Customer Reviews

Philips PET941D/37 Portable DVD Player with 9-Inch LCD, White

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I received this portable DVD player as a surprise birthday gift recently. I have to say that so far I'm delighted with the machine. The first pleasant surprise is that it was charged up and ready to go, right out of the box. I haven't taken so much as a look at the instructions yet, but have found every aspect of the player's function to be user-friendly and easily intuitive (which coming from me is saying something).

Another reviewer complained about the picture quality. I find it to be perfectly fine. My one tip would be to make sure you've got the screen angled properly for best viewing. Additionally, the sound quality, in particular the volume level, was far superior to an Insignia portable player I was using a few weeks ago. The included remote control was also significantly better than the other brand, as it had more features available such as on-screen display, angle, and zoom.

I've spent hours at a stretch watching DVDs on my player, and I've yet to see a low battery indicator. The long battery life is fantastic! Again, the 5+ hour battery life was about twice that of the other DVD player I tested. In addition to the typical charging and connecting cables, the Philips player comes with a protective neoprene sleeve for when you're traveling with your DVD player. It's very basic, but serves a purpose. The machine is certainly small and light enough to slip into a carry-on or even large purse without too much fuss. This isn't a top of the line portable player, but seems like a reasonable value for the price. The construction feels sturdy. The design is sleek. And this small luxury item meets all of my needs.

This is a great product. We used to have an old 7" Initial brand player and jumping to 9" brand new device seemed like a miracle. We have ordered the item few days before our road trip so actually had to pay an extra 20$ or so for overnight delivery. Despite that quite satisfied with the product and do not regret for a second.

I liked the design of the player and it being white and glossy recalls some associations with stylish Apple brands. It is somewhat thick body but extremely lightweight for the size. The compartment for DVD is covered by 2/3 size of the body top that opens up. The top looks a bit weak and you naturally would want to be somewhat careful when inserting the DVD. May be a smaller opening for DVD would be more reliable, however would mess up the design.

I guess the biggest surprise for me was the life of the battery. We drove from KS to TX for 8 hours and our little one was watching it almost all the way through. No, the battery would not hold for 8 hours, but no less than 5, for sure. We heard "are we there yet?" only for two times that made the drive much more pleasant... ))

The battery is located inside the player and you can not remove it like with laptop, or other players without unscrewing it. It puzzled me because to extend the battery life one would want to have control over their power, i.e. to remove it one the device works from DC. But I realized this is not a problem as there is built in controller that charges the battery only when the device is in a switched off mode, unlike your laptop, that can be charged while operating from DC. It may be inconvenient, if you don't have time to charge it overnight and need to charge it while watching, but we didn't have problems with it. The player come with a car adapter and AV out cord. Well, again here Phillips tried to economize or what and actually made it short, so to connect to your TV you would need you regular AV cord that, arguably, is available in every household. However, it would've been nice to have the full cord in the set.

Picture quality is okay. I would rate it 7.5 out of 10. Before purchasing I read some comments that resolution is somewhat low. I guess I would've not brought that up if I didn't read the comments before. I scrutinized the screen to a greater detail. If you look at the screen very close, indeed you may be able to see pixel lines. Certainly, you computer monitor have a better resolution. But this is a bigger than 7" screen and one doesn't have to keep it very close. It is big enough to watch together.

Sound quality is extremely good and loud. If you are heading for the trip make sure you get some headphones. If you would like to connect a pair of headphones you would need to get a splitter (not included). I think Phillips could've make two sound exits.

Okay, it seems I wrote too many "could've been" words despite of my good rating. I think this is a great player for the price. No, it is not cheap piece and doesn't look cheap either. I recommended this player to my sister when she wanted to get one for her son. The best thing about Phillips players that they don't give you head ache with reading DVDs from various regions. This one reads also DVX files that was of utmost importance for us as we have quite a few disk in video formats. Look at some competitors and you'll come back to this product, unless you want to invest 60-90$ more for the same feature but top brand. Good luck!

Overall, this is a competent replacement for my three old Mintek player. See below for pro's and con's. The battery recharge takes 5 hours and device will play for about 4.3 hours. I think thats pretty decent. This review is for the similar model 941A.

Pro's

Decent 9" screen. Quite sharp for retail movie DVD's. If you were expecting HDTV, look elsewhere.
Sound quality was fair.
Many remote buttons are duplicated on the player.
Plays MP3 CD's. Can view jpg picture files on a CD.
Compact remote.
Includes a tight fitting sleeve, AV cable, car power adapter, and AC power adapter.
Use AV cable to play back to a TV. (Additional component/composite cable may be needed).
Not as heavy as my previous 7" Mintek player.

Con's

Player has motor noise noticeable at low volume levels.
Body of the player is plastic, feels cheap.
Maximum volume is a little short.
On/Off slider is marked reversed.

Ad copy/description claims "9" high resolution swivel LCD screen."

Fact is that 9" screen portables in the one twenty to one fifty street price range have resolutions in the neighborhood of 800x640 and this thing has a paltry resolution of 640x220. My cell phone has a higher resolution!

So it is very low resolution and does not have other goodies such as an SDhc slot or a USB slot.

Hi,

I liked this player in all other aspects except that I was expecting the picture quality to be better. I am not sure if this is a limitation of the technology but why can't portable DVD players have better resolution (comparable with laptops and netbooks) ? After all, users are going to keep it at max 2 feet away if not less (just like laptop and netbook). In that case, higher resolution display is a necessity.

-Ravi

For the investment, this unit does all expected. We subrtacted one star because of two shortcomings. First, the supplied connection wire for TV use is hopelessly short. Second, the base is pulled over backwards when the screen is tilted past about 50 degrees. The sound is meager - but that is the case with some more expensive players. (Earphone sound is fine however.) Considering picture quality and features, this is a fine player for the price at Amazon.

Nearly Perfect.

It is slippery because of the finish on the plastic body. The player slip-slides around in your lap, or anywhere else you may set it down. Easy to drop although I haven't yet.

I don't care for the fact that there is no sound on the 2X fast forward speed. I use the Phillips portable DVD player to watch educational DVD's. My home player will play sound on the lowest level of fast forward or 2X. The voices do sound like the "Chipmunks" but you can hear and understand the dialog. It is especially handy when reviewing and for long winded teachers! Bummer.

The 3 screen brightness selections are great. In the sunny outdoors using the player on 'bright' works well. To save battery life view on 'low' and of course for most conditions 'normal' is the ticket.

AVI jacks and a charger come with it. But no ear buds. My headphones work well with the player though. The battery charger works fine.

All in all I would trade it for a player with audio in fast forward. Other than that, it is a well built, full featured player. You can even view your CDs but the image format MUST BE JPEG.

Near Perfect Buy
C.Paterson

My wife and I purchased this Philips portable dvd player (pet941D/37) three months ago and we are very satisfied. Great picture, good sound and volume for a small unit. We get about 4 hours of battery life with screen brightness on NORMAL. All the functions work well. The only control that is a little hard to work with is the volume control, small and and hard to manipulate. That is minor compared to all the other great features.
Ernie
New york

I bought this for my three year old grandson and he loves watching it. When my daughter and son-in-law go out to dinner, they take this with them and it keeps the little one occupied after he has finished his dinner and they are eating their dinner. It is easy to use and my grandson can do it all himself. It has a nice long battery life, too.

My DVD arrived on time as promised and I love it. The outside is white and the in-side is black. The screen was just larg enough to watch my movies and enjoy it. The colors were great and the 9inch screen was big. The size was great for the tray on the airplane. I would buy another one.