Combined AV Devices > DVD recorder/ VCR combo Combined AV Devices

Advantages: Value, quality, ease of use
Disadvantages: None to mention at this price

Excellent value for money and good performance. The DVD section is a breeze to use and it copes with just about anything you can throw at it. As a player it is happy with disks that have never played properly in other machines. The VCR section seems to work fine and is very quiet and picture quality seems good by VCR standards. Shared settings like setting the timer that can be used for both the DVD recorder and VCR and with room for 16 entries ...
...Good buld quality and a reasonbly good looking unit. Best of all, it was about 25% cheaper than similar models on sale at the time I bought it.. This is old technology with a VCR recorder, but a really simple way to transpose VCR to DVD and get rid of those old decaying tapes. ... Read review

Advantages: Good range of features for the price
Disadvantages: not HD ready, no Freeview, I've seen sexier machines

Around Christmas time DH and I decided it was time to give up on using the old VHS to record things, and this was compounded by the integral-to-the TV DVD player packing up (review available - DMTech LQ 20X). Since we've just taken out a subscription to LoveFilm.com (Review also available LOL) we needed a DVD player, and with all those great films on over Christmas (er, shome mishktate shurely, ED), one that recorded seemed the perfect answer. Why ...
...so you can still watch those old Bond movies ....It cost me £180, but I think you can get it cheaper now. It records to DVDs, but doesn't have a hard drive. It doesn't support HD. But then I don't have an HD telly or box, so that doesn't worry me at the moment. It's black and grey (like brushed aluminium things best myself) but is not offensive to look at. Being dual purpose it is quite bulky compared to a straightforward DVD player. It doesn't ... Read review

Advantages: Record from TV/DVD, Excellent for watching movies, has many features
Disadvantages: Expensive upgrades, poor inbuilt speaker, limited for gamers

The Archos 605 WiFi has many features such as the option to record from the television, to surf the internet, it even has the ability to be used as a GPS. One downside is a lot of these features require additional money to be spent. If you're a gamer then you might be a little disappointed by the fact that the with the Archos 605 you will be limited to only playing flash games. The Archos 605 basically just isn't a gaming device. If gaming is your ...
...I did notice about the Archos 605 is that the sound quality of the inbuilt speaker is pretty poor, that being said this isn't totally uncommon with this type of device. When listening to music via the headphones though the quality of the sound is pretty decent. Now for what makes the Archos 605 truly special, it's ability to flawlessly play movies. No conversion, no fuss. Simply plug the Archos 605 to your PC via USB, drag and drop the movie/s of ... Read review

Advantages: Easy to use, good idea in practice
Disadvantages: Poor signal reception, loses recordings, stops working, crashes overnight...

This box has an amazing long list of features but it also has an amazingly long list of problems as well. I first bought the box in early 2005 and it worked well. For a week. Then it stopped working and I got a replacement one. It changed the way I watched the TV, pausing live TV, recording is very simple and playback quality is very high. It can record from two channels at the same time, which is always useful because you wait all wait for something ...
...compete with each other. But with this you can record both! Then one day, I went to play a recording back. No recordings. Unfortunately, any error detected in a recorded can lead the unit to think your hard disk is faulty and it therefore formats it, losing all recordings. There are errors in recordings because my central heating system seems to interfere with the TV signals. The recordings often miss the first or last minute of a program (the ... Read review

Advantages: Low cost
Disadvantages: Dodgy menus, very disk fussy, lousy DVD burner that will fail.

...eventually replaced the DVD burner in mine with a Liteon 20X unit for about £16. This solved the problem, and for the moment, it's been working perfectly. Fitting a replacement burner is straightforward enough, though getting it to neatly fit into the existing front fascia is a bit more challenging. ... Read review