Intro

I purchased this excellent DVD player from Sainsburys recently for the bargain price of £27.99 on sale, and am so far very impressed with what I have got for the money. Having paid a great deal more for my previous one, that did not last very long at all, I was not keen to shell out a great deal of money, and decided to go for quite a basic model. This particular player attracted me for several reasons.

What it does that makes it so good

Unusually for a cheap player, it plays a variety of different video formats. It is possible to watch JPEG photo CD's, so you could put in your CD of photos, and as long as they are in this format, (which from what I am told most are) then you can view them on your TV screen. It plays audio CDs, simply meaning all your music CDs and CD-R/CD-RW. This means that if you had something that you wanted to watch recorded onto a CD it would also play that. In fact it plays pretty much any format, so any self-made DVDs can be watched. It is also multi-regional. I have to say however that I have not had the unit long and so cannot attest to this always working, but it does claim so on the box and the user manual. Being multi-regional can be of more use than you may think. For example, In the past I have bought DVDs, especially boxsets from the USA on Amazon, or whilst there on trips, for much cheaper than in the UK, many standard players here would not play them, but this little beauty will. It was also very simple to set up, I simply turned it on, attached the Scart from the player to the television, and that was that. The player does not come with the scart lead incidentally, but if you are like me and have owned several electronic devices in recent times then you will have a spare one knocking about. If you don't however they are not overly expensive and can easily be picked up for just a couple of pounds. This setup highlights one of the best things about this unit, it is ridiculously easy to use. Even though I am not very tech savvy in comparison to many people my age, this unit has offered no trouble. The remote control is small and simple looking like the player, and any changes you may want to make, for example if you wish to adjust settings to wide screen TVs or for pan scan (with the sides trimmed) this is all easy to navigate through the setup button on the remote.
The look of the player

It is also a very good looking and sleek player, all black, simple but nice and very small and light. In fact the lady in the shop asked us if we were sure, it was actually in the box, it is that light. My last player was rather large and cumbersome, so this is a welcome relief, ontop of the fact that it cost, four times less. Saying this, my last player also had an inbuilt freeview box, but as many TVs come with them already built in, and the fact that these are so cheap anyway, this is not a feature that I was bothered about this time. I think any good review should try to include some criticism, but so far I have nothing of note to say.

Any Downsides?

It does not make the tea, which would be nice! On a serious note this is a very simple player in some ways, for example with my previous player I could record things and burn them onto cds, so this is not the player for techno buffs, but in many ways it is an excellent player and very good value for money, and if you just want a simple player that is good value for money..look no further. If I have any problems in the coming weeks, I shall update the review!