Panasonic DVD-LS855 8.5-Inch Portable DVD Player

by Panasonic

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.5 x 2 inches ; 2.5 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 5 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0017DFGDA
• Item model number: DVD-LS855
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,758 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
  • #73 in Electronics > Home Audio & Theater > Portable DVD Players

Product Description

Portable DVD Player with 8.5-Inch Diagonal Widescreen LCD, Multi-Format Playback, Multi-Angle Viewing, Car Headrest Bracket, Car DC Adaptor and Carrying Case. The large 8.5-Inch widescreen display pivots for multi-angle viewing so you can adjust the position for optimum comfort and image quality. You can also adjust the screen brightness to get the best view of your DVDs in all kinds of light conditions. You get beautiful images while watching movies on a dimly lit airplane, or when you're relaxing in the sun at a resort or other outdoor spot.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Perfect for what we needed, May 17, 2008

By 

J. Beveridge "codenamegray" (Scottsdale, Arizona) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Panasonic DVD-LS855 8.5-Inch Portable DVD Player (Electronics)

We bought the DVD-LS855 this week for a road trip for our 2 1/2 year old boy. We unpacked it, attached the battery, dropped in the DVD, and he was hooked. He wanted to watch all DVDs on it (even inside the house) because it was perfect for his size. I was easily able to attach the car / headrest holder, although it took a little work to get it snug.

The video quality isn't going to set any records, but it does the job. Our 2 year doesn't care.

There are two headphone jacks, but I wouldn't want to try and share it between two kids sitting on opposite sides of the car. It'd be fine for a hotel room though.

The manual has a chart that shows battery life. If you want the longest battery life, you have to have brightness at minimum and use headphones. If you have the brightness cranked up, don't expect more than 2 hours. The good news is that the battery is detachable, so you can buy a spare battery and/or buy an extended life battery.

Pros:
Good size for a car trip.
Includes a carry bag that holds everything, including DVDs to watch.
Included car holder is greatly preferable to the bag stands. It sits at the right position to be seen in the car seat.
Plays movies in DivX format.
When you turn the player on, it resumes playing from where it stopped.
The kid loves it :-)

Cons:
Video quality
Play and stop buttons are along the top front edge of the unit. If you try and pick it up anywhere along the front, you'll almost certainly hit the wrong button.

In summary, if you want high quality video on a larger screen, use your $1,000 laptop computer. If you want a convenient player for your kids for car trips, this is perfect.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great portable DVD/DivX player!, November 6, 2008

By 

Ki Park - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Panasonic DVD-LS855 8.5-Inch Portable DVD Player (Electronics)

I read many reviews about portable DVD and DivX players. I wanted to DivX player as a DVD holds about 2 hours of movie where as a DVD-R media holds about 6-7 hours of DivX/AVI movie file which is good for a long trip w/o switching the DVDs in the middle and etc. This certainly plays DivX/AVI files very well.

I was bit worried about the volume as I read a lot of complains about sound being not lound enough on other products. This I don't see how a volume could be a problem. It gets very very lound at the highest volume (w/o the headphone) and I can't imagine a volume could be a problem unless the file itself was recorded at a very low volume.

I ordered a separate case that I can use to attach between the headrests, but I shouldn't have. The bag that comes with this is made so that I can easily make it sit between the front seats with a bit of creativity.

Image quality is good compare to TV screen, but probably excellent comparing to other portable DVD players. I am happy with what I see from it.

The control buttons at the front does bother a bit, but once you have it set and start playing, you don't really need to touch those buttons, so not a big problem.

One thing.. this doesn't come with A/V cord as listed by Amazon. Only DVD-LS865 model comes with A/V cord.

Headrest bracket is included and I haven't used it yet, but it looks to be good, stable, and easy to install. And easy to attach and detach the DVD player unit.

I can't wait to take a road trip with our two little kids (3 and half, and almost 2 years old) and this unit playing the movies... hopefully they will sit through and behave. :)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poor durability, November 2, 2009

By 

Tom HIller (Philly. PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Panasonic DVD-LS855 8.5-Inch Portable DVD Player (Electronics)

In 2008, we bought a LS855 for our special needs grandson to use on long auto trips. I worked fine for at least the initial trip but when we tried to use it later in the year (just post warranty expiration) it took a veery long time to read any disc we tried and ended up giving us a message of "This type of disc cannot be played. Please insert a different disc" despite the fact that we were inserting discs already played. A local repair shop, recommended by the Panasonic web stie, indicate that the repair would cost around $200 - more than the unit costs new. So much for the vaunted Panasonic durability