Dansai DVD852

Advantages: Cheap, lots of features, easy to make multi-region
Disadvantages: Few

...After Christmas I found myself with £100 to spend which I risked on Tesco's "own brand" Dansai DVD player, the Dansai 852. According to the newsgroups these have sold out very quickly in some stores but I had no problem sourcing one in my local Tesco. The player is silver and good looking. It would not be out of place amongst much more expensive hardware. It has the added benefit of a hidden menu, only four presses on the front panel to access which allows the machine to made multi-region, and believe it or not, to turn off the copy protection, allowing you to make video copies of DVDs. It will also play MP3 files and the usual repertoire of CDs, audio VCD etc. Audio quality is very good; in blind tests I could tell it apart from a mch more expensive Arcam CD player, but only just. The remote is a bit finecky and its not always... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: tesco can be trusted for service
Disadvantages: quite big and went wrong twice

...Bought this DVD player a few years ago from tesco, as we were setting up a house and had a budget to stick to. It was under £100 which was fantastic at the time. We are happy as it playes everything we need, SVCD's, VCD's & burnt DVD-r's (not that I'd ever advocate copying dvd's of course). It has 2 speeds picture forwards which are fantastic for getting through the adverts quicker The play back quality is good and the zoom function is really handy as we don't have a wide screen tv. There is also an angle function but we havn't got any DVD's to make use of this facility yet. We have had problems, in that a year and then 6 months later it sarted playing up and sticking in the middle of fims. We phoned tesco and they were great, no request for forms, questions or hasstle, they just sent a courier around both times to replace it. Now... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Cheap, reliable
Disadvantages: Not a brand name

.... There was also a player there for £85, also made by Dansai, but it didn’t have even an LCD display and looked extremely basic, so I settled for the Dansai DVD 852. Now, I don’t intend to stick with this player, when I have a few more DVD’s in my collection, I would like to upgrade to a player by Sony or the likes, but this one will do fine for now, besides, I’d need to upgrade my TV aswell if I was going to get the best out of a Sony player. LOOKS The player looks like most other DVD players on the market at the moment. It is cased in a Silver metal, with an LCD covering about a 3rd of the player, centralised at the bottom of the DVD player. Above this is the DVD drive itself, with a drop down plastic front and a darker grey holder inside. On the right of the player is a round button, which looks like a bit of a dial... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful