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Small details, such as rain falling on the Gotham City streets or tricky textures like Scarecrow's Hessian mask, are reproduced clearly and sharply, while edge definition is forceful and smooth. What's more, the player's colour reproduction is right on the money, making skin tones look realistic but at the same time lending a richness and vibrancy to strong hues, such as neon lights.

The player's solid black handling lends a boldness and density to the picture that makes for a really enjoyable and surprisingly cinematic watch. Even dark scenes don't trip it up - you can make out what's going on during dimly lit scenes in the bat cave or on the city streets at night. The screen's viewing angle is also wide, enabling you to view it almost from the side before there's any significant loss of picture quality.

Our only picture criticism concerns ambient light, as any glare on the screen wipes out the contrast, and there's a touch of noise and motion blur here and there, but generally this is an excellent screen that delivers top-notch pictures.

Inevitably, sound quality through the speakers is poor and fails to do justice to our movie's rousing soundtrack, but through headphones it improves immeasurably. Furthermore, DivX, MP3 and JPEG playback from USB is slick and glitch-free, making this a reliable entertainment hub for your travels.

Verdict

The PET1030 is a superb portable DVD player, which uses its high-resolution 10.2in screen to great effect with first-rate picture quality. It also boasts a gorgeous, user-friendly design and compatibility with a wide range of media, but the icing on the cake is the inclusion of USB and SD card slots, which makes this more than just a DVD player. We would have expected to pay a large premium for this sort of functionality, but the affordable price tag makes its talents all the more remarkable.

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