The portable DVD player market hasn't been kind to the heavy-duty traveller. The average $300 portable is small, silvery and good for about 21/2 hours of no-frills playback. But that won't get you across the Atlantic--it won't even get you through Ben-Hur. In our test of the top portable contenders, The Good Life found that Panasonic's pricey, powerful DVD-LX95 makes a compelling case for parting with $999 (Cdn.).
Nice view
The nine-inch screen--notably bigger than the typical seven-inch displays--pivots on a sturdy arm and rotates from clamshell to tablet set-up. Big and bright enough to watch from a comfortable distance, if not quite up to a laptop's high-res crispness.
Great legs
Laptops and cheaper portables will die after a single movie. On one overnight charge, the slim, three-pound LX95 chewed through Rushmore, The Incredibles, six episodes of Star Trek and three hours of MP3s--over 10 hours of useful life.
The sound of money
Forget earbuds: Panasonic ships the LX95 with an excellent set of noise-cancelling headphones. Like most portables, there are two jacks for side-by-side listening. For in-car use, the LX95 can broadcast audio, if a little fuzzily, on an FM radio channel.
Avid reader
A lot of gadgets promise multimedia capabilities, but the LX95 delivers with elegance, quickly ferreting out any songs, videos or pictures on CD-Rs, DVD-Rs and Secure Digital cards. All of this can also be viewed on a TV or projector, courtesy of a video-out port. Its one real limitation: It only plays North American DVDs.