Best investment for 12 hour plane journeys! (Panasonic DVD LX8EG-S)

Member Name: scotlandizdabest

Product:	Panasonic DVD LX8EG-S
Date:	28/01/09 (278 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Portable, good picture and sound, very handy to beat boredom

Disadvantages: Quite sensitive if moved suddenly

What Is It?
The Panasonic LX8EG-S (I had to check the battery to make sure it was this exact one) is a portable DVD player. It has a LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) 9" screen display. It is used to allow the access of DVD's and CD's to be played at will, without the need of a television.

Why Get One?
I asked for one for my Christmas two years ago so I would be able to watch DVD's in the car, in my room and on the plane for when we went to New Zealand. So it would be useful as I would be able to watch my favorite DVD's at will. You might have the same ideas as I found it was great entertainment in the plane as me and my brother did not like the on flight movies so we watched all the Harry Potter movies!

Packaging
When I got mine it came in a rectangle shaped box with a white plastic handle on it. It had pictures of it all over the sides and logos of Panasonic, just incase they wanted us to recognise the logo even more! It looked very attractive from the pictures. So I opened it up and it was neatly packaged in between packaging in a plastic wrapper to stop it scratching. The controller, in-car battery charger, AC/DC battery charger, instructions and battery pack were all packaged underneath. Taking the packaging out was very easy and I was able to set it up straight away.

Instructions
The instructions were in black and white and very easy to follow. It started you out by inserting the battery pack into DVD player. Easy enough so far. You then can choose from a battery charger either your in-car one or your mains electricity one. I choose, like a lot of people the mains one as it would be a bit silly to start the car, just to get the DVD player working! So it start to charge, but before you can start to use it, the instructions say to leave it plugged in for 6 hours so it is fully charged. You know when it is charged as it had a light on the battery pack which is red when it is needing charged and green, if it has a lot of power. The instructions have hints and tips to keep your DVD player in good order and also a help line if the worst came and you need spare parts. Simple enough so far.

Design/Size
The main design is a black and silver 'modern' style. The screen is 9" and can offer to play widescreen by converting it. It is a height (This is my own measurements so they might not be completely accurate!) is 14 cm and width 21 cm. Its a nifty portable size and is small enough to fit in a bag (well mine anyway!) but is big enough to get a really good picture. It has 6 buttons on the right hand sign. They are used as DVD actions like volume, play, pause, stop and eject. This is really useful if you can't find the controller and there the most used buttons anyway. The on/off button is on the right side along side the charging port, headphone socket and AV/In/Out. So it is practical as well as portable. The design, I really like and the screen is really good size. Impressed so far?

What Discs Is It Compatible With?
It will take DVD's of most types apart from DVD-RAM. You are not able to record DVD's on this so your discs must have some sort of suitable data on it. It will take audio CD's so you are able to listen to music through the speakers. It will also take photo CD's so you are able to view your photos which I think is a great feature. You can view slide shows that you have made which is good. It won't take Blue-Ray or HD DVD's so watch out for that. But in general it will take almost all DVD's and audio CD's plus picture.

Battery Length
To charge the DVD player for the first time take 6 hours which is a long time but the rest of the time to fully charge takes about 2/3 hours. I found that battery length can vary but about the average time is about 2/3 hours. If your just playing CD's i've found it will last a lot longer. The battery length is very good but the problem is that it doesn't warn you if battery is low so it will just cut out when it has ran out which is slightly annoying especially if your busy watching a movie.

Picture Quality
The picture quality is very good. It uses a LCD screen so it is able to give a good, clear, colorful picture. It can be altered using the controller as the brightness can be changed (which I have never had to do) the color can be changed so it is black and white or the opposite and very bright. You can change how much of the screen is filled with the picture, but this cannot be done if you have a DVD designed for widescreen. When listening to music there is just a blue screen where you can select your next track you want. So the picture quality is very impressive for the size and I would highly praise it.

Sound Quality
The DVD player has 2 speakers at each side of the player (Left and Right) to give it 3D effects. The sound quality is very very good and again I was very impressed. Like the picture quality it can be changed but does not have as much to play with. The bass and the treble can be changed but again I have never needed to use this feature. The volume is very good but if your in a busy place it can be quite difficult to listen to. It doesn't come with headphones so I just use my iPod/MP3 ones which work very well and effectively.

Extras
Extras, well the controller gives a lot of extras like the ability to play movies with subtitles, option for blind which reads out the scenes, chapter selection, basically everything that a normal DVD player has. It has the usual fast forward, stop etc. However there isn't much extras on the DVD player itself but it does a brilliant job and in some way glad it doesn't have fancy features as it keeps it easy to use.

Price/Where To Get It?
This is not as popular now as there are much newer models on the market which have newer features. But it is still very good. You can order it of different dealers like Curries, Dixons and Amazon and off Panasonic but I have been having a look and they seem to be obsolete now and no longer manufactured. They however still had some for sale which range from about £99.99 to £49.99.

What's Right With It?
Were do I start, well the picture quality is fantastic. The sound is brilliant and very impressive, especially if your watching a action packed movie like Pirates of the Carribean or something like that. The design is modern and sleek and very good portable shape as it can be easily shut and put in a bag. The DVD player is very simple to use and can be easily watched. To make proper advantage of the DVD player watch it in the car or plane as believe me, the long, boring trips can be made fun and seem to go a lot quicker. You can use a car charger so that it doesn't run out of battery (but your car might) and with a very good battery time which will last around 1/2 films depending on how long they are. Just fantastic!

What's Wrong With It?
Like all things, it has its down sides. The controller can be easily lost as it is quite small which annoys me a lot and yes I admit it could just be my lack of memory (which is worrying as i'm only 16!) but it can be highly annoying to try and find it. Another thing which is a down side is that if it is moved or bumped it switches itself off but thankfully this has only happened about 3 times in its 2 year career.

Conclusion
A truly brilliant bit of kit to have! If your easily bored in the car and like movies then this is brilliant. And it has another advantage which I found and a lot of other people may find is that if you have one DVD player in the house you can just use this one as spare and I am able at any time watch my favorite DVDs. And one more I have used it in a power cut we had because of the snow (one great advantage of Scotland!) and it was fully charged so it was able to keep me and my brother amused for a while (then another day of no power but that meant no school!) So I am recommending this product to everyone and even if not this brand then another as they are fantastic!

Copyright of Scotlandizdabest on Dooyoo.co.uk

P.S. I just wanted to add I'm watching Batman and the Dark Knight, just now on the Panasonic DVD Player, so that is what I call live reporting!

Summary: Excellent Product To Have!

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