Slim profile and great price

none

I have been using this product for about 3 months now with no problems or complaints. I paid only $145 at IntechAV.com and the shipping was free. I found that this dvd players was a great value.

Feature/Function
Price!!

Remote Joystick Poor Design
Slow loading all media
Poorly documented users manual
Doesn't come in black!(silver only)

Tested all of the above DVD players.IMHO, the Samsung offers the best value for the money, in terms of what you get with the M301:

-CDR,MP3,VCD support (also plays some CD-RWs)
-2-4X Zoom
-S-Video,Component Video, Coax and Optical audio out
-FF/RW
-Surround Sound

Besides having all of these features, the M301 offers an excellent picture and sound quality. So far no dvd's have skipped. I highly recommend this unit for those interested in a GOOD DEAL.

Similar Products Used:

Sony DVP NS-300,Toshiba SD 1700, Philips DVD 712/AT

Excellent picture and sound.

Brief signal degradation (series of white boxes in rows), remote control button sizes and layout, manual.

Viewed two new DVD's--Men In Black and Independence Day--and got beautiful pictures and excellent sound, but on each DVD there was a brief loss of part of the image. This problem did not appear when I watched MIB afterwards on my daughter's Fisher S2000.

The remote is not as ergonomic or well laid out as it initially appears. Some of the buttons are too small and do not respond easily.

The manual is not an easy or quick read.

I returned the unit to Best Buy with no hassel. I have not yet decided on a replacement.

Similar Products Used:

Fisher S2000

wonderful picture and sound quality
adjustable black level
zoom feature
sound at 2x speed-neat for scanning through films

none up to this point

This inexepensive little player is the best bargain in DVD players out out there! This player was $200 dollars at Best Buy a few months ago. After my Onkyo 601 crapped out, and Onkyo refused to give me a new player, even after repairs had failed, it was time to search for a new player. I had wasted $350 on the Onkyo, which went right out the window. Due to bugetary constraints, I wanted to spend around $200-$250 on a player. I read a great write up on the Samsung 301 in Sound and Vision, so I bought it. Best Buy had price dropped it to $150!!!
Hookup was very straightforward, and uneventful. I popped Gladiator in and let it rip. The Samsung delivered all the great picture and sound quality my Onkyo had. I was starting to become impressed. Over the next month I came to love this player even more. I've had no problems with this unit. I had some glitching on Planet of The Apes (TV series), but I found out it was the mastering of the disc not the player.
The 301 also plays CD-R, CD-RW, and MP3 files flawlessly. The build quality of the unit is excellent, and the remote control is thoughtfully layed out. This player should be investigated by anyone looking to buy a great quality player, that does it all. Plus, the cost can't be beat. If Samsung can make a great player at $150, why can't Onkyo make a good one for $350?

Similar Products Used:

Onkyo, Pioneer, Toshiba, Sony products

Plays CD-R, CD-RW, and MP3.
Sleek slim design.
Plays VCDs with excellent picture quality.
Love the joystick remote.

Gives a "Cannot load" disk error when a MP3 CD is already inside and the DVD is switched on.
Takes a long time to load MP3 CD and had 8 chr filenames.
Cannot read MP3 of a CD-RW.
Manual does not have info about how to play MP3, what CD formats etc.

The picture quality is excellent. The sleek slim design fits perfectly in a low height shelf of my entertainment center.

Weaknesses:
I found that if you have a MP3 CD-R in the DVD and you switch on the player, it cannot load it. However if you open and close the tray, it reads it perfectly.

It takes a while (over a minute) to load a MP3 CD. The good (or bad) part is it does not matter whether the MP3 CD contains 1 or 100 songs. And the MP3 should be on a CD-R. It cannot load MP3 of a CD-RW.

Funny thing - the MP3 sticker of the player says look at the manual for more info, but the manual does not contains a word about MP3.

Overall I love the player.

Similar Products Used:

Samsung DVD M101

When it works it works well.

It doesn't always work.

Purchased the 301 because of a glowing review in the June 2001 issue of SOUND&VISION magazine. But you want to know a funny thing? When I went back and reread that review I realized that the reviewer only used ONE movie to make an evaluation of the player. Hmmm. If he'd used say, four, his review might not have had that sparkling effervescence that can only come from having your backside lovingly caressed by corporate flacks.

My criteria for a DVD player was simple: I wanted it simple, robust and below $200. I only wanted the player to play DVDs, and 5.1, MP3, CD-wonky-wonk and all that was unnecessary. Just play the DVD. But that, really, is the crux of the whole thing. NO DVD PLAYER WILL PLAY EVERY DVD. Go to www.dvdreview.com and read their FAQ. It's long, it's technical,and it's invaluable. Simply put, DVD technology works, but for EVERY disc to play on EVERY player the manufacturers and the studios all have to be reading from the same blueprint, and they're not. VHS is less sexy, but is, for now, more reliable. Hey, I'm not saying DON'T buy a DVD, just be aware that there will be discs your player won't play, no matter whether you pay $180 or $1800.

But, anyway, the 301. It has problems(pixelation, freezing, skipping) with MGM films, and some with Disney subsidiary companies(won't load), and has minor pixelation with a few more. I made the mistake of buying a lot of DVDs via mail-order before understanding that DVDs are still a new technology with bugs and glitches. Approximately 15% of the ones I bought don't work. I find that unacceptable, and all the happy-happy, joy-joy techno-apologists with their hysterical choruses of "It's new! Give it time!!" have more patience and bigger bank accounts than I do. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice and I'm a ******** idiot! So what to do?

I have bid a bitter farewell to the burgeoning DVD industry and have retreated to the world of VHS. I bought a new VHS player and have found that they are humming right along. One more thing, a lot of DVD movies are now optimized for 16:9 widescreen tvs. That means that it is compressed to a small horizontal band (about seven inches tall on my 25" tv) on tvs with a standard 4:3 ratio (that's the size of a regular tv). Prepare to sit closer to the tv. And squint. But boy, will you love seeing the film as the director intended! But wait, there's more! If your total widescreen viewing time per seven day period exceeds 15% of the total viewing time you run the risk of those black widescreen bands at the top and bottom of your screen burning a faint, but nonetheless visible, ghost image on your tv. It's all in the fine print, baby!

The bottom line: The 301 works well enough if you're willing to accept the inherent limitations of DVD. You could spend more money and have similar problems. That wouldn't be good.

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Have used PC DVDs, but this is the first stand-alone.

EASY TO USE,LOT OF FEATURES FOR THE PRICE

NONE YET

GREAT PRICE, LOTS OF FEATURES FOR THE PRICE

Good value, decent CD/DVD player

MP3 clearly an afterthought

I picked up a returned unit from Best Buy and thus got a really good deal. The DVD/CD performance is very good. The unit I have is heat sensitive. At first I had it on top of my receiver, but had to move it because MP3s played really erratically. MP3 playback is clearly an afterthought. I had no problem with basic playback or segmenting of my songs. Though it understands albums (directories) if not long file names, it has no mechanism to skip by them, except for a rather convoluted (return, joystick down/up, joystick enter, joystick enter) which I only figured out from the on-screen display. Controls available for CDs don't work for MP3 disks (like track access by entering digits or track movement via the jog dial).

Price, picture and sound quality, attractive finish.

Hard to control joystick feature on remote control.

This was an absolute bargain. We found the unit at Best Buy, and after reading the reviews here we decided to go ahead and purchase it. For the money you don't get a better player. The picture quality and sound quality are top notch, and it won't leave you eating only bread for the next month in order to afford it. The only dislike I have so far is the sometimes hard to use joystick on the remote. It takes some getting used to, and even then it does not always point exactly where you want it to. I don't use the unit for MP3 playback at all so I can't comment on that feature. Put a DVD or CD in it and works just fine. If you can find it anywhere for the 170.00 dollars I paid for it, jump at the chance.

MP3 support, Digital Audio, ease of use

Remote is not very responsive

I like this product. I have used all features except for the VCD part of it.

The MP3 support lacks a little. I have not had any problems with truncated songs or broken into different tracks. My MP3 collection is good quality though (all 128k or above and no variable bit rate). I have noticed that this unit is one of the FEW that do play mp3's though, which is why I got it, that and the low price.

DVD's look and sound very nice on this unit.

My biggest complaint is the remote control. It acts as though it is cheaply made. Sometimes when you hit a button on the remote it doesn't register and you have to press it again. Maybe it is the remote, but maybe it is something inside the player.

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PC-DVD