Five Years On It's Still Going Strong (Sony DVP NS355/S)

Member Name: kitschkitty

Product:	Sony DVP NS355/S
Date:	18/12/08 (162 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Reliable, easy to use

Disadvantages: Only a simple range of features.

As I scour my flat for new products to review my gaze settled on my Sony DVD player, most probably due to the fact that it is located a mere few inches away from where I sit at my laptop. I've had this DVD player in my possession for nearly 5 years and it's still going strong.

Firstly, for those of you who are particular about appearances, this is a sleek and slimline DVD player, finished in silver. I find the majority of electrical appliances nowadays seem to favour a silver finish so the chances are it will blend perfectly with your TV, digibox etc and if it does happen to stand out, it's still pleasing on the eye. One of the major advantages of this DVD player for me is the space I save in my small flat. Partly this is due to the design of the DVD player which means it comfortably sits on a wall mounted bracket beneath my TV (which is also wall mounted incidentally). It's slim but is still large enough for me to stack my Freeview box on top as well as various remote controls, a few DVDs that are waiting to be watched and general nick nacks and junk I haven't got round to tidying away.

It also saves me space in that I don't require a separate radio or CD player since this player is capable of playing CDs through my TV which is a great bonus for me where space is limited. Since the DVD player has a remote control I can happily listen to some music in an attempt to doze off and switch it off from the sanctuary of my bed. The music quality is great, although I imagine a lot of that is down to the quality of my TV through which it plays and there's a relaxing image on screen whilst listening to CDs.

Using it is simple which is fortunate for me since the instruction manual disappeared many moons ago. It came complete with a remote control that does seem to have a lot more buttons than necessary but playing, pausing, fast forwarding and rewinding DVDs is a doddle and you can even move through DVDs frame by frame, perfect for assessing whether the tax disk on the batmobile is out of date and other innocuous movie trivia.

This player is multiregional and was sold as being so. It plays all manner of discs (nudge nudge, say no more) and I've only once had a problem playing DVDs on it. This was with a couple of American DVDs I bought from Amazon. Despite the umpteen warnings at checkout that these were layered disks which might not be compatible even with a multiregional player, I still went ahead and bought them. Suffice to say, they wouldn't play and have been assigned to the scrap heap. I think this was due to some sort of encryption on the DVDs, probably due to the fact that the films I selected hadn't been released in the UK yet so this shouldn't be a common problem.

Another negative I should point out is that there's only one scart socket on the DVD player (excuse my lack of correct technical terminology there!) and I only have one on my TV too. This means fiddling about with the scart lead to unplug my freeview box and hook up the DVD player when I want to watch a film. I'm not entirely sure if it's my TV or the DVD player that should be considered at fault for only having one scart socket but I thought it's worth a mention.

Since this is an older model of DVD player, it doesn't have the ability to record, nor is there and inbuilt freeview player but it's simple and reliable and does what I need it to do. It was my ex who chose this model over the others on offer as he has a lifelong affiliation with Sony and refuses to buy any other brand of electronics. We paid around £70 at the time back in the day when DVD players were still a new and exciting gadget. Having had a quick nosey at Ebay, you can now pick up this model for around £30 which seems like quite a bargain to me. Admittedly, many supermarkets are now knocking out DVD players for £15 but with this you get the Sony brand name and the quality and reliability you'd expect from that. It's lasted me 5 years which I wouldn't expect a cheaper brandless model to do and has survived various house moves, a showering of cider thanks to my ex and general wear and tear and is still going strong. If you can pick one up relatively cheaply, then it's a worthy investment either as your primary player or, if you're lucky enough to have an all singing and all dancing recording DVD player, perhaps as a backup for the spare room.

Summary: Five Years On It's Still Going Strong

Processing/Quality:
Reliability:
Ease of use:
Installation:
Picture quality:
Features: