Philips PET710 7-Inch Widescreen Portable DVD Player

by Philips

Product Details

Product Manual [1.06mb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 5 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0009YBG2S
• Item model number: PET710/37
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #57,847 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 16, 2005

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Keep yourself or your kids entertained on long flights or road trips with the Philips PET710/37 portable DVD player with a widescreen 7-inch screen, enabling you to enjoy DVD movies in their original 16:9 aspect ratio format. This compact unit weighs less than 2 pounds (excluding battery) and is powered by a rechargeable NiMH battery, AC adapter, and car power adapter (all included).

The PET710/37's LCD screen has a 480 x 234-pixel resolution, 30 ms (millisecond) response time, a brightness rating of 400 cd/m2 (candela per square meter), and 250:1 contrast ratio. (The higher the contrast ratio, the greater a screen's ability to display subtle color details and not get washed out by ambient room light.) It's compatible with a wide variety of disc and file formats, including DVD movie, CD audio, DVD+R/RW, VCD, SVCD, CD-R/RW, MP3, and JPEG (Picture CD). It features anti-skip buffers for different formats, including 2 seconds for DVDs, 5 seconds for VCD, and 10 seconds for standard audio CDs and CDs burned with MP3 files.

Disc playback modes include A-B repeat, multi-angle selection, disc menu, fast backward/forward, repeat, shuffle play, slow backward/forward, and zoom. Other features include PAL/NTSC video output, parental controls, and aspect ratio conversion. The rechargeable battery has a battery life of up to 2.5 hours and a recharge time of 3 hours. It offers the following connections: headphone, line-out, composite video, and digital coaxial audio for Dolby DTS surround sound.

What's in the Box
Portable DVD player, battery, AC adapter, car power adapter, video cable, audio cable (RCA to mini), remote control (with batteries), printed operating instructions

Product Description

7 TFT color LCD display, DVD, DVD+R/W, (S)VCD, DivX , and MPEG4 movies, MP3-CD, CD and CD-RW music, Share JPEG image files with Picture CD, Zero Bright Dot screen, 16:9 widescreen format, Built-in quality stereo speakers, Precision design w/ piano white

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

288 of 289 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Philips PET710 positively SHINES in comparison, November 17, 2005

By 

ciniminis - See all my reviews

This review is from: Philips PET710 7-Inch Widescreen Portable DVD Player (Electronics)

I was originally looking at two other models of 7" portable DVD player, the Samsung DVD-L75 and the Toshiba SD-P1600. After looking at both at a local Best Buy store, I was dissapointed by their lack-luster (literally!) LCD screen. But thinking that there was no better choice available around the same price range, I still bought the Samsung since it was lighter in weight than the Toshiba and had a better button layout.

When I got the Samsung L75 home, I was further put off by the inconvenient way to adjust the aspect ratio on it (I don't like images from my TV show DVDs being horizontally stretched out to fill the widescreen) - you have to get in layers of menus to do it, and it doesn't remember your preference for the next disc. The final straw was that it also randomly stops (not just skips) in the middle of a show, so I returned the Samsung L75... and am SO GLAD that I did! Because the next thing I found was this little gem of a Philips PET710, which is MUCH better in many ways.

Pros of the Philips PET710:
- best LCD screen amoung competitions
- very good (and loud) speakers for the size
- brushed aluminum casing, not cheap plastic
- good user interface design (button layout and menu navigation)
- can be made region-free (more on this below)

Cons of the Philips PET710:
- no AV input ports (for gaming/digital camera/iPod/etc.)
- loud spin-up noise when loading a disc
- battery life is adequate, but not as long as I'd like

And here's the hack to turn the PET710 into a region-free DVD player:
1. power on
2. open the DVD tray cover
from remote control:
3. press "setup"
4. navigate to the "preferences" page
5. press "OK"
6. key in "2" "5" "2" "3" "1" "5"
7. press the left arrow
8. press the down arrow
9. press "0" when region code is displayed
10. press "setup" again to exit

I can confirm that this model works with home made DVD+R, DVD-R (although the "-" formats are not listed as compatible), VCD, SVCD (but doesn't seem to support SVCD subtitles), and MP3 CD. Have not tried DVD+RW or DVD-RW discs but they probably will work as well. Aside from being region free, it can also play both NTSC and PAL formats on its own LCD screen (but does not seem to be able to do conversions say if you want to play a European PAL DVD in the player and output to your North American NTSC TV set).

[Added 12/6: In response to another reviewer's comment on the screen being "not a true 16:9" - it definitely is! You only need to take out a ruler to verify this. The actual LCD screen on this player measures 154 mm by 87 mm, which is compliant to the 16:9 ratio. The top and bottom filler black bands do still show up on some movies, because some movies are filmed in the 2.35:1 ratio, an "ultra-widescreen" if you will.]

82 of 89 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good DVD player, but be aware of some negatives:, March 5, 2006

By 

Mediahound (SF Bay Area, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Philips PET710 7-Inch Widescreen Portable DVD Player (Electronics)

This is a good portable DVD player for the mony, but it does have some negative points that you should be aware of. It has good build quality that seems quite sturdy, unlinke a lot of other portable DVD players out there. The video and audio quality is excellent. It plays all kinds of DVDs (including ones from other countries if you use the multi region code as described in other reviews).

The only reason I'm not giving it a great rating is because there are some real negatives:

-No AV inputs. You cannot connect your digital camera to display your photos, nor can you connect a video game system to this DVD player. Most all other brands do have this functionality, so Phillips needs to get with it.

-I wish the battery didn't protrude out the back of the unit (it should be under the player instead).

-No resume function. You will lose your place if you stop a DVD movie while watching it and turn the player off.

-Very loud spinning noise. This player is annoying loud when spinning the DVD.

This Phillips seems like a solid player that will last beyond what you would expect for the price, but you should be aware of the negatives. If you cannot get beyond these negatives, I would recommend going with a Toshiba which has all the features the Phillips is lacking, although is probably not quite as good in terms of display and build quality.

45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent DVD player for a great price!, March 17, 2006

By 

Tara "Devoted online shopper and Amazon junkie" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Philips PET710 7-Inch Widescreen Portable DVD Player (Electronics)

UPDATE 5/20/2011
I junked this unit today. While the player itself still worked, the monitor portion gave out. A DVD player with sound but no picture is pointless. The funny thing is that I think I paid $250+ for this item in 2007. Today a similar unit is under $100. The way of technology...

ORIGINAL REVIEW 3/16/2007
If you are looking for portable DVD player that is durable and offers great picture and audio quality, and plays any DVD you can find, this is it.

I'll get the flaws out of the way first...
As other reviews mentioned, the battery is a little clunky in design, and the DVD player doesn't integrate with several devices. The other small complaint I have is that the fast forward function does not work well with burned or homemade DVDs. But this may be the fault of the DVD and not the player. The skip and rewind functions work fine, however, so sometimes I will circumvent this problem by skipping forward one scene and rewinding instead of fast forwarding. I don't have this problem with regular DVDs.

But the pluses are numerous...this unit is durable, nice looking, super-easy to use (a 3 year old could figure it out in 10 minutes), and comes with both AV and car adapters, as well as a mini remote.

The weight of the unit is very reasonable. I carry it around with me a lot.

Another big bonus is the extended battery life above and beyond the manufacturer guarantee. I can usually get at least 3 hours of use on one battery charge. The battery appears to fully recharge in less than 2 hours. Another reviewer provided helpful advice about purchasing extra batteries direct from Phillips at a pretty reasonable price.

Another big plus is that this DVD player appears to play any and all DVDs. It plays DVDs in any format I have tried, including burned DVDs and PC-edited home movies. It has played DVDs that my other DVD players have rejected (including my Panasonic DVD Recorder/VCR combo that I paid $300+ for). I can't say if it plays DVDs from other regions (like Europe or Japan).

But the biggest plus to me is the picture and audio quality. On a 9" screen, picture quality really counts.

I wish I could give this unit 4 1/2 stars. It's perfect except for a few flaws noted above. If you're ok with those, this unit is perfect for you.