LG DP391B review

It's hard to be overly enthusiastic about portable DVD players these days. With what amount to dire sales happening in other areas of electronics, most notably with laptops, it's hard to justify spending a couple of hundred quid on a fancy movie player – especially when a fully-functioning portable PC can be gleaned for just a little extra moolah.

However, LG's DP391B portable disc spinner does make a decent stab at turning heads.

To begin with, its swanky tablet-like aesthetics allow it to look comfortable in any surrounding, even a lounge. And, as it doubles as a CD player and a digital photo frame, I could see it being happily used in a bedroom as a multimedia device.

Sleek design

For such a slim and sleek piece of kit, it certainly packs a healthy variety of socketry around its rim. Ports exist for memory cards (in all the common flavours) and USB 2.0 connectivity (for a stick laden with JPEG images, for example). And there are two headphone sockets to share experiences with one other on your travels. Splendid.

Picture quality, via its 8in TFT screen, is very good indeed. There's decent colour fidelity and motion control is tight. Audio via the headphone port is beefy, bassy and bold.

The deck makes a half-decent stab at virtual surround and the number of file types supported (DivX, XviD, MP3, etc) add an impressive cannon in its arsenal.

However, the in-built speakers break up at higher volumes and the rechargeable battery can't be changed manually.