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I chose this Alba DVD Player DS-5711 because it was £22.99, but wasn’t the most basic one on offer – I decided to splash out and not go for the cheapest. I’ve had Alba products before, and although they tend to be at the lower end of the market I’ve always been happy with them.
In theory, ... Read review
Advantages: Looks nice, plays DVDs, good price Disadvantages: Whirrs when it plays
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I chose this Alba DVD Player DS-5711 because it was £22.99, but wasn’t the most basic one on offer – I decided to splash out and not go for the cheapest. I’ve had Alba products before, and although they tend to be at the lower end of the market I’ve always been happy with them.
In theory, the DVD player is very easy to set up. Me being me, I managed to make a bit of a meal of it – because I hadn’t realised that one of the scart ... ...to keep electrical items until they literally fall apart, can you tell?), so I thought that the player wasn’t compatible with my rather old TV until I had the brainwave of unplugging my digibox and trying the player in that scart socket.
To get the DVD player hooked up, all you need to do is plug it into a plug socket and plug it into a scart socket on the TV – there are other ways of connecting it to a TV but this will be the most ... more
One day recently my trusty DVD recorder packed in. I have no idea what happened, it just refused to switch on and the display went fuzzy. I would have liked to replace it with another recorder, but my finances decided otherwise so it was off to Argos to choose one of their lower end of the price range standard DVD players.
I chose this Alba DVD Player DS-5711 because it was £22.99, but wasn’t the most basic one on offer – I decided to splash out and not go for the cheapest. I’ve had Alba products before, and although they tend to be at the lower end of the market I’ve always been happy with them.
In theory, the DVD player is very easy to set up. Me being me, I managed to make a bit of a meal of it – because I hadn’t realised that one of the scart sockets on my TV has also packed in (I like to keep electrical items until they literally fall apart, can you tell?), so I thought that the player wasn’t compatible with my rather old TV until I had the brainwave of unplugging my digibox and trying the player in that scart socket.
To get the DVD player hooked up, all you need to do is plug it into a plug socket and plug it into a scart socket on the TV – there are other ways of connecting it to a TV but this will be the most use. Full instructions are given in the little booklet that comes with the DVD player. However, there is no scart lead supplied with the player – I had one at home but Argos did have an offer of a half price lead when you purchase this DVD player.
The DVD player itself is nice and sleek looking. It is mainly silver, with a black strip along the front with silver buttons. It’s not too large at H 3.3cm x W 36cm x D 25.5cm, and is considerably smaller than my sadly departed recorder. The player comes with a remote, supplied with 2 AAA batteries.
Using the DVD player is, well, I was going to say idiot proof but that might be rude so let’s say really easy. You switch it on, press the open button, put in your DVD and it loads. Then you use the remote to choose whether to watch the film, extras, etc etc. Basically the same as every other DVD player I’ve ever used.
In use, I’ve noticed that this DVD player whirrs more than I’m used to. It is very noticable for the first few minutes of playing a DVD, but I must just get accustomed to it after a few minutes. Having knelt beside the DVD player to check, the noise does continue but I can’t be sure if it dies down at all. It was very off putting and a little worrying the first time I used it but I soon got used to it and I know I won’t notice it a few minutes into a film now. I tried moving it around a little in case it was vibrating against the shelf it is on, but it made no difference.
The menu of the DVD player is easily accessed via the set up button on the remote. The menu is very easy to navigate, although I haven’t actually needed to change any of the settings in it. It is a Region 2 DVD player, so will only play Region 2 DVDs. The instruction manual is fairly comprehensive and easy to follw, although I glanced at it and then threw it back in the box to figure things out myself.
This is by no means a clever or fancy DVD player. It doesn’t have DivX (I don’t even know what that is) or any other newer features. It plays DVDs, which in reality is all that I need. I’m happy with my purchase – if I could have, I might have considered going for a more expensive one, but this one does what I need it to so I’m very happy with it. For £22.99 I really have no major complaints, and even if it only lasts a year or two I’ll have got my money’s worth.
