Customer Reviews

Philips PET824 8.5-Inch Portable DVD / DivX Player

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This has got to be the best player within a range of small screen portables.

Can't be happier with it. Took it with me on a trip to Boston, great piece of entertainment and quality. And, folks, please do believe me: the battery life is far above all my wildest expectations. Been running it for 7 hours already (2 hours in stand-by mode), and the battery is still alive! I even had to make sure that I haven't plugged in the power supply by mistake. And no, to my great surprise, it is on the battery!
Quite honestly, I had hard time believing other reviewers who had claimed the same thing, but I do now, it is true.
Also, you can make it region free. Here is how:

Switch player On and Open tray door
Press Setup on the remote control
Move menu selector down to Preferences and press Right arrow
Press 2, 1, 2, 2, 2 and 5
Press Left Arrow
Press Down Arrow
Press 0 when the screen displays region code
Press Setup to exit

Now, the only word of warning:

The remote control has a limited angle range. Sometimes you need to aim it directly at the player. Wish they designed the remote better. But that is the only drawback which does not really bother me much. Considering other great features (DIVX/XVID playback with QPEL and GMC support - yes, it does that!)and awesome video/audio quality (did I mention 2 headphones inputs???), it is very well worth every dollar. Highly recommended to anyone who needs portable entertainment without having carrying a bulky piece of equipment.

I was blown away by the picture on the Phillips PET824 portable DVD player. The LCD screen is "liquid" crystal clear. You lose a little definition as you move side to side (as with most LCD type screens) which only comes into play if you're trying to share the screen in really close quarters (like if three of you are trying to watch in 3 side-by-side coach fare airline seats). But if the PET824 is primarily for personal use you'll love the picture.

The sound is fair without headphones, but I don't think that the idea was to use PET824 without them. Sound is fabulous with a good pair of headphones; your iPod headphones will do just fine (and if you don't have a good pair you'll need to buy one because the PET824 doesn't come with any).

The battery is a bit bulky. You'd think that with today's technology they'd be able to slim it down, but you can't complain about the 6 hours of life you get with it after a full charge. Some portable DVD players give you only 2 hours of life and that just barely gets you through a single movie. The PET824 is good for 2 full length features before charging and that's awesome for long trips where you can't use the DC adapter or car adapter.

The battery fully charges in apx 4 hours. And don't leave the battery attached after shutting down so as to preserve the charge.

The car adapter works great and has a nice long cord. So no need for the battery on car trips.

The PET824 fits in my small briefcase, and it's relatively light. Amazon sells cases for the PET824 that mount on the back of the driver or passenger seats. The one I got also mounts in between the driver and passenger seats. I'd highly recommend a case for your player. I went with the Case Logic Koskin DVD Player Case.

The biggest complaint I have about the PET824 is that the anti-slide pads on the bottom of the player are worthless. The player slides all over the place on a hard surface, and that won't do at all on an airline fold down tray. I put some good sticky anti-slide pads on my PET824 (available at any hardware store for less than a dollar).

Also the remote's a bit busy for kids, but my kids mastered it pretty quickly. For whatever reason the remote includes a bunch of useless number keys (0 - 9) that take up space that could have been used to make the primary function keys bigger. As is, the remote is useless in a dark car.

Finally, the DivX thing is a bit of a mystery to me. I've not tried it out yet, and I'm not clear as to whether or not you can burn DivX movies with just the DivX software or if you need a DVD burner on your home computer system in order to burn and be able to play downloaded DivX video on your Phillips PET824 portable (or DivX compatible home DVD player for that matter). I checked some DivX sites and they're all pretty (deliberately???) ambiguous on how exactly it works with burning a DivX DVD. And all the DivX movie sharing and downloading sites seem to want your email address before they'll even let you see what kind of movies are even available. So I'd welcome a review that is clear and concise on the matter.

All in all....The PET824 was a very satisfying purchase for me. I'm glad it's the one that I chose.

I blind bought it new on ebay for fifty bucks less than on here. I saw it had great reviews on here so I went ahead on it. Part of the problem is that I was spoiled with an AWESOME panasonic portable dvd player. 2 key things this dvd is missing...1) Auto return memory on dvds...if you turn off the player in the middle of movie...once you turn it back on, it will play the dvd from the very beginning...if you just hit stop it will let you return to the movie...I find this extremely annoying since I tend to watch movies over multiple days...so now when I use this I have to remember the chapter I last stopped on (I miss my panasonic). 2) For some caveman reason, there is no soft fast forward or rewind button...all there is a chapter next and previous buttons...so you can't skim or scan through screens...these buttons are on the remote, but not on the unit itself. I have never heard of portable dvd player not having this on the unit...not as annoying as the other thing...but still very cavemanish by Philips. I also want to say the video output is good but not the best on the market Panasonic and Toshiba have better resolution on their screens. Philips is better than the average bear, but if you want the best you gotta get one of the other two. Also, when the battery is attached to the player, it does not lay flat...it lays at an angle...kind of weird...I doesn't really bother me, you can adjust the screen accordingly, but I could see how it might bother some people. Hope this helps.

I bought this player because I wanted something to watch movies with in my room where I have neither a television or a dvd player. The slick look of the casing, the massive battery pack, large clear screen, and enough buttons to control the menus are the best highlights.

Down points:
DOES NOT PLAY DVD-R/+R/-RW/+RW well. If you play a working backup on this machine it will screech and scream through the entire movie. I have no clue where this sound comes from but a regular DVD... quiet as a sleeping baby. And by screech and scream the machine is making these noises. Like some door opening without any grease on the hinges times 10.

The player will also not play ALL backup DVDs either. The DVD may work in one machine, not in another. This is a typical behavior with backups so I'm not worried about it. But for those looking for a pancea to this problem, this is not part of the solution.

The player becomes hot during extended use. The heat is felt on the back, top right corner of the machine and weather the temp continues to go up or stays constant, this maybe of concerned for those who want a robust product that won't fail them when the machine is seated on carpet. Its even written on the back of the device, "The surface of the unit will heat in the case of longtime playback, but it is never a malfunction." True or not, I feel any portable device generating heat, means I'm losing battery life. Heat = energy. Fluorescent lighting doesn't generate a lot of heat and it consumes 1/3 of the electricty than an incandescent bulb for the same or greater lumen output.

I am more of a headphone kind of guy but I do agree that the location of the speakers on the bottom and not by the screen or inside above the buttons is bad design. Sound loudness and quality are good enough to draw attention from several seats in a busy airport.

The remote is what I come to expect from miniturization. It works and does what it does. Some may find that pressing the buttons take a lot of effort.

The software on the machine or "firmware" could use some intuitive programming. However it is as much as I expect from a corporate conglomorate appeasing standards. Things like skipping FBI warnings, trailers, long opening menus, basically complete control over the DVD. Opensource applications like VideoLan for for PCs is a good example.

All in all I am still satisfied with my purchase. I bought the product not just for quality but for brand name. Much like buying a new laptop or car. Are you going to trust a cheap KIA or an expensive Volvo to last you 10+ years. And for those wondering I dropped it once on the side when it slid off my lap and onto the laminant flooring without the movie skipping.

I would have scored this product higher but the noise from playing backup DVDs is just unbearable. No amount of hightech sound system is going to drown out the distinct sound comming from this machine.

I recieved this DVD player in 5 days with super saver shipping, but found that it was unable to function properly (i.e. it was unable to play DivX or MP3 files). I was instructed to send it back to Philips for repair (with charge to me though) and recieved a brand new unit after about 2 weeks. Now working, the player is exceptional, the screen fairly crisp (not to mention well sized) the AV in/out very handy, and the aesthetics pleasing.The player has also taken every type of DivX file I can throw at it, including XviD among the various codecs.However, when starting the unit up, it makes a good deal of noise that dulls to a still noticeable hum during playback. Also, viewable file names are limited to 10 characters or so, making some recognition difficult. Finally, with the battery, the player is a bit bulky, but not egregiously so.
Overall, this is a very good DVD player at a good price point for its screen size and I highly reccomend it.

The Good: Portable DVD players are absolutely wonderful. Finally a product that my retired mother can operate. A DVD player without a million buttons actually gets used.

Screen is bright. Controls are simple. You can choose the aspect ratio if you want, but that doesn't complicate normal operation. More advanced options are buried in menus, but are logically arranged. All retail DVDs play. So far, all our home-recorded 4.7GB DVDs play on this unit. Sound is OK for a quiet room, but much better when using earphones.

The Not-So-Good: Unit seems to be rather noisy. Lots of spin up clicks and whooshes. Battery is external and bolts on much like a laptop's expansion dock. (These pictures show the unit without battery.)

The Disappointing: After 5 or 6 months, the noise became excessive. It might take 60 seconds for a DVD to begin to play and the picture would freeze. A quick call to the support line and the tech determined that the unit was defective. He suggested the most likely method of repair would be to swap it out. I was given an RMA number for warranty service.


The Abysmal: There is no option to drop it off locally anywhere in the country; all repairs must be shipped (at your expense) to Siloam Spring, Arkansas. Unfortunately, Philips does not offer an option to ship the replacement immediately using a credit card as security, so I sent it off, thinking I'd have the unit back in 8 or 9 days.

Weeks after shipping, no replacement. A phone call to the 888 "repair status" line produced nothing more than (1) the date it was received and (2) it will take 10 to 15 business days for it to ship. There is no option to get a real shipment date. Philips will not notify you when your replacement ships, though they do invite you to call back after "10 to 15 business days" to see if it is ready for shipment. Add another 3-4 days for ground return shipping.

No amount of prodding would get any useful information other than it will ship from the repair depot, or that the corporate complaint PO Box is in Marietta GA. The polite, but scripted, customer reps could only offer that "we have to follow this process."

Given the potential for a portable device with mechanical parts to need servicing in its lifetime, I will skip Philips next time and look for a brand with local repair service or speedier and more customer-friendly manufacturer's repair.

I purchased the Phillips PET 824 last weekend in preparation for a trip to Hawaii and a 9 hour plane ride, and love it. I've never purchased a Philips product before and wasn't sure what to expect but I'm very happy now! I'm visually oriented and the picture is very nice, but what really surprised me was the quality of the sound available through the special noise-reduction earphones. You can practically 'feel' the really deep rumbling sounds from movies like 'War of the World.' The battery life also shocked and pleased me. I wanted to see if it would actually last the 6 hours advertised, so I watched one movie, put in another movie and fell asleep for 4-5 hours. When I woke, I put in another movie and didn't loose a beat. Although the player generates some heat when played for several hours, it's no problem. I'm now searching for an additional rechargeable battery as I plan to keep and enjoy the unit for some time to come.

I have a Panasonic LX-8 that costed me nearly twice the price of the Philips unit. The Panasonic has been showing its age so I tried to save some money and got this little Philips unit. So how does it compare to its bigger Asian brother, you ask? First, the Philips unit is attractive to the eye before opening it up. However, the reduction in size of the screen of the Philips unit compared to the Panasonic unit is dramatic, terrible--even though it is suppose to be only a half inch smaller. Construction is worst on the Philips besides the well documented noisy feature of the Philip's drive that is probably blown out of proportion when it comes down to actually viewing movies. The sound on the Philips audio is poor, not worth listening, so headphones are a must--compared to the decent sound on the Panasonic unit.
The Philips unit is also advertised to pay "anything," which is anything but the truth, as it play only a select number of disks. I backup my DVD disks before going on LONG trips so as not to scratch or loose my expensive DVD disks. This little unit only plays about 1 out of 6 of them, while the Panasonic plays 5 our of 6. The Philips will not play ANY DL disks. I did a search on the web and found a hack or firmware update for the Philips unit which greatly improved its ability to play disks; if you plan to buy this unit, this is a MUST--even though it will never play DL disks.
The one positive attribute that betters the Philips over the Panasonic unit is that it plays DivX encoded disks--again Panasonic showing its age. This is important as if you go on 10-12 hour flights like I do, you can store many movies on one DVD disk. Do note that this unit has six hours advertised battery life, though I have never had the chance to test it. Another of the weakness is that it doesn't have an auto turn on (like the Panasonic unit); instead there is a side switch to power up and off. When putting it in the carry case (you have to buy this separate not included with unit) it is easy to turn the unit on by accident, so when I tried taking the unit on a long flight it only lasted an hour before dying as the switch had been on for several hours in the protective carrying case and drained the battery. Poor design plagues this unit from top to bottom. The Panasonic unit has a basic battery life of a couple of hours but you can buy additional battery packs that give you an additional 5 hours each--I have two, so have 12 hours without recharging.
So if you use Divx movies a lot, then the Philips unit do you best; but if you are looking for quality, reliability, good design, good construction, better sound and picture, and a strong customer service (Philip's POOR customer service is legendary)then going with a Panasonic LX-8, used or new, is a no brainier.
Basically, the rule of thumb is never buy Philips (European) if you can swing an alternative, quality Japanese brand for near the same money or you can afford to spend the extra money to go with true quality. Some might see this as bigotry or Asian prejudice (I am American BTW), but it is just the way the products are made, nothing to do with the actual countries themselves. I use all American and European High End Audio products in my home audio system, but these little gizmos are a different story!

Just got back from Niagara falls, ontario, took the train from NEw york city which was 10 hour ride, me and my 10 yEAR DAUGHTER LOVED HAVING THIS ITEM WITH US..great picture and great battery life, Im pretty sure I got more than 7 hours on this battery..plus you could hook up one of those game joysticks, as well as hook up your digital camera and watch your pics on way home from your vacation.
GREAT PRODUCT and deinitly beats the Sony dvp-fx810(or something like that).

I LOVE this dvd player. It has a good battery life. The player can be used with the charged up battery or on its own plugged it. I have used it both ways and it is awesome! The sound is good too. While the movie is playing, the picture is clear. It's not too heavy or too light. It's just right. A remote is included with this player. It's portable so you can pretty much bring it anywhere to be used. A must have if you travel alot.