4 Star average reviewat Amazon
DIVX = priceless
It means you can fit 5 digital copies of your DVD’s on 1 disc.
I have a similar model. 4 years old and no complaints.
Same here just don’t over charge it or the battery tanks. I leave it in the car under the seat for those days the kids run late and there is no wifi.
Wow, a whopping $1.41 savings over the owner website.
ETA: actually it’s $11.41, since being available from 3rd party sellers, cheapest shipping is $10.00.
Of course, you can also use a netbook or an iPad to watch video. But this has a couple of BIG advantages:
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Much cheaper! Great for kids.
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Much longer battery life. Even if you’re in a car, is a hassle to run those power cords.
This is also easier for kids and technophobes to operate.
LOL… I still have two Panasonic DVD-L50 players that I bought in 1999, for $600 each. Back then portable DVD players were a big deal, before the days of mini notebooks with built-in DVD players (ROM only).
Mine had 5" “wide screen” displays, which was big at the time.
Now, here is Woot with a $70 player and a 9" screen to boot. Oh well. Back then a 486 notebook with a 500 MB hard disk set you back $1400. Now a 16GB MicroSD chip cost $40.
These dedicated DVD-player-only devices are great for traveling where you don’t have the latest SUV with DUAL DVD players built into your front seat headrests (heaven forbid you don’t have a DVD player each kid in the back).
One time I was barreling down the freeway and I saw a Land Rover with two kids in the back. Each was watching his own DVD player. Wish I had that when I was a kid.
Guess I can’t complain. On my smartphones I can now play feature movies like Avatar. Come to think of it, guess these DVD players will be outdated soon since everyone will be going wireless and streaming movies, such as Netflix.
Makes sense, really. On a 16GB MicroSD chip I can put 28 (yes, I said 28) two hour movies. That’s converting my DVDs to 500 MB each. At that size the quality is very good on my cell phones. (And if I want the movie file to play on a net or notebook, I can convert the file to 1GB size.
The price of this player probably reflects the decline of DVDs, that are going the way of cassette tapes did when CDs came out, then MP3 files replacing CDs.
This is a really nice player and I personally like Philips products, especially when Woot features them. But the reality is, with all the other mediums I now have to play movies (I can even now stream Netflix to my 42" flat panel TV through my Wii game console) the last thing I need is another dedicated DVD player. (I don’t think my $600 Panasonics would fetch $25 on eBay. LOL.)
Here’s my Panasonics, that were a really hot item in the day:
http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-DVD-L50-Portable-DVD-Player/dp/B00000JFMK
Sorry for the long post, just felt like reminiscing and sharing with you the history of these portable DVD players. If you don’t have a couple of these for the kids in the back seat, you really should snap them up, at this price.
Note: I have not looked at the features, but make sure it has a buffer, that “stores” 30 to 60 seconds of video so that if you hit potholes the player does not skip. I dunno, maybe that’s a standard feature now, the buffer. With MPEG4 and other digital formats I have not ever again had to be concerned about skipping.
You also want a car adapter because these drain the battery super fast. One way to go is to simply get a power inverter that converts DC to AC. That way you can simply plug in the players power adapter the same as you would at home.
Inverters to power this low wattage device might cost you $40 at Target. 
Here is a novel one:
http://tinyurl.com/TargetInverter
Update: I clicked the pic and see that it comes with a car adapter that connects to the cigarette lighter. Cool.
Sidenote: I guess to be politically correct those are called “accessory power outlet” and not “cigarette lighter.” So disregard my use of the word in the previous paragraph albeit one cannot unring the bell.
I don’t have this Philips product, but after a recent High End Philips purchase, I registered that product and looked around to see what other philips things I had purchased.
All in all - I was both surprised by how many of my gadgets, gizmos, accessories and Remotes were both Philips and almost all remain among my most often used and favored products.
So I would give an A to the company in general.
This deal? I’ve seen some deals as good or better for various brands that were NOT refurbished.
Walmart (opinions aside) seems to frequently have great sale prices on portable DVD with screens - and Amazon seems to always match any special price Walmart has.
If you don’t care about ‘refurbished’ products, it looks, good.
If you are irrationally phobic of ‘refurbished’ (as I am) I don’t think this is all that great a deal - an I happen to love Philips products.
On second look - I would highly suggest LOOKING AROUND for a portable DVD PLAYER with the ability to have Audio/Video INPUT for any possible video source (game, satelite, security camera, still camera viewing).
ALSO - I would definitely look for one with the ability to read SD cards for playback - that seems to be the current way tech seem from my humble perspective to be going.
Finally - in researching … All portable DVD’s have a limited battery lifetime. Even with all proper precautions, the battery does not last indefinitely … so, I read somewhere, if portable battery use is most important, better to spend as little as possible knowing you will have to replace it every other year at at best.
Oh… one other example of where this is fast becoming, or has become, outdated technology:
Many newer smart or super phones come with a mini HDMI port (e.g., the Sprint EVO). One can connect the cell phone to a flat panel’s HDMI port and play movies on the monitor or TV.
And some phones, if they don’t have an HDMI port have VGA out, to where one can connect a VGA signal from the phone (including audio).
While the movies won’t play full-screen on a 42" display, for example, I am simply comparing that technology with these 9" or smaller dedicated DVD players.
A DVD movie converted to MPEG4 to 1GB will have great color and resolution on these small TFT displays. (IMHO these portable DVD players don’t take full advantage of a DVD quality movie. The display’s resolution and graphic card are not as “powerful” as a full-size DVD player that maximizes the graphics of a DVD, that are dual layer discs, a 2 hour movie being about 7.5 GB. I may be wrong on this, but maybe not?)
Note: My Samsung Vibrant came with the movie Avatar (T-Mobile and Samsung wanted to show off the Vibrant’s Super AMOLED display). The movie looks fantastic on the Vibrant (a Samsung Galaxy S phone). The movie file size was only 1GB on the 2GB microsd card T-Mobile included with the phone. (The video was in HD 3gp format).
Somewhere on the interwebs I might have located the region free code…
They talk about it working on the PET941A and PET941D, same code for both so good chance it will work…
- Turn on player.
- Open disc tray.
- Press setup button on remote.
- Press right button three times to highlight “preference page”
- Type 9 6 5 3
- Press up or down button to change the region code (“0” for all regions)
- Press setup again to exit
And I second the idea of multiple movies on 1 disc. It is a great way to keep the kids or big kids entertained on a long trip. And no need to worry about a real disc getting fried in a hot car.
Willing to bet if you were so inclined you could lower the standard rip settings for Divx to suit the screen size and downmix the audio and maybe get more movies per disc. But only if thats allowed, because depending on the day/wind direction/mood format shifting is EVILS! cough cough
I have done a lot of research on batteries over the years.
Generally, all batteries have a shelf life of about four to five years before they give out or start to not hold a 100% charge. Anything beyond five years is a gift.
A battery will “wear out” even if it sits on a shelf unused. So not using it won’t prolong its life.
A battery is good for about 300 to 700 charge cycles, which I won’t explain, but that does NOT mean simply charging it 300 times, for example. It relates to the battery being fully drained and then fully charged. The battery keeps track of this, so you don’t have to.
The danger in buying any new old item, say these players were manufactured in 2008, is that the battery can be “half worn out” to where it completely wears out two years from now. (That’s a problem with old, but new electronics on eBay, say a 2008 notebook. The battery may not have much life left. And that’s a real problem if buying an OEM replacement battery that’s a few years old. It may be worn out even though it’s new and never used.)
Generally, fully charged batteries discharge at the rate of about 10% a month, even if the battery is not used. That’s why if you fire up a device after a year it does not stay on or simply does not power up, the battery discharged.
Generally it’s not healthy for the battery to let it fully discharge. Worse case it may not hold a charge. So even on devices you rarely use, such as this DVD player because you don’t take the kids on long trips too often, it’s a good idea to charge the battery and use the device every few months.
And the best workaround to battery issues is to only buy devices that accept an external power source, for when the battery completely dies and there’s no newly-manufactured replacement for it.
delete. noticed it was 2" less
Difference being 7" screen vs 9" screen.
I do not think these are obsolete just yet.
People still have DVDs, and while there are new tech advances that are better… people still buy DVDs.
Sometimes a “cheapie” item like this is better than handing over a $200+ tech toy to a kid.
But as always YMMV
Of all the positive notes I’m seeing, I have to throw in a negative tone; I’ve had two of this same model (at least the 941D); the first one we had to take back within a week because the sound stopped working properly. Interestingly enough, someone else was there returning the same model (his second); even knowing this, we decided to give it one more try. It worked fine for a few months, and then the screen started blacking out if you even moved it. It still plays, and when it does it’s not bad, but these two experiences have left me with a sour taste in my mouth for this player.
We purchased this (or very similar) for my daughter last year to replace her old portable DVD player. We’ve had no complaints. It’s great for long car rides and weekends when she wants to stay up late to watch a movie, and we want her in bed. Compromise - she watches her movie in bed 
Does anyone know if the screen on this flips around so it lays flay backward?
Yer so right, I purchase a refurbished 7” portable DVD player (Nexxtech) 3 years ago off of Woot and it came with a worthless battery (lasted about 15 minutes). But I just use the AC adaptor and hooked it up to the Schwinn exercise stationary bike that I purchased from Woot also. So I guess it works for me. Side note, after 3 years, that battery still can hold a 15 minute charge, I would have thought it would go dead by now.