Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic DVD-LS850 Portable DVD Player with 8.5" Diagonal Widescreen LCD - Deluxe Version includes Carry Case, Car Headrest Bracket, DC Adapter & 6 -Hour Battery

I have recently jumped into the portable DVD player bandwagon, to make my 1-hour-plus-each-way train ride a little more pleasurable. I started off with a lot of research, and ended up with a Philips 8.5" player - 6 hours battery life, and a screen that washes out the competition (mostly from Sony).

I ordered online, after going through the specs from multiple websites, and making sure that looks perfect. The product arrives - and guess what I missed in my multiple weeks of research - the battery weighs an additional 1.5 lbs, and sticks out significantly from the pack. So much for the pleasurable commute - lugging a close to 4lb DVD player. Might as well have taken my Thinkpad along.

Luckily (or un-), the product stopped working after only 2 weeks of use - and I went through a complete return adn refund. My next stop - the Panasonic here.

Out of the box, it looked great - multiple viewing angles, no hidden heavyweight batteries (product weights 1050 g / 2lb 5 oz with batteries, as per my kitchen scale), and the battery goes into the hinge - like some Sony laptops - a big plus.

The flipside is that the 6 hour battery is at the minimum brightness and headphones on - which means if you choose anything other than 'moonlight' as your brightness preference (there's daylight - the brightest, which I like the most, naturally - and also a user-defined setting of brightness and contrast) the nattery will last less. Frankly, all I need it for is one full length movie, maybe 2 - so I am happy so far with the battery life - it's not going to be less than 3.5 hours anyway.

Battery life apart, everything - I repeat, everything - in this is better than the Philips. My purchase from Costco came with a carrying case - it's possible that this is not a standard accessory - but the Amazon listing has this as well. The case is on the bigger side, but rather nice - well padded, with a main zipper to store the player and a side compartment to hold 4 DVDs, some cables, etc. As for the box, here's what's in it - the player and the battery pack, AC adapter, car lighter adapter, a mount kit for placing the player on the back of a car headrest, and AV cables. Enough to get you started. This takes 12V DC input, so the car adapter is pretty straightforward - the Philips used a weird 10.5 volts (IIRC).

The Philips also had a super minimalistic design - which meant you had to use the remote to do fast forwards, since there was no FF key on the unit. This saves you the pain. The buttons are cleanly, clearly and conveniently located in the front of the unit.

Another big win over the Philips - disk resume. I watch about half of a movie during my morning commute, and need to resume from where I left off in the evening - this is easy on this. Just press play.

Next win - the on/off button. Philips had this on the side - with the big heavy battery pack on, a brush on the side of my messenger bag could flip this switch - which meant when I finally sat down to watch my movie, the battery was dead. Panasonic has this shielded by the clamshell design - much better. Plus, the off button (same as stop, press longer) fades out the screen gently and switches the player off - a nice touch.

Yet another plus - noice level. The Philips was positively noisy - people sitting next to you could easily hear the loud whirring of the DVD, unless you took the headphones off, so the soundtrack could distract them. Not so on this one.

As far as the screen is concerned - they are both equally good - the Panasonic is a little tighter, as the player is roughly 16x9 in dimension, while the Philips has a little more blank space around the frame, since the player is a little off the 16x9. In any case, it's a close call.

Overall, I'm glad the Philips died, and this came out right on time. Panasonic was out with similarly designed DVD players way earlier than the rest of the market - but they then carried a $400 price tag and a 2 hour battery life. I am really glad they moved things around, while still keeping them light enough to actually be able to carry them around.

*update: November 15, 2008*: Just a quick update here - my Panasonic DVD player is still running strong, and though the models have gone through some minor changes in these 18 months, the base functionality is pretty much unchanged. I'm surprised to see, so is the price. I guess this market has settled down of sorts, and that makes the Panasonic a clear winner - no earth shattering releases from anyone else in this space.

I agree completely with the earlier reviewer. This piece is solid, well designed, does what it does perfectly, unlike some other ones I've tried that feels like a awkardly shrunk version of a much bigger player with the buttons randomly assigned to places just for the sake of being small. The volumn is adequate, the controls are clear and convenient. Most of all, the screen is of high contrast and saturate color, a big plus for the plus.



2 minor minus points:



a. No remote. The REMOTE can be VERY USEFUL when the unite is mounted on the head rest in a car. But Costco's package doesn't contain one.



b. Change settings (subtitle, time setting) requires go through the menu system, which is a big problem when mounted. To be fair, it is very easy to mount/unmount the unit from the head rest. But still, it is a unnecessary hassle if only a remote control is available.



All in all, highly recommended.

The LS-82 model's battery is rated for a longer battery life than the LS-850's. As compared with the LS-82 model, this one comes with a carrying case, and with the CGR-LH711 battery. This model's battery is a 2250 mAh battery, wheras the battery that comes with the LS-82 model is the CGR-LH712, which is a 4500 mAh battery. If you want a bargain and want the carrying case, then fine go for the LS-850. But buyer's should take note of the differences in battery capacity between this model and the LS-82.

This is a somewhat rugged player with a great deal of features. I purchased it to act as a desktop monitor for a Dish Receiver located in my office.

It has both Video In and Video Out so you can use the player to connect to a larger TV. I have done this with greate success. I took other players back because they did not support DIVX. This unit supports just about every format I could get my hands on. I can fit 10 full length charlie chan movies in DivX on a single CD.

The battery life is about the same as other models I tested. The only way to get the 6hour length they talk claim is to turn down the brightness on the monitor to the minimum. This setting will not work on in the daytime. If you use the daylight setting you will get only about 37 Minutes of video. The is the main reason I did not give it a 5 out of 5 review.

The unit makes a great MP3 player. The screen can display a double tree. The left tree is the directory and the right is the songs. I use the player to play books on tape and complete sets of music. I can fit the complete TimeLife 80's CD collection on a single DVD.

When playing Audio you may turn off the montior which will jump the battery life up to 8hours. I have tested this and actualy gotten over 12 hours of playback.

The picture quality is not as good as some of the other players but works for me. If you are used to very high quality videos you may not be happy with the display.

The display can be set in several variations. This unique design is much smore rugged than the rotating displays that other players use.

All in all I am quit happy with the player and have used it to show the family many of my Divx movies on the family TV as well as slide shows.

I purchased this dvd player from costco for my daughter to watch movies on long car rides. The screen has a better picture than the others at costco, and had a better mounting system, but it was the only one without a remote control which makes it inconvenient when I need to replay or anything else. I searched the panasonic web site and they do not offer a remote control for this dvd player.