Reviews

Toshiba SD-P1600 Portable DVD Player

The Toshiba SD-P1600 has been well received and is one of the most popular portable DVD players on the market.

The About series of websites, in a review, said of the SD-P1600:
 

The buttons are well placed and easy to use. Toshiba got it right, placing useful functions within easy finger reach without needing the remote. The remote itself is a fine piece of work with its multitude of easy to understand function buttons.

Picture quality was fine for a mid-range player like this. The colors were sharp and the picture crisp while viewing a vivid movie. The sound matched nicely with the picture. Through both the speakers and headphone jacks were heard the highs and lows of battles and the accompanying soundtracks. A virtual surround sound option made this even better.

Connectivity was little issue, with jacks for headphones (dual), digital audio (DTS, Dolby Digital) and A/V out available to connect to other audio and video devices for movie, image and audio sharing.

Several extra features were found to be very useful. These included time jumps to a specific location on the DVD, bookmarking three specific locations to jump to later, picture zoom and parental lock.

The review’s “bottom line”:

Toshiba’s SD-P1600 is a good seven-inch screen player for the value. While it is not the most attractive device to look at (especially with the battery pack attached), this is more than made up for with its compact size, decent battery life, good picture and sound quality and well laid out controls. The remote is smart and the dual headphone jacks a well thought out feature. This will make a great player for a family on the go with its included car and room power adapters.

Laptop magazine included the SD-P1600 in a survey of portable DVD players, and said:

When it came to watching DVDs, the Toshiba SD-P1600 did not disappoint. The player's display revealed subtle color differences that were obscured by the other players. For instance, a blouse that appeared to be white on all but the RCA player's screen was accurately rendered as pink on the Toshiba. The Toshiba screen also did an excellent job of capturing the delicate light of early morning and twilight scenes.

Toshiba's external speakers were just adequate enough to drown out external distractions; more volume would be desirable. Using the headphone jacks delivered more than respectable volume levels with a minimum of background hiss and plenty of lower bass.

Although we liked the elegant design, in some areas form impedes function. The player's minuscule silver buttons, for example, are difficult to find in the dark, and because they are arranged in a symmetrical pattern it's easy to hit the Picture Setup control instead of the Stop button. There are limited picture controls (brightness and color only), and there's no fast forward button on the player itself. You'll have to use the fast forward control on the remote to get past those irritating trailers.

Overall, though, the SD-P1600 is an excellent value. It's the only budget portable DVD player that looks good both inside and out.

Newsweek said of the Toshiba SD-P1600:

Thumbs up: A portable DVD player that you can carry around like a paperback. Tuck it in your purse, and you probably won't even notice the extra weight (only 1.5 pounds).

Thumbs down: Our testers weren't wild about the speakers—they said the sound was "really small." But it's better with headphones.

Toshiba’s own website contains specifications on the SD-P1600.

* Get the latest price on the Toshiba SD-P1600 portable DVD player.

 
February 3rd, 2006