it is output to a TV, the picture is just as good as any other DVD player, but the bonus there is that this device is extremely small, comapred to those large and bulky DVD players (sure they cost less, but you can't take them on a seven hour flight from here to England.).

There is also the controls and output. The controls on this DVD Player are quite easy to use. Without looking at the instruction manual, I was able to determain what a majority of the buttons did. The menus are quite accessible and manueverable due to a tiny "joystick" that allows you to swivel and pick your option. However, there are also output controls as well. The device uses fiber-optic cables which therefore means that it can be connected directly to a TV using the three wires (two sound, red and white, and video, yellow). When this is hooked up to a TV, the picture and sound quality is unbelievable.

Then the ironic question must be asked "why not just use my DVD player on the computer"? Well, of course if you have a laptop the quality is fine, and of course, you can manage your budget while watching a movie, put there are some good things to having a DVD player as well. If your want to play a DVD movie for your family, wouldn't you rather have it on a TV screen than on a small LCD screen? Of course, if you're on an airplane and want to watch it there, you can't exactly display it on the TVs there. Thus, I can only say that one is not better than the other.

In conclusion, I can only say that this DVD player is quite ideal because it is compact, picture-perfect, and can add whole lots of fun to your life.

This little DVD player is amazing. As a frequent traveller I use this while waiting for planes, on the plane (yes it is allowed on ALL US based airlines after the flight reaches 10,000 feet), and hook it up to the TV set in my hotel room. The sound quality, as mentioned by others, isn't great through the speakers, but it's not bad for the 2 small speakers, the sound is MUCH better using headphones, somehow the surround sound even seems to work through headphones. The little "joystick" for the menu is a little hard to use, but it just may be my big fingers, the remote is great. I would recommend this for anyone who does a lot of travelling, or who is taking a long drive with kids, show them a movie and the trip may just be a little more enjoyable!

I was lucky to receive this item for free! So to me, its like having a luxury item marked off my wish list that I would never have to pay for. After inspecting the unit and reading some of the manual (which is quite thick with pages of features), I did have to go buy a DVD movie to test it out. What I found was this:

1). It plays well by itself, the 5" LCD is crisp and renders color very well. The stereo speakers sound okay but this unit is best listened with headphones. Get yourself a good pair if you don't have one. This unit only deserves the best.

2). I could connect it directly to my Sony 27" TV using the supplied video/audio cable and it worked great! Now I can start to collect DVDs.

3). Unfortunately, I could not connect it to my JVC Pro-Logic receiver for audio output to my home entertainment speakers. It might still be possible, but I just haven't figured it out yet.

4). I also have a Pentium II 350 Mhz computer system with a Pinnacle PCTV card that I connected with using the S-Video. Wow, that was cool because now I can view my cable TV on my computer or use this portable DVD player for movies on my computer. Now I don't need to buy a DVD player for my computer! This works just fine with my 19" monitor (full screen mode) and my Dolby-Digital Computer speaker system. Yea Buddy!

5). Lastly, I did notice the player gets very warm after 2 or more hours of play. At one point, the player stopped on me during playback, and I could not figure out what caused it. But, I pressed the play button again and it continued to play until I stop using it. Oh well...

My finial analysis is that I would not buy this unit first. Instead, I would invest in the THX Dolby-Digtal Home entertainment system (complete) and a large screen 50" TV. Set yourself up at home first, then think about the portables later. Good luck shopping.

Lots of people complain about this player's few faults. First of all, who cares if it gets a little bit hot? All high-tech devices that have to decode DVD's, display a picture, and spit out sound gets hot! It's a fact of life! If you don't like how hot it gets, put the thing down instead of holding it! Second, it's not a better deal than a laptop. A laptop that could play DVD's would be 2 or 3 times as much, have worse sound, and a choppy, slow picture unless you spent 3000 dollars on it! And who wants to lug around a heavy, ugly laptop and boot it up, stick it on your lap and watch part of a movie before the battery runs out. Anyone would rather have something sleek and palm-size that plays movies, and pay less for it then a laptop! When you get down to it, laptops aren't as portable as the DVD-L50, so why settle for it? This player, for its size, features, and prices, has hardly anything wrong with it. It's about time that we can watch digital movies on the road or in the air, CONVENIENTLY!

I absolutely LOVE this product. The picture and sound are both great. The unit comes with enough cables to get you hooked into a TV. It even has on optical out, so you HI-FI buffs will enjoy pure digital...

I travel quite a bit and this thing has been great for occupying my time...

As far as not using it on an airplane- I disagree. I beleive the line goes- "Portable electronic devices may now be used with the expection of cellular phones and pagers..." Most all laptops have cd-roms and they have not been the cause of any plane crashes to date.

In summary- if you travel a lot get it, but shop around for the best deal.

We use this when travelling on airlines. But to make it work the very best, you need a couple of additional items. 1. You need GOOD noise cancelling ear phones to get rid of the background noise on airplanes, trains, buses, cars, etc. Panasonic Model RP-HC100 or similar. 2. You need a 'splitter' so that two of you (if you have a significant other) can watch the movie together. (Radio Shack) Then all you need to bring is popcorn. 3. For those long flights, you'll need one or two extra batteries. The battery that comes with it will play for about three hours. It takes a LONG time to charge these batteries (about four hours) so be prepared. ENJOY!