DVD-Combo Reviews

First of all, I was in the market for a widescreen laptop, so other widescreen laptops were the only ones I compared this to. Second, I bought X1030US refurbished direct from HP Shopping.

Overall, the laptop has a very appealing design and is right up there with other laptops in style, such as the Sony line of laptops. The widescreen display is just candy for your eyes and great for many applications, especially browsing the internet.

The system specs were plenty for my taste, enought to do everyday activities and once in a while a strenuous one, like play games, run CPU taxing programs etc. The HDD size is plenty, though you really only get around 33gb after the OS is installed and etc.

I have not yet ran the computer off the AC adaptor, but the few times I did take it off the power, I really like the feature that tells you (approx.) how much time you have left to run the laptop on the battery. The battery life is great compared to my last laptop. It seems to calculate to over 4+ hours.

Another great feature that I love is the wireless internet. However, it does some weird things when I turn the wireless off and then back on. It finds my network, but won't connect. I just restart the laptop which isn't a big deal. I leave the wireless on most of the time anyway. The button to turn it off and on is a great feature as well.

The feature that I must say I like is the fact that the fan, about 90% of the time, does not come on! My last laptop ran the fan all the time, but this laptop apparently can handle it without running. It's so quiet I don't know if it's on or not. It also usually runs only at around 600Mhz. I rarely see it reach the 1.4Ghz mark. The firewire port is a handy feature, but I really wished they included the 6-pin style rather than the 4-pin. I would really like to try out the infrared port too.

So far I have been very impressed with Compaq's laptop. It's thin, lighter than my old laptop (Gateway 400 series) and it's amazing because it's bigger than that laptop. The speakers are not too good, but it's tolerable. Of course you're not going to get Klipsche quality speakers, but they do their job.

The only other problem I've had is that I haven't been able to burn a CD on the laptop yet. It does have a CD-RW drive, but my software doesn't recognize the drive. I have used Easy CD Creator and Nero, but it can't find my drive. Strange.

One last pet peeve are the stickers that come on the laptop. :) I've tried to get a couple of them off, but they just won't come off!

Overall, you can't beat what you get for the price. I've compared it to the Dell Inpiron 8600, eMachines, HP, and Gateway and the only other close competitor for me were the widescreen series for Gateway. The lower price pulled me to this laptop and I don't regret it!

An Amazing machine, yet again by HP/Compaq, keeping their credibilty at its peak. A user friendly, fully integrated and a robust machine with everything you need for personal computing. As I said earlier, A Perfect Machine !!

This is hands down the best computer i have ever had. The only weakness is the 40 gig hd but a 60 or 80 was too much money. This computer owned my desktop P4@2.0ghz in everything i have done so far. I LOVE COMPAQ/HP heeh. This computer PWNS

I bought this unit like-new...with the intention of using it in my SUV on weekend trips. It has turned into not only a great system for my car (even hooks into my car stereo via the easily accessible headphone jack), but a great 2nd TV/DVD for my small house.

The unit works great, the controls intuitive, and a plus for "folks like me who tend to lose stuff like remotes" is that the DVD menus are navigable via the controls on the unit.

In-Car, I havent noticed any DVD skipping while the car was in motion. Sound quality on the unit's speaker is adequate for an enclosed room, and played through my car speakers via the headphone jack, it gives the impression that I'm in a state of the art theatre.

If you're in the market, this TV/DVD combo is perfect.

We bought this set for a 36 hour family trip. We have a van so I wanted a little larger screen so the kids could see in the back. When you compare the price with portable players or built-in decks this was great.

We set the TV between the driver seats in our Chrysler Town & Country. I had to remove the passenger side arm rest so it would fit. I built a small stand to raise the TV up about 16 inches. The screen was very clear.

During our travels it never skipped. One nice feature is the resume play mode. When we would stop for food or gas we would turn the power off the TV. Then when we were back on the road we would simply hit the power button and it would resume where we left off.

One concern I had was heat. (With it sitting between us) That was not a problem, but we did have air-condiditioning on most the trip.

It only has one headphone jack. We have 3 kids. So I bought a headphone splitter. Because of the rounded case around the headphone jack I had to modify the headphone jack with a grinder to get it to fit.

All in all this television did everything I asked of it and more and kept the kids happy for about and an hour and a half at a time.

I bought this system for one reason and one reason only: Entertain the kids in the car. I really did not care about the picture or sound quality. I just wanted something small to fit in the car and that I could easily haul around. To my surprise the picture is crystal clear and the sound of the system is awesome. You can probably find cheaper systems, but you cannot go wrong with this one. I would not trade my TV/DVD combo for anything.

The Panasonic TV/DVD/VCR combo is the ideal purchase in a combination television for these reasons:

1. Good picture quality. I've seen better, but I've seen worse, and for more money.

2. Renders components obsolete. The moment I got my television home, I was able to disconnect my VCR from my digital cable converter and hook the new television directly to the converter. No need for an additional DVD or VCR component, which is nice because now there aren't so many cords lying around on the floor behind the television, a big plus if you're type-A like I am.

3. Competitive pricing. For the quality behind the brand name, this television is priced to outsell others in its category, period.

4. Short ramp-up time. The television is easy to program and the remote is extremely user-friendly. Plus the manual that accompanies the television is one of the most well-written component user's manuals I have ever read. The time span between removing the television from the box and watching the television might have been 20 minutes.

My family spent the weekend enjoying our new purchase. If you're in the market for a TV/DVD/VCR combo, then look no further. You've found it!

*This review refers to the 27-inch television.

hiii

this adil,,, i am form wisconsin milwaukee,,,
i boutht a new tv but i dont have the remot control
so, i would like to get one from your great company
the tv model # pv-dm 2093
please help me to get what i am looking for
thakns and my pleasurs
to be one of your best custmors
yours adil ahmed

I owned a 13" Panasonic TV/VCR for about 8 years and loved it so when I decided to get a larger television set I looked around at different brands, but decided to go with Panasonic again since the brand is such good quality.

I love this 20" TV/DVD/VCR. It's a great size, and great quality. After this purchase, I believe my loyalty to Panasonic has increased notably. I will most likely purchase Panasonic in the future.

The Panasonic TV/DVD/VCR combo is the ideal purchase in a combination television for these reasons:

1. Good picture quality. I've seen better, but I've seen worse, and for more money.

2. Renders components obsolete. The moment I got my television home, I was able to disconnect my VCR from my digital cable converter and hook the new television directly to the converter. No need for an additional DVD or VCR component, which is nice because now there aren't so many cords lying around on the floor behind the television, a big plus if you're type-A like I am.

3. Competitive pricing. For the quality behind the brand name, this television is priced to outsell others in its category, period.

4. Short ramp-up time. The television is easy to program and the remote is extremely user-friendly. Plus the manual that accompanies the television is one of the most well-written component user's manuals I have ever read. The time span between removing the television from the box and watching the television might have been 20 minutes.

My family spent the weekend enjoying our new purchase. If you're in the market for a TV/DVD/VCR combo, then look no further. You've found it!

*This review refers to the 27-inch television.

hiii

this adil,,, i am form wisconsin milwaukee,,,
i boutht a new tv but i dont have the remot control
so, i would like to get one from your great company
the tv model # pv-dm 2093
please help me to get what i am looking for
thakns and my pleasurs
to be one of your best custmors
yours adil ahmed

I owned a 13" Panasonic TV/VCR for about 8 years and loved it so when I decided to get a larger television set I looked around at different brands, but decided to go with Panasonic again since the brand is such good quality.

I love this 20" TV/DVD/VCR. It's a great size, and great quality. After this purchase, I believe my loyalty to Panasonic has increased notably. I will most likely purchase Panasonic in the future.

I like this notebook. I had purchased a cheaper laptop earlier, but sent it back because of the fan noise. The cheaper laptops typically use Intel Celeron processors which do not include "Speedstep" technology. Intel's speedstep (or AMDs similar technique) is needed to reduce power consumption/dissipation (and hence heat) to keep the fan off. In Intel's line, it seems to only come with Mobile Pentium M (part of "Centrino") and with *Mobile* Pentium 4s. The Gateway M505X which has the more advanced Pentium M (1.4 GHz which is equivalent to perhaps a 2.4 GHz P4)) does not run the fan at all during most uses (probably would if one ran games, etc.), and the hard drive is virtually inaudible. In short, the machine is totally silent. In addition, the bottom only gets moderately warm (not hot). Also, the palm rests do not suffer from heat buildup like some competing models (hard disk location is better in 505X).

The touchpad is awesome. Has a very smooth feel, never missing my finger's commands. I wish the left/right mouse keys were slightly less stiff, and I must say that although the keyboard is nice (less force needed than on HPs and Compaqs), I am dissappointed that Gateway left a chasm below the j, k, and l keys. When these keys are hit, the keyboard flexes slightly and the sound made is significantly different than the keys on the left side which have structure below them. But I'll learn to live with it... :-)

The multimedia capabilities of the machine are excellent. Especially the sound quality. I am frankly amazed at how good this thing sounds. As an Electrical Engineer, I know it is not easy to make good sound from tiny speakers, but this machine does a good job. (It's not going to compare to large speakers, of course, but it is infinitely better than the speakers in the cheaper laptop I purchased and returned). The 505X has, in addition to the two top speakers, a "subwoofer" that does a very credible job of enhancing the lows. Makes bass guitar tracks, etc. very clearly heard, and fills out the sound in general. There's even an equalizer that comes up in the system tray that you can use to alter the tonal quality and add effects such as reverb! The only negative on the sound is that max volume is not too high. In a noisy environment, this might be an issue, but its certainly fine for around the house.

The widescreen is also nice. Native resolution is 1280 x 800, which is OK for my eyesight. Like other laptops, if you go to a different (lower) resolution, the fonts look a bit rough, so be sure you can read text at the native resolution. The text is going to be slightly smaller than say, a 15 inch TFT with 1024x768 native resolution. Brightness is good, and has many levels so one can save power and battery life by turning it down if you want. One slight negative on the display is that mine has one bad pixel. It is stuck on and noticible with dark backgrounds, but completely invisible most of the time, so I can live with it... On the subject of battery life, I went 4 hours of mixed use (surfing web wirelessly, loading a few programs, playing snippets of DVDs, intermixed with some idle time on a mid-brightness setting), and still had 20% left in the battery.

Wireless works fine. Seems to get as good a signal or better than my external card on my other machine. Power management is pretty good too. When I put it to sleep (hibernate mode), it gets there in 13 seconds. Waking from hibernation takes 22 seconds. Not bad for a machine with 512Mb of RAM. Of course, your mileage may vary, depending on what software you are using.

Finally, the aesthetics and build are nice too. The metal lid and keyboard surround are fashionable and the machine feels quite solid. Would be nice if it were a few pounds lighter, but the 6.7 pounds is about state-of the art for what it contains.
For the price, I'm very pleased!

had the notebook for about a month now, and love everything about it. No problems to report so far.

Pros: wide-screen is definitely a major plus, at 6.7lbs lighter than other comparable notebooks. Sturdier than comparable models. S-video port, and 3 USB ports. Looks VERY cool.

Cons: No infrared (has the port built in, but its been disabled), at 1.4M not the fastest out there, 40 gigs is slightly smaller than others.

Final note, I was debating between the toshiba m35 which was cheaper at the time than this,but the toshiba seemed flimsier and even though it had a bigger hard drive, it was not that appealing. The keyboard on the toshiba feels quite uncomfortable.

Similar to another notebook shopper, I debated between the comparable Gateway M505X and Toshiba M35-S359, (see the very complete review "Nice machine, nice price", December 2, 2003 for the Toshiba).

Unlike that reviewer, I ended up purchasing the Gateway for a couple of reasons:

The Toshiba felt a bit flimsy and the keyboard was mushy. The Gateway seems to be constructed better and have a more subsantial feel with a very nice keyboard, without being much heavier (~1/2 pound).

The Gateway has much better speakers and a subwoofer which enhances the sound. The Toshiba sounded faint and metallic in comparison. The Gateway also has a very handy AV panel with LC display.

The screen on the Toshiba might be a little better, or at least a little brighter at its highest setting, but both are very good.

The Gateway offered better extended warranty packages for less money. Also, you can take it into any Gateway store instead of shipping it somewhere. Complete extended warranties with accidental damage coverage offered by computer retailers for about the same price were only 2 years vs. Gateway's 3.

The Gateway is much sleeker, and cleaner looking with its monotone metallic case and integrated speakers.

I realize that most of my points are aesthetic, but the hardware is almost identical, and performance should be very comparable.

My god this computer is probably the most powerful one out there. Listen up people if you love to take pictures and love editing them but think that it is getting too hard on your old computer? This is the one to go with. It has digital editing software that you can transfer your pictures from your memory stick (Sony) and see them on your desktop. This is running at Pentium 4, 3.4GHz Processor. That is the fastest processor out for Windows so far. I bought this computer a couple of months ago and I am enjoying every second of it. I have high speed internet and it probably goes to the website in one or two seconds! If you do a lot of word processing you should get Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 because this computer doesn't come with any good software. Some things I love about this computer is the RAM. 1024GB RAM is a huge amount and the Hard Drive is 250GB which is also humungous. The DVD+RW is the best thing to have. If you have kids who play around with your DVDs or pets that drool all over them. With a DVD Burner you can record a DVD onto another disc so it stays in good shape. But don't go to video rental stores and burn any DVDs because the police will fine you huge amounts of money. I have three of these systems with 21" Flat-Panel display from Sony too. That's the only thing you really have to buy is a display. Sony makes the best displays. I have everything from Sony. And I think you should start too. This computer will probably last you 10-20 years, if you keep it in good shape.

Speed: 10/10

Storage: 10/10

Software: 8/10

Graphics: 10/10

Some people shouldn't buy this computer because they don't use it that much.

P.S. This computer comes with Hyper Threading technology which is when you can run more than one thing at once without slowing down your computer at all. This is one of the best things computers come with these days. For this price you can't deny how good this computer is.

This computer will pretty much blow away any other computer you can buy. Well, if you look around real hard, you might find a custom built computer with tweaked memory settings, but it won't be as stable and reliable as this machine. And unlike Apple, Sony doesn't cut corners on the graphics. Pick out the newest 3D game out there and this machine will eat it for breakfast. (Note: it has a ATI Radeon 9600XT, the tech notes on Amazon are a little confusing on this point.)

But to me the best thing is the 3.4GHz HT CPU. The "HT" means it supports Hyper-threading, which is a fancy way to say it can run two software threads at the same time. No other CPU in the consumer market can do that. I have a 3GHz HT cpu, and I love the fact that while I am doing something that takes a few minutes (like writing out a movie or burning a CD), I can go off and surf the web or play a game and never notice a slow down. It's almost a good as having 2 CPUs, except at a fraction of the price.

Sure, a computer at this level may cost a little more, but the way I see it is why sit around waiting for your computer to do things? With this computer you get your time back. For me that's worth a few extra bucks.

This is a top notch desktop. I bought mine with a 19 inch flat screen Sony monitor. Out of the box, it took me less than half an hour to set up. Also, it integrated fine with both my Router and my Digital Cable service. With the processing power and HD size a lot of nice options become available to you. Record your favorite TV programs, and watch them as you please. Picture and DVD editing are a breeze, though I would recommend upgrading to Adobe Premier Pro. I like iTunes and with the two speaker sub woofer system you have a great medium to store and run your favorite songs. Gaming is good for this system too, and applications like Office will run with no problems. Overall this is a very good Media Center desktop PC.

I'm going to cover what hasn't already been written about. So, here are things that make this laptop stand-out or stink-up.

Pros:
- The Centrino Chip clocks at 1.5MHz; I have heard that this translates to a P4 2.5MHz processor. This part is confusing; just know that games and applications work fast.
- Screen checks in at 14.1" which is a good working size - slightly more to carry than those 12" screens, but much more useable and it leaves room in the chassis for a full-sized keyboard.

- Comes with internal DVD/CDRW which I find really cool (as opposed to external, which would be a pain to carry).
- AC adaptor is pretty cool. It's made so you can wrap the cord around it neatly when you're not using it, and then there is a little snap thing on the plug so the cord doesn't get unraveled.
- Lots of useful external ports (2 usb's, firewire, ethernet, modem, PCMCIA slot, video out, S-video out, etc). I especially like the optical out, which I don't use, but I still like it being there.
- Wireless works well. Go Centrino technology!
- Comes with many programs inside (Windows XP, MS Works, Picture It!, Jukebox, etc)
- The battery looks cool. If you take it out, there are some little led lights and a button you press that shows how much battery life is left.
- This is one of the sleekest designs and coolest looking notebooks around. If you want to stand out from all those other black books in the airport or commuter train, you won't go wrong with the 200.

- It comes with a comprehensive hard-copy user manual (yes, printed on real paper -- not a CD or web address).
- The battery is upgradeable.

Cons:
- Yes, battery life and speakers suck. Use the high-capacity battery and a pair of headphones.
- The mouse scroll, while it is useful, takes a long time if you use it to scroll down web pages because it moves the pages down slowly
- While the screen brightness key function works well, the audio volume adjustment is annoying to use. It doesn't respond to (function) (up) or (down) very well. hard to describe, but if you get a chance to actually play around with this laptop before you buy it, try the audio up down function and you will know what I'm talking about. What would have been better is a little manual scroll wheel on the side of the computer that would control the system volume.
-Maybe it's my computer, but the battery life status doesn't seem to be completely accurate. It goes up to 99% somewhat fast, and then stays there for another 10-15 minutes before it finally says 100% charged. It's the same with low battery status, where it doesn't fall below 9%. but it does give me a warning message. (But the LED light doesn't start blinking at low battery, like the manual said it would)
- No floppy drive. I guess buying a USB flash drive will do.
- Two usb ports. While it may be sufficient to some, I wish there were more. I guess buying a USB hub will do.
-Too bad there is only space for one pc card slot
-It would have been nicer if the ethernet port was in the back of the notebook so that the cord doesn't bother my left arm, but it's no big deal.
-I hate support programs. They take up space and I feel like I have a bunch of junk programs running every day. I say if you're confident of your computer skills and can take care of the little computer problems yourself, take them out.

Overall: Yes, battery life is bad. If you need more than 2 hours get a new 6-cell one for 100 bucks. Yes, speakers are bad, but what do you expect from a 4 pound laptop? This is cool looking, good performing system without the bulk. Highly recommended.

This computer is spectacular, it looks great and also runs well. It is very small, but the keyboard is of usable size and has a good feel to it (my old gateway notebook definitely had a bit of a flimsy feel to it).

A few things:
1) GET THE HIGH CAPACITY BATTERY. The stock battery is awful, but such is life. Don't order it from gateway though, check out other places, such as a particular online warehouse with a three letter name. I got mine for almost 1/2 the price Gateway was charging there, and the service was a lot better.
2) The speakers suck too. The computer is less than 1" think. What do you expect? They're finally beginning to come out with wi-fi products that will use your connection to stream music from your computer to your stereo. I can't wait to get my hands on one, until then, plug it into to your stereo or use headphones.
3) Adding more RAM is highly recommended. I added an additional 512MB that I got from a well-known auction site for $50. The difference is immediately noticable; XP devours RAM.
4) Download iTunes. Seriously, even if you don't want to download music from them, it has to be the most user-friendly (not to mention free and visually pleasing) music library managment software on the planet.
5) STAY UPDATED. Every time you read about an attack, its because people don't update their OS, antivirus, and firewall software/hardware. It takes a few seconds every few weeks, and any decent company will alert you to the updates automatically. This will also eliminate 99% of problems people may experience with their wi-fi connections; the software updates usually fix glitches that weren't anticipated when the product was manufactured (I use a D-Link DI-624 router, and it's been phenomenal).
6) You'll want to get a USB drive if you need to move files off-network regularly. They're compact, hold a lot, and have become really inexpensive. I ended up buying one and couldn't be happier. Or you can do as I used to: just email files to yourself and access them at your final destination (I had a habit of losing/leaving behind floppies when I was in college).

All that said, for the price, this system simply can't be beat. Even without all the extra BS I bought for mine, it's still a great notebook. It runs cool and fast and looks great. You won't find many other notebooks with these specs and functionality.

I wanted a sleek looking little laptop with a decent size screen and 512mb of ram... and I got all that and more! It does everything I need, never hiccups, it's lightweight... I'm really glad I bought it. It's beauty is not only skin deep, have a look at the specs :) It's great. The only complaint... buy a backup battery... the standard one runs out so quickly.

This is a great laptop. It's light and sleek with tons of great features. I especially like the built-in Bluetooth, which lets me connect to my printer and PDA without wires. I highly recommend this PowerBook!

Finally retired my Sony Vaio (850Mhz) and made the switch to a powerbook--wanted to do that ever since I realized that Mac OS X is pretty much BSD Unix with a killer desktop. What a great machine this is. Much better than the comparable IBook...twice the processor cache for starters...and none of the problems that have plagued the 1Gz iBook. Weighs just 4.6 pounds and is very portable...aluminium case is very scratch resistant. I get GREAT range with the add-on Airport Extreme card going to a LinkSys 11g access point (there's an antenna in the lid of the unit). I'm very happy with the battery life, the operating system, and the apps I use on this machine (Office X mostly). About a month after getting and using this machine I got a G5 for my desktop and I'm quite happy. If you're looking for a gaming rig, forget Apple but if you're looking for a business-oriented machine that fits in very smoothly with a PC-based office, this is the ticket. Networks much easier than a Windows machine!

A fantastic ultra portable laptop. I bought the 12" Powerbook G4 1Ghz, and have been blown away by it. It has a good metallic design and its size is very easy to carry around, this is the major disadvantage of larger bulkier notebooks. I have had mine upgraded to 1.25 GB Ram, and the performance of applications like Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop is great. You can even play games like Halo on it pretty well, if that is your thing. You can have up to 80GB of HD, and my advice is to buy the largest you can afford. I also have an Airport (802.11g) card installed, and it allows wireless connectivity with a pretty good range. In addition, Bluetooth built-in allowed me to use a very nice wireless mouse with it. The Keyboard is of good quality, an important feature if you have to write long documents in Word! The LCD screen is of good quality too. All in all it made a pleasant switch from my previous bulky Sony Vaio Lap. I would recommend this computer very highly.

I have been trying to purchase this Sharp 27inch TV/VCR/DVD combo for approx. 2 weeks. Everytime I place my order with Amazon.com it does not go through. Just wondering if each of you that wrote this great reviews purchased it through Amazon.com. I have also contacted them with hopes they can place my order. I really really do want to puchase this TV and it is at a GREAT price! Thanks...Dana

This TV has high quality looks, great picture and sound at a great price.Enjoy!

The VCR and DVD combination works great. The flat screen enhances the viewing pleasure. All in all, this model exceeded my expectations.

I recently purchased at circuit city, $50 less than amazon.com. I thought they were partners? The dvd player didn't work but return was no problem. The sound is very clear and the bass is strong. I have to keep the bass turned down due to apartment living. Hookup was kind of a pain. Once I discarded the directions and used logic it worked.

Remote for the dvd is a bit poor as one button acts as left, right, up, down and enter. It is easy to hit enter unintentionally.

I don't think the product description makes it clear but this is also an am/fm tuner.

Overall, I'm very satisfied and would buy it again.

This system is great! I bought it for space reasons...great features and sound that takes up 1/3 of the space of my old bulky entertainment center. I live in a single family detached home, and was listening to the HQ**2 mix of Toni Braxton's "Hit The Freeway" one evening and was surprised to find the local cops knocking on my door. This system puts out!! The bass from the subwoofer was the problem...I turn it down now whenever I hit the Toni Braxton track. ;-) My only complaint is I now have three remotes to juggle...one for the receiver, one for the DVD/VCR combo and one for my TV. Need to shop around for a good universal remote that is compatible. Oh yea, and the LED display on the tuner is blue, and the DVD/VCR display is green...what's up with that?

This system is the greatest investment I could have bought. Easy setup took a little more than one hour, got everything up and running that night. One flaw in Sony's design is some of the cords are to short. They don't reach down to the floor. There are many plugs and not enough outlets, I think they should all be able to plug into the reciever to take up only one outlet