Even the lowest-end notebooks on the market these days sport DVD-ROM drives, so why shouldn't you just plump for a notebook to meet your portable DVD watching needs?While there's a definite cachet to owning a little portable DVD player -- you can bring it out at social gatherings, or on long car trips, and be easily entertained, there's something to be said for using a notebook to replicate the DVD watching experience. It's not so easy as saying "Yeah, notebooks are great -- everyone should buy one of those", however.
Notebook Pros:
Bigger screen experience
The majority of portable DVD players sport quite small LCD displays, with a quality that can vary widely. There's not much comparison between that and a 15" LCD screen when you're watching the latest big screen epic. Likewise, while the speakers on most portable DVD players aren't much to write home about, stiff competition in the multimedia notebook space has seen plenty of units hit the market with impressive speaker offerings, including units with real name-brand speakers and sub-woofers.
AV compatibility
Your average laptop isn't just a DVD player -- it can also be a mean lean office machine, and, internal components allowing, even a decent games machine. That's pretty obvious, but the other multimedia area
that most laptops can extend to -- and that most portable DVD players can't -- is extend their multimedia chops by loading additional multimedia format codecs, thus enabling playback of additional file types.
"One less gadget" Syndrome
If you know you're likely to take your laptop away on holiday with you, we'd suggest that you need a proper break, and that someone in your immediate circle of relatives ought to hide your notebook from you. If you're persistent, however (or just good at finding hidden laptops), then once you've packed the laptop, power supply, mouse, webcam, USB memory drives and a few choice DVDs and CDs, the last thing you want to do is pack yet another gadget just to watch DVDs. Having your DVD playback embedded into your existing gear will save you valuable bag space, and reduce the number of items you might accidentally leave in a hotel room.
Cons:
Power
While notebook batteries have undoubtedly gotten better over the years, your average notebook is busy burning power in a number of ways that are completely unconnected to your DVD watching experience -- running your OS, managing the speed of your processor and keeping virus and security scans going, for example. Unless you've got a reasonably high-end unit, you may not have enough juice to make it through longer films, and as you'll presumably be using the notebook for a variety of uses -- not just DVD watching -- it's fair to estimate that the lithium ion battery powering it will lose overall charging capacity quite a bit faster than a comparable portable DVD player. The practical upshot of this is that after only maybe a year to 18 months, you may find that your full charge lasts you for much less movie watching time than it used to.
Bigger isn't always better
While you benefit from the larger screen size of your laptop while watching movies, the flipside is that you're normally carrying around a much larger unit with you, adding drag to your bag and turning your shoulder into a painful and crooked travesty of its normal operation.
Cost
Probably the most obvious problem with using a laptop as a portable DVD player is the cost of a decent unit. Yes, the lower end units do sport DVD-ROM drives (or can include them for an often nominal additional cost), but those lower end units often have poor displays and even worse battery life. To get the full portability and solid battery life needed for a really mobile DVD solution, you're going to need to plump for a decent ultracompact notebook -- and there you're talking thousands of dollars, rather than the hundreds that a portable DVD player may set you back.
Connectivity
Portable DVD players are one-trick ponies, but they're engineered with that one purpose in mind. This means that they've (normally) got oodles of AV connectivity coming out of every socket and side. This can include several ways to hook up to TVs and stereo systems, as well as multiple headphone sockets so that additional people can enjoy their films on the go. Compare that to even some mid-range laptops, which may only sport a single headphone socket and external VGA connector, and you're talking a whole lot less in terms of external connectivity.
Ultimately the choice is yours, and, of course, if you're looking to buy a decent multimedia laptop -- or already own one -- then the ability to watch movies on the move is just another nice added bonus.
Lance
11/10/2005 07:37 PM
Thank you so much for your article. I have been thinking about getting a portable DVD player for a while now and I've been researching on the net for a little while also. I came across your article and I have to say, I felt really stupid. Of course! I have a notebook with DVD capability! Why haven't I just used that? To tell you the truth I don't know. How dumb do I feel!? Thanks heaps, you saved me a lot of money. Lance
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Bernie
10/12/2005 05:04 AM
Alex, I use a Dell Latitude c840 laptop with a DVD-ROM, GeForce4 440 Go video card with 64 MB of video RAM and 1 GB of main RAM. I was very disappointed the first time I tried to play a DVD movie on my laptop. The movie played fine for a few minutes but then it began to stutter - the video and audio would repeatedly stop for a split second. I tried using different software and made sure the DMA was activated but I could not get a DVD movie to play smoothly. However, I noticed that if I rip the files from the DVD and store them on my hard-drive the movie will play smoothly. I have also had good results with DVD movies that have been compressed into Divx and other popular formats. Can anyone comment on the following? 1. Is there something my laptop is missing that makes DVD playback poor? 2. Since the ripped DVD files play just fine from the hard drive is it possible that my laptop doesn't have enough power to play the movie and spin the DVD? Thanks in advance, Bernie.
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TTTLE
27/03/2006 03:43 PM
I've got a great DELL notebook. With 12" and light it sounds great to use as a "portable DVD player" for my kids on the road. But....I end up have to hold it on my lap for 2hours during the trip. It wasn't pleasure for me!!! If you can suggest any better way to use laptop to replace a real "portable DVD" in my case. I'm more than happy to practice before looking to buy a portable DVD!!!
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yudista
11/06/2007 05:19 PM
Nice article. make me rethink myself to buy another gadget...(again).
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Tombraider
30/07/2007 10:22 AM
A portable DVD player is cheaper. I have been allowing my toddler to watch DVDs on the notebook. It's much less expensive to replace than a laptop if he smashes it on the floor or something!
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