The market for portable DVD players is flush with offerings large and small. It’s a sea that most people wouldn’t bother to attempt navigating, even if they knew what to look for. Progressive scan? Widescreen? How many outputs? Inputs? Sound quality, noise output, reliability?

All good and important questions. And with Father’s Day coming up, a device like this could make the perfect gift for dad. But does the Insigniaâ„¢ 10.2″ 16:9 Widescreen TFT Portable DVD Player, with its large swiveling screen, various ports, and light weight (2.6 lbs), fit the bill? Or does it come up short in the race for gift-giving greatness?

Insignia is Best Buy’s in-house new brand, and they aim to come out swinging with several portable DVD packages, including several screen sizes and several option packages.

Let’s begin with what you get with the IS-PDVD10 model. Along with the DVD player, the box contains a very thin remote control, a power supply, a power adapter for the car, and an audio/video cable. Pretty basic fare. The unit itself is sleek, at only 1.5 inches thick when folded and light at 2.6 pounds with its Lithium ion battery installed. It has a black finish reminiscent of a Lenovoâ„¢ Thinkpad. That kind of matte black finish that almost absorbs oil and fingerprints, but also feels expensive.
The manual is clear and concise, with instructions in English, Spanish, and French. All the options are detailed, and there are lots of illustrations to help even the most technically challenged figure it all out. I didn’t even really need it, but it was nice to see the Luddite love.

The 10.2″ screen is expansive, more than adequate for those of us who hate squinting when we watch our movies. The sound output to the speakers is adequate, but with my trusty set of Sennheiser PX-100 headphones, it was very good indeed, even thoroughly drowning out the whining of the drive. And it does whine, quite loudly, which is a common problem with many portable DVD players.

The remote is thin and easy to use, but it has a surplus of buttons you are not likely to use, normally. Nearly every feature, from zooming and shrinking, to sound set-up, is accessible from the remote. Inexplicably, however, the brightness is not accessible from the remote. It took me a little while to find the brightness and color intensity buttons, but once I did, they were pretty basic and simple.

Another problem I found with the remote is that in the unit’s folded position, with the screen rotated and locked back, the remote is un-useable. The IR receiver is located low on the front where it is at least in line, if awkwardly, with the remote. However, in the folded position, the receiver moves to the top and back of the unit. Fortunately, in the folded position, the most necessary controls are accessible on the front of the unit. Seeing as though the player would be in the folded position when, say, mounted on the back of the seat in a car, this doesn’t seem to be a problem.

There are more than enough inputs and outputs on the player. One input allows you to use the screen as a monitor. The digital audio output is great, if you plan on hooking this up to a receiver (not something I would normally do with a portable player, so maybe this is overkill), while the A/V Out allows you to use the included cable to route your DVD goodness to a television.

The feel of the unit alternates between really nice and really… well, not really, but a little not-so-nice. The buttons are firm enough, and the silver color certainly make them look nice, but there is kind of a sharp, unfinished feel to them. Similarly, the simple slide switch for power feels like it could have been designed better. The volume knob is a simple potentiometer instead of a push-button electronic interface.
The top is black and has the aforementioned feel of the Thinkpad, while the bottom of the case is gray and has a less refined feel.

Now on to the most important part, image quality. The LCD screen is clear and has very little ghosting, though the colors can be a little strange. During the test movie I watched, oranges appeared normal, while other colors were slightly washed out. Increasing the color intensity helped all the other colors, but then the oranges appeared just a little too red.

Lastly, we come to the unit’s battery life. I wouldn’t normally bother to mention it but in this case, I think it’s important. The unit’s battery is advertised as lasting three hours, but I found it ran closer to two-and-a-half. That’s more than enough for most movies and common for portable DVD players, but forget using this on a long flight, as the battery is a rechargeable Lithium ion pack, and it’s proprietary. Another annoyance is that the battery will not recharge while the unit is playing a movie. So you basically have to shut it off, plug it in, and forget it for about four hours. This is fine after a car trip, or a short plane or train ride, but on that flight from New York to L.A., you’ll just have to fork over the extra cash for that airplane adapter you were putting off buying.

At a list price of $279 on Best Buy’s site, this feature-rich portable DVD player might just be enough bang for the buck. It’s certainly larger, and has far better image quality, than the off-brands sold by some of the discount clubs. While you could get the same quality or better- and similar battery life- off a laptop, an ultra-portable would cost you about five times as much. And it probably wouldn’t allow you to plug your XBOX 360 into it, either.

PROS:

• Large, clear widescreen LCD
• Easy to use
• Feature-filled remote
• Good sound quality
• Very good image quality
• Plenty of options for audio output
• Video input
• Light, at only 2.6 pounds
• Thin, at only 1.5 inches
• Car adapter included

CONS:

• Oranges a little too red
• Inability to recharge while playing movie
• Feel of the buttons and bottom of case could be better
• Remote doesn’t work with screen in swiveled and opened position
• Slightly pricey