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Philips DCP851 8.5-Inch Portable DVD Player with Ipod Dock
From Philips
List Price: $179.99
Price: $128.95

Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Ships from and sold by 6ave

39 new or used available from $99.95

Average customer review:

Customer Reviews

Good, but the goggles
This is a player that has so much going for it except for one thing. The one thing that the video player really needs – the screen. The screen on this player is not just second-rate, it is third-rate compared to those in its price class. That said it is the fact that this player has so many other really good features that I still give the player a positive review.

First comes the iPod dock. This is fantastic feature that allows us to play movies on the road. The nice touch is that the iPod will tuck inside the unit offering protection. When you do not have an iPod in there the remote tucks away. That is a really nice feature.

Second is the SD/MMC slot. We use this more than anything. I took many of my kids’ DVDs and transcoded them to DivX form and no more scratched discs. This is the best feature with one minor problem. You have to constantly switch the source – I wish if you had no DVD or iPod, but did have a memory card it would auto-switch to that media.

Last thing is the flat format instead of the clam shell. I prefer the clam shell because the car mounts work better and protects the screen. Using the flat format has already caused me to have a scratched screen.

Overall it is a good product that could have been so much better – the screen is just so bad I dropped its rating. With a good screen it would have been 4 or 4.5 stars in my opinion.

Okay player, but certainly has room for improvement.
I brought this refurbished from Philips direct for a good price. It comes with all the accessories like av cable, car and wall charger, and a few brackets to fit the ipod nano (3rd gen), touch, ipod 5th gen and ipod classic. I tried using a ipod 5th gen and videos come out as good as you put in, that means 320×240 is the best resolution, maybe you can get better resolution off from an ipod touch. However, I like the integration to the ipod where you can look can use the remote control to access the ipod’s mp3’s, photos, and videos.

Speaking of screen resolution, the screen’s resolution is 480×234 which is mediocre by today’s standards. So if you look at any dvd, ipod or divx video the display is all pixelated as a result. The sony fx820 has a resolution of 800×480 and it makes a big difference.

Another thing that I didn’t like about this player is that unlike the the philips standalone dvp59xx divx players, it does not have support for xvid codec. It specifically says that it supports divx 4 and 5 codec and there’s no firmware update that will allow you to change that. I found a free software that allows you to convert your existing xvid, avis, and dvd’s to divx avi files that will play on this player called xvid4psp. Fortunately, the player also supports sdhc so you can cram a couple of divx avi’s into it without problems.

I was looking to buying a carrying bag which allows to mount on back of the car’s front row seat so that the kids in the back can watch movies. But Philips do not sell such a bag, nor does other manufacturers. With the use of a regular bag and some duct tape, I was able to mount it.

Despite my retractions, this philips dcp851 is a good dvd player, but it certainly has room for improvement.

Nice features, but poor overall
Pros:
* SD Media slot
* Handy to dock an IPod to

Cons:
* Flimsy plastic construction
* Picture quality is poor with narrow viewing angle
* Battery life is very short compared to other players
* Power button is in a place where it can accidentally be turned on/off and there’s no lock to keep that from happening.
* Buttons aren’t very responsive so you often have to push a button 2 or 3 times to get it to work.
* If you turn it off or switch modes it doesn’t remember where you were in the movie. For some dvds this means you have to go through the annoying process of waiting through the preview trailers again.
* My unit had a dead pixel on the screen.

Because of all these problems I’ve had with mine I’m returning it and getting the Sony DVP-FX820/P 8-Inch Portable DVD Player