Philips' new PET749 portable DVD player with built-in DTV ups the resolution
Early portable DTV products haven't featured high-resolution displays. While Philips' upcoming PET749 doesn't deliver HD resolution, its screen is a notch up from what you see on many of today's the generic portable DTVs.
LAS VEGAS--Last year we reviewed a few new portable DTV units from no-name manufacturers that did OK in our tests, but fell short in terms of battery life and resolution. That's why we're intrigued with Philips' upcoming PET749, which combines a portable DVD player and DTV in a $179.99 (list) unit with a higher resolution 800x480 display.
While that's not HDTV resolution, it is a notch up from the 480x234-pixel resolution you see on many of the generic portable DTVs cropping up on Amazon and other sites (we reviewed the
As for battery life, Philips says you can get up to three hours of playback from the rechargeable built-in battery. That's better than the two hours we've typically seen in these types of products, but it's still not great.
Here's a look at some of the key specs:
- Free-to-air digital TV channel reception
- 7-inch LCD swiveling digital display in 16:9 wide-screen format (800x480 pixels)
- Compatible with DVD, DVD+/-R, DVD+/-RW, (S)VCD, CD
- DivX certified for standard playback of DivX videos
- MP3-CD, CD, and CD-RW playback
- View JPEG images from picture disc
- Car adaptor and remote control included
- Available in March
- Suggested retail price: $179.99
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