The Product: Portable DVD Player

A portable DVD player is great to have for extended travel, both for kids and adults alike. It can offer hours of enjoyment on a single charge that will usually outlast most laptops. Prices on portable DVD players have come down considerably over the past year.

Recommendation: Philips PET824 8.5" Portable DVD Player

The Philips PET824 offers the right mix of value, a quality display, decent battery life and compatibility. With Philips’ Zero Bright Dot technology, the LCD display on this unit is guaranteed to come with no color dots, a common problem with many inexpensive LCD products. The 8.5” display offers a solid picture accompanied by built-in stereo speakers. What I particularly like is the dual headphone jack, which can keep both of the kids quiet when we are driving or on the plane.

The rechargeable battery offers up to five hours of continuous playback and comes with a car jack that keeps the unit powered for as long as you need though the cigarette lighter. It’s also compatible with DivX technology, which means movies burnt on CD-R’s can also be used.

Devil's Advocate:

The only issue I have with this unit is the built-in speakers. They do not offer the volume neccassary for the car, especially with children, so I would definitely recommend having some headphones handy.