Customer Reviews

Philips PET724 7-Inch Portable DVD / DivX Player

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

We spent about 6 months trying to decide if we would use a portable player enough to justify the purchase, and if so, which one to buy. As a BitTorrent user, I have a lot of DivX files already, so when I saw a player with that capability at this price, I pulled the trigger. Very good decision. We've been using the player heavily for about a month now, and we are very satisfied, often wondering why we waited so long to buy one. We got it before a long roadtrip (7 hours each way), and it made the travel much more pleasant for my 4-year-old. He actually looked forward to getting back in the car so that he could watch his shows! I was able to fit about 10 hours of kids shows on one DVD-R using the free DivX software player/burner for windows. The Phillips portable has played all DVDs, DVD-Rs, and DVD-RWs that we've thrown at it without the slightest skip or freeze. I can't even say that about our full size home player. It feels very sturdy, and has held up perfectly so far even at the hands of a rather rugged 4-year-old.

The battery life is very good, but I don't have any specifics. Longer than 5 hours, at least, which seems good to me. The included adapters allow you to use it plugged in to the wall or cigarette lighter without the battery attached if desired (much lighter that way). The car adapter cord is long enough to reach from the dash to the back seat in a big vehicle, but probably not the third row in a mini-van.

The screen is not huge, especially when viewing 4:3 aspect content. The 7" diagonal measurement really only applies to 16:9 (widescreen) content. The built-in speakers are OK sounding, and suprizingly loud. There are 2 headphone jacks, which is an outstanding feature so that you don't have to use a splitter.

The included AV cable lets you hook it to your composite inputs on your TV or VCR, so you can use this with your home entertainment center. I was considering buying both a home DivX player, and a car video system. This player satisfies both requirements for much less than I was planning on spending for either one. This qualifies as the best consumer electronics purchase I've made in the last 2 years -- a very pleasant surprise.

I've always wanted a portable dvd player due to my large dvd collection. I waited almost 2 yrs until i finally decided to buy one, mainly because they were too expensive, and battery life only last about one movie (max at 2hrs). I saw this player reviewed by Wired magazine and it performed the best out of all the ones they've tested. What attracted me even more to this unit was:

1. price was cheap, about $150.
2. battery lasts about 4 hours
3. it plays divx and other formats.

Right out the box, the unit is beautiful, the outer shell is composed of the ipod white plastic with a slim silver plastic trim around the edges. The unit feels well built and sturdy but is probably very prone to scratches like the ipod. The battery attaches to the back of the unit and sticks out about 2 inches similar to how a large capacity battery sticks out of a laptops. So here's the bad part (keep in mind this is my first portable dvd player)

1. the screen resolution is very low. It could not display the full resolution of the dvd, everything feels scaled down and pixilated. For example: a diagonal straight line looks totally jaggered and pixilated. Each pixel on the dvd's LCD feels twice as big as the pixels you see on a LCD monitors. Maybe all portable dvd players are using low resolution LCDs and I am just being too picky.
2. After 35min of use the bottom heats up like a Intel Macbook. (very hot)
3. when starting the dvd it makes a loud and fast spinning noise, noise is reduced after the 15secs.
4. Personally, the 7" wide screen is just too small for me to watch for an extended amount of time. After watching a dvd for 35min I got really dizzy and felt crossed eyed.

overall, the unit "looks" good but I am planning on returning it and either wait for a 10" portable dvd players with higher resolution and long battery life or when they come out with a thin and light 3lbs laptop thatz got 6hrs+ battery life under $1000.

Likes: Excellent screen. Best in its class by far. As good (in terms of clarity) as its 10.2" brother which costs $300 plus. Audio from on-board speakers is good. Use headphones, and the audio moves from good to superb. Don't know yet about the battery claim of 4 hours, as I've only used it for 2.5 hours at any one time. For the price, there is nothing in a 7" screen that's even close in terms of value as I write this (Aug. 06). This unit performs far above its cost. We'll see how long it holds up.

Dislike: Do NOT like the fact that when I turn off the unit in the middle of a movie, it won't take me back to that point when I turn it back on. Not a huge deal, but a nuisance all the same.

Summary: I couldn't find another unit for less than $175 that could beat this model. Tested the Sony model (FX 810) that runs about $175. Screen wasn't as good as the Philips PET7247, and the Sony wouldn't play my HP DVD-R discs that I used to record tv shows. The Philips had no problem playing the very same disc.

This was my first DVD player so I did a lot (month) of research and shopping around. I was opting for a 10.5" Widescreen but for the $120.00 extra 3.5 inches wasn't worth it when the screen resolution was the same. I paid $139.00 at Circuit City. This unit does most everything. If you manage your time and are aware of keeping the battery charged, can plug into your cars adapter and charge when traveling and use the plug in adapter to wall power, the 4 to 5 hours of battery life will never be an issue. I also use it when traveling and staying in inexpensive motels. They have TV's but not players and with the cords provided you can watch DVD's on the motel rooms TV's and plug it into the wall. I haven't discovered any misgivings. This isn't a 19 inch TV so for the other reviews just remember your looking at a 7 inch screen. As for the start up noise, my car makes noise when starting up but when I take off it purrs liker a kitten, so does this unit. From my research if you got to have a widescreen 10.5" model then the Philips PET 1002 was the best I researched.

This is my third DVD player w/DivX support. I've got a full-sized Philips and also a Samsung, and now this. This one is quickly becoming my favorite. So far it has played all of the DivX videos I've thrown at it as well as burnt DVDs. It will play DivX vids that my Samsung won't.

This unit is lightweight, easy to use, has an attractive design, and the buttons on the player itself are pretty simple. I like that. The screen image quality is MUCH richer than other portable DVD players w/DivX support that I've looked at.

While it does offer longer battery life than some of it's competitors, I'd still wish I could get more than 4 hours out of it. Fortunately, you can get the Energizer DVDmax aftermarket battery that will give you an additional 8 hours of power. But at $70 for one of those, I found it price prohibitive.

My only gripe is that the volume to the built-in speaker is kinda weak. I haven't tried it w/headphones yet, but that is how I plan to use it most. I read in other reviews that volume to both headphone jacks is weak too, particularly if you're on a noisy airplane. So I bought a Boostaroo headphone volume booster which I plan to use to solve that problem. I have read that some other players still produce sound from the built-in speakers even when the headphones are plugged in, but that is NOT the case w/this unit. The built-in speakers become silent (like they should) when you plug in headphones.

One annoying thing (but is my bad) is I often accidentally hold the remote upside down because it's shape is entirely symetrical. I can't tell which way is "up" unless I stop and read which way the word "Philips" is written on the remote. Also, the buttons on the remote are not real easy to read, particularly in dim light. These are both REALLY minor complaints though.

I was basically happy with this unit as it came out of the box. As noted by another reviewer, the unit runs warm-to-hot which can be a little disconcerting. As also noted by another reviewer, the unit is quite noisy when first loading a DVD. I was glad in both cases that I'd been warned, or I would have been worried.

The user guide is poor, sadly typical of most electronic gear today. For example, it wasn't clear how to select the menu/OSD functions from the unit (vs. from the remote) -- I figured out almost accidentally that what looked like a flat surface around the menu navigation buttons was actually a pressure-sensitive switch that activated the menu (pressing on one side) or OSD (pressing on the other).

Speaking of the remote, I found it hard to use. I have fairly large fingers, which was part of the problem, but the tactile feel just wasn't right (or at least not what I was used to). I must say that the thinness of the remote is remarkable. Finally, I question the utility of a remote with a 7-inch screen (other than there are more buttons on the remote than on the unit itself).

The DVD door doesn't open as far as I would like -- only about 35 degrees without feeling like you're forcing it, and I didn't want to do that.

Now for the really bad news. My unit died after less than five hours of use. It stopped loading DVDs -- just kept up the noisy loading sounds until I stopped it. Hopefully amazon will take the return. I'm very disappointed in Philips' quality control.

I'm also disappointed in Philips' warranty policy. Included in the box was the usual warranty registration card. What was unusual, however, was that the card was entitled "Application for Warranty Benefits" and stated "To qualify for warranty benefits, this card must be completed and returned within 5 days from the date of purchase. Based on my understanding of U.S. consumer law, this is misleading at least -- in the U.S., companies cannot require return of a warranty registration card as a prerequisite for warranty service. To be fair, it looks like the card may have been intended for Canadian buyers, but there wasn't anything that excluded U.S. buyers from the 5-day requirement. In any case, even if allowed, imposing a 5-day registration requirement isn't customer-friendly.

Spent the holidays at the hospital (Christmas & New Year's) and got this as a present, let me tell you... It was a blessing to have!

First, the image quality on this player is outstanding! It easily beats other 8" and even 9" players that while offering a larger screen size, do not offer the same image quality and clarity!

The sound is very good, very clear and easy to hear... Even in loud places. The volume control on the side is easy to use and has a wide range which let's you listen as loud or quiet as you want. You can hook a set of earphones to this player but I haven't tried it.

The remote controll is small, light and easy to use. The battery life for this player is 4 hrs. which is decent and acceptable... Still I would have prefered 6 hrs. like it's big brother 8" player. However, it comes with both the power adapter and the cigaret lighter adapter so weather your at home or in the car, you can just plug it in and keep the battery full charge.

The price of this player is very reasonable, in fact... It's a real steal for everything you get!

Get this one, you won't regret it!

This unit has european styling, is 110-220V and can be made region free.

PAL and NTSC compatibility are built in, also is friendly to DVD-R/burned DVD's.

Have a beautiful Toshiba mini-TV, function is perfect but only is region 1/NTSC and does not like homemade DVD's, a disadvantage.

The styling really is very nice, white, silver and black. The buttons, as in many other Philips products are sleekly worked into the package.

Quality of Philips products is average, but a known consumer reporting organization gave this units high ratings, except for sound. I would agree, sound is just good enough. Picture and functionality is great, can be connected to a home theater system through coaxial audio output, can also be used as a stand-alone DVD player, sorry no component video outputs.

A good, basic DVD unit with european styling and can be made region-free and therefore compatible with all DVD's world-wide. A big plus if you travel or have DVD's from other countries. Buy if you don't want top quality but styling and functionality (regarding multiple DVD formats and types) is wished. This is my case and I am VERY satisfied.

I bought this player mostly since I wanted a very small and portable device with built-in speakers that could play MP3 disks, the ability to also watch DVDs was a bonus. The device had two flaws with regard to this purpose that made me return it. (1) It was too hard to get it to play the entire disk - I wanted to just plop a disk in, press one button and have it play the entire disk. With this player, if you insert a CD with multiple directories then pressing play causes it to enter the first directory then you have to manually scroll down to the first song in the directory to get it to play, and then it stops at the end of the directory. To get it to play the whole disk you have to press "play mode" on the remote, then wait for it to read the whole disk, and only then press play. That's too many steps, and the wait was too long. (2) The player produced a constant "tick" sound as the disk was spinning which was very irritating during quiet passages. Even if I could get over the usability issues, the sound of the disk spinning was too pronounced to use this machine to listen to music. Were it not for the motor sounds I might have been tempted to keep the device for movies and look for something else for music.

I did like the compactness of the player, the display was good, the white shell was very stylish. I watched one movie and that went well. If you plan to mostly watch movies in loud environments (car, plane) this might be a fine choice, but it didn't fit my bill.

I agree with the other reviewers (well, with the exception of the guy who's machine died) and just want to add one thing.

I wanted a portable player that plays divx and this one looked the best. It does have problems with some of my divx files (I don't know why just some files). These files work fine on my Philips dvp3040 player or in the divx software player on my computer but some of them have problems in Windows Media Player (with the right codex) as well. Very odd.

It does work with most of my AVI/MPG/MPEG/DIVX files, so I'm still very happy for the most part.