Samsung DVD-M101 DVD Player
Pay a little more to get a better player
I bought the Samsung 101 a couple months ago as my first DVD player.  The price seemed reasonable and I liked the remote control.  I also liked the Samsung 1-year warranty on parts and labor.  Most players have a 90-day warranty on labor, and a 1-year warranty on parts, which means you are taking a risk if you do not buy an extended service contract from your retailer.  <br />Connection and set-up were fast and easy, and the owner's manual is excellent, logically organized and with clear instructions.  <br />Picture and sound were fine, but there were sporadic, though noticeable, \\"break ups\\" in the picture where it would disintegrate into large pixels.  These are not the fault of the discs, since they don't always happen in the same place at the same time.  <br />More annoying than the occasional picture problems is the slowness with which the player loads the DVD and responds to the remote control.  The remote response is so slow that I often was not sure if the player had even received the signal until 5 or 10 seconds after I had pushed the button.  While you do get used to this after a while, it's a real drawback.<br />The ergonomics of the remote itself are very good, with an intuitive layout, but this is offset by the slowness of the player's response.  <br />The player does a good enough job that it got me hooked on DVDs, but after a month, I relegated this player to the bedroom and bought a Toshiba (2800) that is far superior to the Samsung and only cost about [a bit] more. <br />The Toshiba also has a great feature that the Samsung lacks:  the first zoom level on the Toshiba gives you a slightly larger letterboxed image for widescreen DVDs, without cutting off much at the sides and with no discernable loss of image sharpness.  This is a real convenience on my 27\\" TV, maintaining the widescreen ratio but giving a bigger image.  The Samsung has a feature called \\"S-Fit\\" which supposedly does the same thing, but the manual says it does not work on all discs, andI never got it to work on any of mine.  The Toshiba works for all the discs I have and it's a feature I would not sacrifice.<br />Bottom line on the Samsung 101: <BR> <BR>Pro:  Good remote, good picture, good sound, 1-year warranty parts and labor, good instruction manual.<br />Con:  Sporadic picture problems, slow to load DVDs and slow to respond to remote, 2-level zoom does not increase image size for widescreen DVDs.<br />If you want a good basic player and don't want to pay for an extended warranty, consider the Samsung.