Mintek MDP-1770KIT 7-Inch Portable DVD Player Kit
Compact, feature-full and inexpensive!
After weeks of research and after by chance finding this little player in a local store (FutureShop Canada), I finally had myself a portable DVD player. This review is based on short term ownership so I can not speak about reliability, durability etc.<BR>To start with, the player is REGION FREE which was a must for me as I travel between Europe (Code 2) and America (Code 1) a lot. You simple select the country in the preferences and voila, its play time!<BR>It comes with remote which is handy although I do not expect to use it much (will have the player in my lap!) but its nice to have though. The power-supply is a non-switching 110v one which will not work in Europe (230v), but as the player uses 12 volts DC it is not a problem to find general-purpose power-supply and run it from this instead. A car adapter is included as well which is great for recharging the unit (or view DVD's).<BR>It's size is what I like the most, only slightly larger than a portable CD player and a snap-on battery which unlike other models, do not double its size! I've seen many similar models which looks much more bulky and with smaller screens.<BR>The display itself is very nice, bright and not too narrow-angled - 2 people sitting next to eachother will have no problem what-so-ever with visibility! In moving sequences, it is possible to detect the interlaced drawing of the image but this is really only noticable when you look for it and can hardly expect more for such a cheap (non-progressive scan) unit. Naturally due to the 16:9 scale, widescreen DVD's looks the best (uses all the screen). Another note about the screen is that you can spot slightly more brightness on the edges of the screen (probably due to a mirror-effect on the alu sides) but again this is really only noticable in black sequences and when you look for it. If you want the purest and best in image quality, get a Panasonic or Toshiba portable but expect to pay much much more! However, if you, like me, needed a cheap unit which was small, region-free, can be hooked up as a monitor (Composite video in!) and play MP3 as well then you really do not go wrong with this one! On a final note; the sound is as can be expected, no problem with that except naturally the units tiny speakers are not for plane travelling but who tries that anyway without a noise-cancelling headset?!? Finally, unlike other similar players, this unit HAS a recharge indicator so you can see when its done!