Toshiba SD-P2900
The Toshiba SD-P2900 is a portable DVD player with a wealth of features, but for the price you can also afford a laptop with an onboard DVD recorder.
Upside
A lot of thought has gone into the design of this device, and we particularly like the plentiful AV in/out options such as the twin headphone jacks and component out. This will function as a standby DVD player
Based on our brief testing of the device, we found the 10.2-inch screen to be remarkably bright and with a good viewing angle. The resolution is perfect for NTSC movies with a resolution of 800 x 480 but it means that local DVDs will be slightly downscaled. Black levels were as good as could be expected for an LCD, while the picture was a bit darker than we would have liked.
Downside
Also, while the build quality is fairly sturdy it certainly doesn't look like an AU$800 DVD player -- it looks like a cheap notebook. It's grey and utilitarian -- and both Sony and Philips have better form and finish to their budget players.
Also, for the money you pay the Toshiba still isn't perfect, the DVD mechanism can be quite noisy -- clicking and whirring away to itself. Also, the performance isn't what you'd expect from even a budget DVD player like the Samsung DVD-1080P7. For example, the final scene of King Kong was very dark overall, and there was a general loss of detail and a bit too much "noise" in the reproduction of clouds.
Outlook