Customer Reviews

Philips PET741B/37 Portable DVD Player with 7-Inch LCD, Black

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I'm not usually the type to write in, but we have had this DVD player for 7 months now and it was worth every penny. I bought it for a cross country trip for my two and three year old expecting it to last 100 hours of play max before it began to break. I WAS WRONG--this thing has had easily over 1,000 hours of play and is still going strong (we don't have a TV and thus use this player on a daily basis).

Moreover, this player has endured all the rough handling of daily life with kids--juice spills, dropping, popping open the cover while the DVD is still playing, a two year old trying to get the DVD on the center ring and repeatedly failing, repeated and very rough pressing of buttons and switches, tug of war between fighting toddlers, having the power cord ripped out, tripped over, taken in and out a dozen times in a minute, sitting in a hot car in the middle east (130 degrees Fahrenheit temperatures no kidding), sand from the beach and the desert (again, we live in the middle east so sand is literally in the air here), etc.

AND STILL IT IS GOING STRONG WITH ALMOST TWO HOURS OF BATTERY LIFE, NOT A SINGLE BROKEN PART AND NO FREEZING!

I was looking for simplicity in a portable DVD Player without any extras. This model is great for viewing my DVD's and playing my CD's at home and in the car. It is easy to use, has a great picture and sound, charger and car adapter included at a low, affordable price. Great product, you won't regret it!

As we have frequent car trips of 2 hours to visit family on weekends, we picked up this DVD player for our 20 month old toddler. Our trips are now happy trips. This is a perfect size, the picture and sound are great. It easily plugs into any TV where we stay to view movies on a standard size TV for the family.

Most importantly it works well and our trips are now comfortable for everyone and she no longer minds the time it takes to get there. The battery does last two hours but we just plug it in to the included car adapter and we don't worry about it.

This player is so easy to run you don't really need the instructions.

Great Buy.

Granted, not everyone is going to end up with a defective battery (mine, after only 2 charges, was limited to 30 minutes of playing time), but there are other issues as well. The power button is extremely small and difficult to manage, the cover for the DVD feels particularly flimsy, and the volume wheel on the side is downright inconvenient - and very outdated. It's very light, but presumably, that's because the battery isn't as substantial. For the extra $10 or so, the 7" Sony - which includes a remote control as well, great if you have kids, and MUCH better battery life and controls - is a large improvement.

PROS: This player is affordable and easy to use. The 7" screen is adequate for personal viewing. For group viewing the unit has a composite NTSC video output for connection to larger TVs. This unit played every kind of disc I could locate in my library: CDs, MP3 CDs, VCDs (NTSC & PAL), DVDs (NTSC & PAL).

CONS: It's easy to accidentally push the "Open" button, but taping the cover down solves this problem. The volume could be a bit higher, but earphones or outboard amplified speakers solves this problem. While the unit has a "Disc Menu" button, it lacks a "Title Menu" button - which is important for some DVDs. I don't know of a work-around for this, unless you want to re-author your DVDs.

All-in-all I'm pleased with my purchase.

I bought this player a few months ago and it is working out great! It's used daily for a 1 hour car trip, each way. The battery last roughly 2 hours and I recharge it each night. It has been manhandled by an impatient 5 year old but stands up to it. Would recommend.

The first time I bought a portable DVD player (not any name brand) for use in the vehicle, it lasted over two years. I went through two of the Phillips players then in a year each. The cord will not last long at all, so buy a good DC adapter from an electronics source at the same time you buy this. I liked how the thing operated--particularly that if you had to open the player to check the DVD for not playing right (and it ended up being something that you could wipe away that was glitching it) the player remembered where you were in the DVD, so you didn't have to go hunting for the right spot again. The battery gave me two hours, which was fine.

But one year and then dead? I'm an adult user, not a kid who slams the thing around or sticks peanut butter into its sides, and it seems ludicrous to me that it fails so quickly. I bought a second one, thinking the first quick death was a fluke, but it wasn't. The second one lasted perhaps 11 months.

Manufacturers, you have to make your products better than this. It isn't just the issue of value, but that our landfills are going to be piled up with this sort of badly-made junk. Please, Phillips, be more responsible.

This is the first portable dvd player I've owned so I don't have any precise comparisons, and I've only had it a month so I can't say much about durability, but so far it works great. Operation is easy and intuitive, the sound is good, and the picture is crisp and plenty bright. My only complaint is pretty minor: it is too easy to accidentally hit the "open" button on the side of the machine.

I received this, set it up and put in a region 2 "Midsomer Murders' disk. It played well and I was happy. But that was the only region 2 disk it ever played. I tried 4 other region 2's and it played none of them- a sign popped up saying 'Wrong Region'. Why would something claiming to be 'region free' even be capable of displaying such a message? I am returning it to Amazon (Thank heavens for their wonderful return policy!) and purchasing something different.

It looks very stylish and it folds out flat so that is good if you have it up against the back seat for baby.

It does not have a remote which if I were to buy another portable dvd player, that would be a necessity because reaching back to turn down the volume for baby sleeping is a pain.

Charged battery only lasted for about 30 mins play time.

Anti-glare screen is excellent. It skipped in the middle of a movie only once or twice because baby karate kicked the player.

It is an excellent basic portable dvd player that works well.