I have owned my Mustek PL-207 for 3 months now, I paid only $220 dollars in the U.S.A. and that was with a free film working out to around 105 pounds. Prices have come down now in the UK so you can pick this amazing bargain up for around 30 pounds more than I paid and although this machine is far from perfect it's the best bit of kit on the market for the price and can whole heartedly recommend it!.
Starting with the picture; I found it surprisingly good, I compared it with Panasonic and Goodmans models and it held its own against the Panasonic and beat the Goodmans hands down. The picture is crisp with good color saturation and only the bare minimum of ray trace. The Sound was a mixed bag and I found it to be clear with good stereo output but tended to play the back ground score at a far greater level to the vocal sounds which some times led to missing what some one said, but in most films you can adjust this to a happy medium. Put your head phones in the jack and it's far better with much more even distribution.
Build quality is excellent, with a strong feel to the casing and many of the parts coming direct from Sony you will be surprised and impressed at just how good it feels in your hands.
Battery life is very good considering the size of the screen it's powering, you should get at least 2 hrs 30 min from a fully charged battery with volume up high, take it down a notch or two or better still plug in your headphones and you can squeeze out around the 3 hr mark and that should be enough for any film and is right up there with some of the more expensive models. If you find you have got an exceptionally long journey in front of you then you can opt to use the free plug in car charger and watch films to your hearts content.
A few other points of note are the remote control and region codes; the remote control is light, well built and has a full range of controls including zoom, slow motion etc.. all of which work very nicely, is slim in construction and works on one flat pan battery. Another nice touch to this machine is the fact you can change region codes with the remote control, there by turning your region 2 machine in to 1 or a 3 etc... just go on line and you will find pages of sites telling you how to do this just buy using your good old remote control.
To sum up I would say this machine represents outstanding value and if you don't want to start spending silly money on a portable DVD player then this is the kiddy for you!.
Picture: 8/10 Sound: 7/10 Build quality: 8/10 Features: 8/10 Value for money: 9/10 Overall score: 85%
Nov 1st, 2004
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