I'd like to buy my son a portable DVD player for Christmas, but am lost with the number available. Does anyone have any advice? Any recommendations? Or know any web sites that give good advice on the most recent models? Thanks.

go to tesco/ asda as they are usually around the cheapest

steer clear of halfords, really dear

the prices change so much as the screens get larger all the time, around £100 would be my limit in case it gets dropped

some even come with two screens which is handy for back of car

Try and see a few as their screens vary enormously. I got a Panasonic as it made the others I saw look sad. You couldn't read the credits at the end of a movie on most of them, but the Panny was clear. Try John Lewis if there's one handy as you can have a play with them there.

Must be a popular christmas present!

Trying to get one for O/H, but play.com "lost it" after a month, empiredirect called up "sorry, don't know why the website said it was in stock but it isnt", struggling to get one! (and there was me being a smart arse ordering it back in october )

Theres plenty of Beko etc ones, just no stock of Panasonic/Toshiba

Webbie, can you tell me what model Panasonic you got? Also, what the battery life is like? Thanks.
I read somewhere that the Philips PET 1035 is the best - EXCEPT it has no way of finding the position you stopped watching a film in!! I saw a Panasonic DVD-LS82 today - but the screen quality was not that good. I think it must vary a lot from model to model, as well as make to make. The best screen I saw was on something called a ZICPLAY - by far the cheapest! But it's other features were not very good.
I'm in Switzerland by the way so cannot pop into Tescos or any other UK store.

I would imagine both are just buying cheap players and badging them? - so once they have sold the batch they ordered they probably have to source a new supplier?.

My dvd player is a Panny LX-9 - it's now about 3 years old. It has a 9" screen so battery life wasn't all that good - about 1.5 - 2 hours. But I got a heavy duty battery pack for it which gives another 4 -5 hours. The picture is very good - I don't know if the newer ones are any better or worse? All the ones I've seen recently have been pretty poor.

Thanks Webbie. I was looking yesterday at an LX-97 - which must be more or less the same I guess but has a 10" screen. It's between that and the Philips PET 1035 which has a better screen, but no facility to find where you were in a film if you stop playing it (a minor feature I guess). Also some people have said the Philips won't play some films!