Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Make that long business flight or family trip that much more enjoyable by investing in a portable DVD player. The new generation of portable DVD players is far less bulky than the previous one, and they now feature high-res screens as well as multiple video and audio format support, so you can take your favourite movies and TV shows with you wherever you go, without having to waste your laptop battery.

Obvious considerations for a portable DVD player should be price, portability, screen quality and most importantly, battery life. It is also a good idea when looking for a portable DVD player to stick to established brands; as always, you get what you pay for. Below are three players that are worth looking at.

Versatility

Photo: Toshiba

The Toshiba SDP93S is a very modern looking, and cheap portable DVD player, encased in a smooth white plastic casing with a black frame around the high resolution 800×480 pixel nine-inch screen. It weighs in at just 2.4 pounds which makes it perfectly portable. The screen itself is able to swivel flat onto the unit, allowing it to be a used as a handheld player, and the DVD player controls are situated along the bottom of the screen. It comes with a remote control, which gives you access to most of the players functionality. The unit is equipped with an SD card slot on the side of the unit, with DivX as well as MP3 and WMA playback support.

A five hour battery life rounds this player off nicely. At approximately £150, the Toshiba SDP93S is definitely value for money.

Great battery life

Photo: Sony

Next on the list is the Sony DVP-FX930. This latest offering from Sony is not a cheap portable DVD player, but it has a large 9-inch 800×480 pixel screen, which gives it perhaps the best portable viewing experience of all the current portable players. As with the Toshiba, the player controls are also situated along the bottom of the screen, but are rather quirky to use. The screen is also able to swivel and fold down on itself, allowing it to be used as a handheld device. It is slightly heavier than the Toshiba, weighing in at two pounds. The battery life is impressive, allowing six hours of viewing pleasure. This unit does not, however, feature any add-on slots, neither does it support any newer digital video formats. As just a DVD player, and not a cheap portable DVD player at that, the Sony is above par, but in this day and age, multi-format support is a must. At this price (around £200), a little more is expected from the Sony, but the screen quality does somewhat make up for the limited format support.

Blu-ray capability

Photo: Panasonic

The Panasonic DMP-B15K is one of the first portable Blu-ray players on the market. It features an 8.9-inch screen supporting an impressive resolution of 1,024×600 pixels. Despite its hefty price tag, the Panasonic DMP-B15K is packed full of features: it has an HDMI output that allows the unit to be used as a standalone Blu-ray player, as well as the usual AV output for older TVs. It also features an ethernet port, which allows the player to connect to Panasonic’s proprietary Internet content portal, VieraCast, which includes YouTube and Picasa. The player is bundled with quite a few car accessories, including a head rest mount and a cigarette lighter power adaptor. Battery life does come in for some criticism, though. At a measly two-and-a-half hours, this player is just about able to get through a single Hollywood blockbuster, and not being a cheap portable DVD player, one questions whether the DVD player is worth it.

If looking for a complete standalone portable DVD player, though, the Panasonic DMP-B15K, which comes in at $800 (approx £500), does represent a worthwhile investment, as it is Blu-ray enabled.