Portable DVD player has a nice price

Product: Mustek DVD-PL8C-70
Website: www.mustek.de
Price: £241.00, €355.00

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WE ENJOYED fiddling with one of the Mustek's seven-inch portable DVD players. Seven inches translates to 18cm diagonal screen size. This one supports DivX and this format got really well accepted. As many other portable DVDs this one can play MP3 files, supports Kodak Picture CD format and Digital audio CDs. The device has an USB 2.0 port and you will be able to watch the movies from a USB key as well.

The procedure is rather simple, real plug and play. You plug the USB memory stick, chose a USB mode from your tiny remote and you are good to browse. Assuming the device recognises your USB memory stick, you just browse the files and play the your choice.

We noticed slight incompatibility problems with some memory keys, especially the 8GB Corsair Voyager stick. Our guess id that this one was simply too big for the device. We tried random 512MB , 1GB and 2GB sticks and didn't notice any problems. A firmware update can solve the more than 4GB addressing problem. The device also supports SD and MMC cards.

Playing a DVD or DivX file is really easy. You just open the player like a book, place a disc inside and you are ready to rock and role. The picture quality of DVD and good DivX files is good. We've seen better but for this money it is the best you can get. The device only costs €160 including VAT.

The Mustek DVD-PL8C-70 player

The speakers, two of them are really loud, it will be too much for the train or the plane. You can plug only one set of headphones. The device has its own stand and can stand as a picture frame. You can also buckle it up on to your car seat. The belt for the car use and a car charger are supplied. One other thing we noticed is that there is no ability to up the volume from the remote. You can only do it from the device's analogue volume key. This might messy if you have kids and want to turn it down from a front seat. However, oddly enough, the remote has a mute key.

The remote is nice, small and neat but it misses some functions. First and most crucial of these are the volume keys. You can change the aspect ratio on the screen but you are limited to 16:9 or 4:3 and you cannot zoom. You can also adjust the brightness and contrast of the LCD screen. The good thing is that the device supports both PAL and NTSC. The device was region free as we could play both American and European DVDs.

If you lose the remote, the device becomes rather useless. You have only three buttons: play, pause and stop, plus teh volume keys and that's it. The rest is on the remote.

The side of the device hides AV out, S video with progressive scan and Coaxial outs. We already mentioned the presence of USB, volume key, DC adapter plug. Let's not forget the power button also placed here at the right-hand side of the player. The left hand side of the device sports an SD/MMC reader.

The player and the remote

We watched a few DVDs and DivX avi movies and we have been happy with the picture quality. It is good for the money. What irritated us was the green power LED, as it is just too strong. If you watch the movie in the dark it will irritate you. You can cover it with something and that's exactly what we did. The battery life is the sad part. The device will be able to play for one hour and twenty minutes - or less. This is barely be enough for a movie. The good thing is that most of the trains where we have seen many people using scuh devices have power plugs.

The retail box includes bunch of cables including headphones and a lithium ion battery. The battery itself is not that heavy but, with it, the device weights more than a kilo. Without the battery, the device weights 0.79 Kg and measures 200x39x155mm.

In Short
We can easily recommend this device. It has its flaws such as the battery life and lack of options on the player itself but it does the job. In fact it is excellent for the money. It will play all formats including Mp3 or AVIs and that is what any portable DVD player should do these days.

We weould like to see a better battery life, but if you use it in your car it will be plugged all the time. We can easily recommend it to the car users, though not whaile you're driving. ?

The Good
Good picture quality
Plays DivX - AVI and Mp3 files
Nice sound
Supports NTSC / PAL

The Bad
The battery life

The Ugly
No volume key on the remote

Reviewed and tested by Sanjin Rados and Fuad Abazovic