Review: Panasonic DMP-B15 (Portable Blu-ray Player)

Hard to believe Blu-ray has been out for nearly 3 years. What’s even harder to believe is we haven’t seen a portable Blu-ray player. Sure there have been Sony laptops capable of playing the format, but no standalone player. Now Panasonic has become the first to release such a device. Did it do it right or fail on its first attempt?

The Design

At first glance, the DMP-B15 (rolls off the tongue doesn’t it) looks like a standard portable DVD player. The top flips up and becomes the screen. The bottom sections contains the “guts” of the unit where you insert your discs. The screen swivels so it can be put back into it’s original place creating almost a tablet PC type device with the screen facing up.

The player can be set up in one of two ways. The back of the player has fold out legs creating as tripod so it can be stood up on its end. This is great for placing it on the console in between seats in vehicles, or on a fold down tray on a plane. The other option is to use a strap (included) so it can be hooked up to the back of a head rest in a vehicle. Great if only one person is watching the unit in a backseat.

The DMP-B15 is chunky. There’s no denying it’s thick at 2.3 inches. Suprising since we’ve seen standalone players like Samsung’s eye catching 1.7 inch thick BD-P4600. Then again this is a portable player so some sacrifices probably had to be made.

The Screen

The Panasonic DMP-B15 has an 8.9 inche LED screen. While it doesn’t support 1080p the picture quality is quite stunning (It only plays 1080p when hooked up to a 1080p television). Watching this player will certainly make you feel like ditching your older portable DVD player. The screen is bright and has great viewing angles.

The buttons have been placed along the top edge of the player

Operation

The player is easy to use and operate. All of the unit’s buttons are located along the top edge so as not to interfere with the screen. A full fledged remote control has also been thrown in giving you full access to the players many feature. This device gives off very little sound while playing discs. In fact it’s virtually quiet while operating.

Like most Blu-ray players on the market, startup time is a bit on the long side. While most of our Blu-ray discs took more than a minute to launch, we found the odd one took as many as 2 to 3 minutes. In the big picture it’s really not a long period of time, but with our short attention span it seemed like forever! It amazes me that after 3 years manufacturers still can not find ways to speed up load times on Blu-ray players. Once the disc does start playing though it’s easy to forget about the sluggish startup. It plays beautifully, and seems fairly skip resistant. Try as we might, we were not able to get this bad boy to skip.

It is also important to point out this player will also play regular DVDs. Don’t worry, you won’t have to update your movie library every time you want to go on a roadtrip. Other features include BD-live support, VIERA CAST compatibility, and the ability to play AVCHD, MPEG2 & JPEG(HD) through its SD memory card slot.

Battery

If there is an achilles heel to the DMP-B15 it has to be battery life. While Panasonic claims the player should get 2.5 hours out of a fully charged battery (with lowest brightness setting and headphones), we were not able to get that much juice out of it. Close, but not 2.5 hours. The most we could manage to wring out of the battery was 2 hours and 15 minutes. Enough to play most movies, but you won’t be watching LOTR on this player unless of course you use the 12 volt vehicle battery adapter which is included. Using this is a must! The fact this is included with the player is a God send, as it will save any roadtrip from certain disaster if you have screaming kids along with you for the ride.

The Bottom Line

Panasonic’s DMP-B15 is a slick unit. It’s nicely designed (although a bit chunky), plays beautifully and is an absolute joy to watch. While I loved it, I can’t ignore two big issues, battery life and cost. It’s clear this player is not for the mass market yet. It’s a niche product that is clearly meant for early adopters. If you have the cash you won’t be disappointed with the player,  although waiting a year could save you a whack of cash!

The Good

beautiful picture
different mounts
plays DVDs
supports BD-live
comes with car charger
The Bad

chunky design
poor battery life (thank goodness for car charger)
long load times
costly ($799 USD )