Be wary of this model

Author's Rating:

Pros: good picture quality, excellent sound quality. Simple, sleek design.

Cons: no playback memory, small awkward remote, defective optical unit on my player

The Bottom Line: 
If you don't mind taking a risk based on what i've reported, and you want a high quality unit for cheap, you might try it. just keep your receipt handy...

Author's Review
I bought this model a couple of weeks ago in February from Best Buy. I was reassured at the counter by whom looked like a manager that this was a highly durable product. With that confidence, I began using it for casual movie viewing at home with a non-digital tv, no surround sound, nothing fancy. I was impressed with the sound quality, very nice and full, and I do have pretty high standards when it comes to audio.

However, from the get go I noticed artifacts and pixellation showing up in the image even when playing new, clean cds. I was surprised by this, because a past Toshiba model I bought never did this when playing the exact same discs. I accepted it as understandable since I did only pay $70 for the thing. Then, two weeks later I was playing a dvd and the thing freezes half way into the movie. Surprised, I took out the disc, examined it, cleaned it, tried it again. and again. still froze. I tried skipping chapters, but no use. From that point on it would not play. I must have gone through this process 6 times at least. I inspect and repair dvds all day at work so I know what a clean dvd looks like and it was clean. I later tried the same dvd out on the used dvd player I bought the Toshiba to replace, and it worked on it! Disgusted, I returned the thing to Best Buy and bought a cyberhome-dvd 300 for $40. heck I had a $40 gift certificate for best buy so I basically got the thing for free. incidentally it played the same dvd just fine all the way through.

Anyways, it's very possible it was just a defective unit, but another person reviewing this model wrote of an almost identical problem. So I am wondering about Toshiba's manufacturing standards. I am disappointed, not only because the sales-people boasted of the thing's longevity, but because of my usually high regard for toshiba products. I am wondering if they scaled back on quality and durability to be able to put this model in a lower price range.

Other than that I'll briefly share my thoughts on this player's other aspects, the freezing problem put aside. The remote is just ok, a little small with small buttons that are a bit confusing. The picture quality is sharp and clean, even on my ancient 19" tv. I'm sure it's great on one of those newer digital screens. Like I said the sound quality is great, very full clear and I noticed the difference instantly over my old Sony dvd player. A couple really annoying things: no playback memory, meaning you have to find your scene after leaving the dvd player for more than 10 minutes. The other annoying thing is you can only skip scenes one at a time. You can't just keep pressing the skip button over and over until some digital read-out onscreen displays your scene. Which makes finding your scene even more annoying... well I've probably written enough. I didn't have much time to explore it before I took it back. If this was indeed just a defective dvd player, a 1 in 1000 lemon unit, then for the price I'd say a non-defective unit is pretty good, despite the minor problems I mentioned. Especially if you just want to watch movies like I do. However, given the fact that this has obviously happened more than once, I won't take my chances on this line of Toshiba players again.