Philips PET 723 Portable DVD Player

A little nudge on the contrast got the picture brighter, while the low end of the dynamic range was pretty good for portable screen player. I was impressed by the low black levels, which help in making a portable screen look like home screens closely, though the PET 723’s were obviously not spectacularly low. Backlights in LCD screens can be a bane at times, especially when it leaks out the sides and creates a cloudy feel to the screen. In our case here we had a bit of this happening, just a wee bit.

Next thing to see was the color reproduction. To our pleasant surprise here too the player honestly tried its best, especially in vivid scenes of King Fu Panda that we were watching.� About detail in the image, I cannot speak too highly because of the inherent low resolution of the screen, so we anyways did not have too much sharpness in SD video, though there is something I liked about the screen: not too much mosquito distortion or any other ugly artifact around the edges of objects. Overall the motion was smooth, no jerkiness was encountered which again is a huge positive for the player.

Conclusion
The MRP is Rs. 11999 and street price is Rs. 10500. This piece has better looks than the Mitashi, and also has better audio output. Video wise the player is good, but not spectacular, plus there is no USB, so we are paying the extra amount for looks and audio. This would not suffice for some, and for a little more dough we can get Cowon stuff. Having said that, DVD purists, who have scores of original discs to carry along while traveling, might want to take a look.