Onida HDR-5522 "The Atom" DVD player

Onida is in the process of carving out a place for itself, right in the parallel lane with the international biggies pouring their electronic gadgets from the Far East. Whatever the genre, Onida is not far behind. This time we are spotlighting a trendy looking DVD player of theirs, called The Atom. The model is HDR-5522, and it bears a striking resemblance to a Samsung model. It’s not yet released; but we have their demo model to check, so let’s see what this new player can do in terms of performance.

Design
There is credit to be given for aesthetic innovation, as this unit is definitely a looker. With an unconventional shape for a DVD player, it comprises fluid curved edges and surfaces vaguely resembling a square when viewed from the top, but rounded edges and surfaces make up the deal. It is not sleek; in fact it has considerable thickness or depth.

The finish all around is a glossy black piano finish, with an Onida logo printed on the left bottom corner of the top panel, along with Dolby and DTS logos. Seamlessness is the key here, with the top panel buttons being touch sensitive, flush mounted into the surface very well, entirely flat and smooth. The symbols of ‘stop’, ‘play’ etc. is printed on, which looks real good, but might be a problem in a dark environment as the remote also does not glow. The remote is a slim black one, a simple piece well laid out with similar sized round buttons, some of them blue while the rest black.

The build quality is not as good as the looks, but not so weak. Yes, the tray is one of those thin ones, which can bend. Still, if handled with care we can get by, I presume. The weight is light, no real heavy electronics inside, but this is a good thing for portability.

Features and specs
This unit does have a fancy design, but also comes loaded with good connectivity options. There is an HDMI out, and also a USB 2.0 input for flash drives, and also memory (SD,MS,MMC) card slot. Also, we have optical out, and also discrete 5.1 analog audio out. Last but not least there is component, S-video and composite video out.

Feature-wise Onida has taken a step by including a special “better than the average” de-interlacing chip called Media Direct De- Interlace (MDDi). It aims to enhance picture smoothness and reduce jaggie artifacts in object borders in the video, due to interlaced video in DVDs. DivX/Xvid playback is supported, and  last but surely not the least, the Atom player upscales to 1080p, that’s quite nice, we’ll take that thank you.