CONCLUSION

   Philips is amongst the very few manufacturers that I’ve always liked (especially their LCD screens) not only because they are at the forefront of technological achievements and focus on high quality but also because most of the times they offer their products at very reasonable prices compared to the competition. That's also the reason as to why initially i was expecting a bit more from the PD7030/12 portable DVD player in terms of image quality. After considering every single aspect of the product however i think that Philips has hit the sweet spot between performance, quality and price. DVD movies play smoothly, MP3 audio can be reproduced from both CD and USB and the entire player is very small and light. Regarding the battery life Philips claims that the PD7030/12 can last for 3 full hours without charge however with the volume turned all the way up we were unable to hit that much and at best it kept going for 160 minutes (2h/40m). If i could change 1 thing it would be to add a region free capability since our version was only able to playback Region 2 (EU) DVDs and for someone like me who has bought many DVD's from the states over the years (prior to HD-DVD and Blu-Ray) that's not a good thing.

   With a current price tag set at around USD95 inside the USA (model PD700) and 80Euros inside the EU you can't really go wrong with the Philips 7030/12 portable DVD player. Of course as already mentioned a couple of times for really demanding consumers the almost 3 times more expensive Philips PD9005 is their flagship portable DVD player featuring an 9" swivel LCD screen (640x220), MPEG4 DVB-T decoder and offers a battery life of up to 5 hours. Personally even 7" are more than just enough to watch movies on the road and although the image quality and audio levels could be better one can't really complain when the price is right and because of that it comes highly recommended by us. 

PROS

- Build Quality
- Size/Weight
- Design
- 7" LCD Screen
- DVD/CD/MP3/DivX/JPEG Compatible
- Stereo
- Price 

CONS

- Image Quality (480x234)
- Audio Levels
- Battery Life (160m)
- Region Locked