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

This model's lightweight, and the includes extras are nice. But Panasonic makes several models with larger screens and longer batteries, for not much more weight and (at times) a lower price. We bit the 10" with an 11-hour battery, and have loved it.

I purchased this player as a replacement because I clumsily killed my Toshiba SD-P1900 9" player. I figured, even with a half-inch loss of screen size, I'd still be in the game, right? Panasonic's a great brand name, right? WRONG.

This particular Panasonic model not only has lousy picture quality and no remote, but there are no fast forward or fast rewind functions other than skipping all the way ahead or all the way back to the beginnings of scenes. I'm a film buff, so I like to be able to back up two or three seconds to check out that explosion in fps detail, or to move forward or backward at 2X or 4X or 8X, etc. Plus, if you extend the adjustable screen forward as shown in most illustrations, you cannot see or reach the control buttons without moving it out of your way.

I'm no video product engineer, but I hope my impression of the VERY inadequate picture quality and overall poor design of this player makes you think twice. Go for the Toshiba instead!

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.

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.