Price Paid:  $180.00 from $ Sep. 2002

Summary:
I`ve had a Sony DVP-S335 for a year and a half, and was irritated that it would only take original stuff. Then I bought this Grundig, and what a relief. It plays DVD,VCD,SVCD and MP3 on every media CD-R/RW,DVD-R/RW.

Strengths:
It is fast, also in loading VCD,SVCD & MP3 Very good and easy to work with. Good sound in both DVD and MP3 playback.

Weaknesses:
It becomes a little warm, and has a rather noisy drive. Especially in the beginning of CD-R`s....4xspeed

Price Paid:  $140.00 from Dubai-UAE

Summary:
positive..... Excellent product for the price. Good video and sound quality and MP3 play back. Almost all the different types of Audio and VCD''s are working fine.Multi region hackable. negative ............ No optical digital output and little confusing on remote control buttons....

Strengths:
excellent sound and video.

Weaknesses:
no optical output... button on remote are confusing.

Price Paid:  $2001.00 from 300

Summary:
I've had this Grundig only three days, and I'm extremely happy with it's overall performance.

Sound, out performs my pc option with clearer and better audio separation, with a deeper, more controlled bass. Audio cd's sound more open in the mids compared to my SHERWOOD 5-disk cd player. Mp3's really impressed with a more fuller sound then Winamp via my SB Live Value sound card.

Video, as I'm a blind person, people tell me are marginally better then my DXR3 card produced, but then the DXR3 was said to be of high video quality for it's price range, equaling Hifi dvd units of double the price (>300 dollars), so this Grundig seems to perform above average for it's price.

User friendliness, once I know the buttons, the remote isn't confusing to me, and the different sized/shaped buttons make it easy for me to use. I must confess I don't know how to use the front pannel buttons, besides ejecting the disk, etc.

Overall a good machine for the price, and especially that somebody brought me a demo unit which I immediately took, and wasn't prepared for one at this stage.

Strengths:
Excellent mp3 performance, good audio cd playback, solid dvd performance, good features and price

Weaknesses:
No optical output, but who cares?

Similar Products Used:
LG pc dvd 8x drive with Creative Labs DXR3 decoder card

Price Paid:  $285.00 from NetAnttila.com

Summary:
I've been looking for a good all-round-dvd-player for a several months now and read dozens of reviews it seems that Grundig GDV-130 is the right choice for me .This is my first DVD-player and seems like a good product so far. Player is quite cheap and packs still some great features like mp3- and vcd-playback. Region coding can be bypassed with remote control code. DVD playback seems to be working well though some strange sound breaks occured on Terminator 2 dvd. I personally was pleased to find that the mp3-playback was so good. When inserted, the disc is ready to play almost immediately. I have heard that the delay has been a problem with some other players. A Finnish audio magazine "Hifi-lehti" rated the Grundig's mp3-playback as distincly the best.
I haven't found any major flaws but, as usual, budget products seem to always come with some designing faults. First of all, the remote. The key placement on the remote control is quite strange. Next/Previous/Forward/Rewind keys aren't where they are expected to be. Luckily, you get used to this. Secondly, the player doesn't have a optical digital output. Coaxial output does exist, but those users with portable MD-players may find this absence a bit irritating. MP3-gui also could be a bit better. You can't create any playlists at all and directories cannot be changed without stopping the playback first. Regardless of these facts, Grundig GDV-130 is a high-quality versatile dvd-player with almost no bad aspects at all. And for that price, I can't find any reason not to buy this :)

Strengths:
Plays MP3's well and shows id3-tags too. Simple and powerful interface.

Weaknesses:
No optical digital output. Some weaknesses in MP3-gui. Strange key placement on remote control.

Similar Products Used:
None.