Insignia NS-PDVD8 review: Insignia NS-PDVD8

Last year, we took a look at the Insignia NS-PDVD10. While it didn't blow us away, we found it to be a decent bare-bones portable DVD player for the price. Now we're taking a look at another model in the series, the PDVD8.

6.4

Insignia NS-PDVD8

The Good

Portable DVD player with 8.5-inch screen; screen swivels and folds flat for tablet-style viewing; three headphone jacks; AV inputs and outputs.

The Bad

Picture quality is subpar; no notable extras such as a USB port or flash media slot; rubberized plastic housing is a fingerprint magnet; does not include iPod video accessory wire; remote control is too large and doesn't have volume control.

The Bottom Line

Even though its picture is subpar and the battery doesn't last long, the Insignia NS-PDVD8 should be good enough for someone looking for the most basic affordable portable DVD player.

Apart from its remote control, the Insignia NS-PDVD8 is covered in an all-black rubberized finished. The control buttons are completely flat and apparently splash-resistant and have a strange spring-loaded click to them. Also, that rubberized finish is a real magnet for fingerprints and other greasy residue that's hard to clean off.

The main control buttons are front and center just below the screen, which lets you pause/play and skip chapters forward/back, and (often curiously missing from many players nowadays) fast forward and reverse when you have the screen folded down in tablet mode. This model has an 8.5-inch wide-screen display that swivels 180 degrees and folds flat on top of the unit much like a tablet PC.

While the swivel feature has become more prevalent in portable DVD players, it does offer a degree of flexibility when it comes to viewing options, especially when it comes to in-car viewing. However, Insignia doesn't include a cheap canvas carrying case that could double as a headrest mount for backseat viewing when the player's in tablet mode. Some inexpensive tablet-style portable DVD players (namely, the Mustek MP100) ship with just such an accessory.

Fortunately, the battery doesn't bulge out from the bottom (like the PDVD10 did) nor does it protrude from the rear of the player, an annoyance we've seen on many smaller competing models we've recently looked at.

The included remote is too big and doesn't control volume.

The included remote control is way too large for practical needs, plus it doesn't have volume control functionality. At least with the step-up model, there was a place to store it away when not in use.

The Insignia NS-PDVD8 has all the requisite features, including a set of AV minijack connections (a breakout cable for plugging in composite video/stereo audio cables is included), a cigarette-lighter adapter for in-car use, and a whopping three headphone jacks (more than any player we've recently reviewed).

We were really impressed by the three headphone jacks.

There's no memory card slot or a USB port, but considering that the player doesn't offer digital-file compatibility--there's no support for MP3 music, JPEG image files, or DivX videos--their absence is no great loss. One connection we had a little trouble figuring out was the 5V DC-out; we assumed at first that it was for charging something like a PSP or cell phone, which would have been kind of cool. But the manual just says, "Plug a power-connecting cable into this jack and into the DC-in on the optional TV tuner to watch playback on a TV." We're still not sure what that means.

As far as the picture goes, it's on par with what we've come to expect from players that cost about $140 or less--which is to say, not great. The screen is quite watchable for almost everybody, but discriminating viewers won't necessarily be satisfied. While the color is accurate enough, the picture's a little soft. The NS-PDDVD8 offers some picture control options, but like other models in this price range, shadow detail isn't a strong suit, so you might want to crank the brightness up on darker movies. "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift," for example, has a lot of night racing scenes, and we had to take the brightness up from 8--the middle setting--to 11. Likewise, 4x3 (standard) program material can be stretched to fill the 16x9 wide screen, but there's no zoom option available.

Normally we don't say a whole lot about a portable DVD player's sound quality, but it is worth mentioning that the NS-PDDVD8 plays plenty loud at its higher volume settings. The sound is mediocre through the player's small, tinny speakers, but it's loud. Naturally, if you connect a pair of decent headphones, sound quality will improve dramatically. If you have the correct cable, you can use the coaxial output to connect the player to an AV receiver and get surround sound.

As for battery life, Insignia rates the NS-PDDVD8's battery life at 4 hours (with the display turned on) and our tests came in slightly better than that mark, at close to 5.5 hours. We do have one gripe, though: we would have appreciated some sort of battery life indicator, but didn't notice one.

All in all, the Insignia NS-PDDVD8 isn't a bad portable DVD player. It's relatively well designed and its picture quality measures up to most of the other players in its price range and class. The lack of digital media support and a case for headrest mounting hurts its value, but if that stuff doesn't bother you and you like the idea of the three headphone jacks and an 8.5-inch screen, there's enough positives here to give this one a moment of consideration. However, it would be nice if Best Buy could shave another $50 off the list price. That would make the NS-PDDVD8 easier to recommend.