Good Bedside TV

I wear glasses and lie on my side in bed and watch tv without my glasses on (the tv has to be close on a nearby table). I had a 5" black & white tv for years and wanted a small cable ready tv to replace it. I tried a regular 13" tv and it was too large to view this closely! I decided to search for a small cable ready tv. This was the smallest cable ready tv I could find and works great for this bedside viewing. It's about 15" from my head and I don't have to wear my glasses to view it. The 10" screen is the perfect size for this use. The only problem I had was that the picture doesn't look good if viewed from a lower angle (looking up towards the screen). From straight on or above it's fine, but since the built-in stand tilts the screen upwardly, you can't look straight over at it and see the best picture. I had to find a lower bedside table so that the tv was lower than my head to see a proper picture. Once I found the right height, however, the picture is fine. The few dvds I watched on it have played fine, but I can't I comment about the other uses or problems others have reported since I just purchased it mainly for a bedside table tv.

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The Most Versatile TV/DVD Player on the Market

I received the Audiovox D1020 for Christmas 2006. I had been looking for a portable DVD player with a television tuner, but they are few and far between, and they are becoming more scarce. The D1020 isn't easy to find in retail stores, but Amazon and other web retailers stock it. If you don't need a built-in battery, this is the unit to get. When this unit came out in 2004, it had a street price of about $600.00. Now it is available for well under half that amount, the D1020 is a bargain. An inferior model with the same size screen but no tuner and no wireless headphones, the Audiovox DT102A, costs substantially more.

With the TV tuner and the detachable speakers, the D1020 makes an excellent auxiliary television that you can carry wherever you go. The two pair of wireless headphones that are supplied with the D1020 can easily cost about $70.00 if purchased separately. By the way, I confirmed that the headphones supplied with the Audiovox D1020 are compatible with the headphones supplied with our 2006 Dodge Grand Caravan. In fact, although they don't look identical, as far as I can tell there is no difference in function. With simple rabbit ears, television reception is fine inside the minivan. The D1020 could easily substitute for the installed video system in a Dodge/Chrysler minivan. just string it up with the provided mount when you need it, and stow it in the Stow-n-go storage compartment when you don't. Speaking of the van, The factory video system costs about $1700 when you figure the cost of the video system and the 6 disc changer that is required. So if you buy this Audiovox unit, rather than the automaker's factory system, you'll save almost $1500 plus all the finance charges for the life of the loan. That's enough of a difference to buy a projector or a projection television for the house.

The D1020 does everything that it purports to do. I didn't give it 5 stars because not only does it not have a built-in antenna, there is no well-suited antenna that is conveniently available. I took some rabbit ears off of one of our smaller sets, and the D1020's tuner works well. There's just no elegant place to put the antenna.

The fact that this set doesn't have a battery hasn't been a problem. Radio Shack has universal portable DVD player batteries that should be suitable. The universal batteries cost about $70.00. Also, you can use the small power boxes that you use to jumpstart cars. Just use the 12 volt adapter that you would plug into the cigarette lighter.

I can think of three ways to improve this product. First, include a ATSC (HDTV) tuner to make the television "future-proof". Secondly, include an antenna. Finally, improve the contrast level on the screen.




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Not good for remote area

This TV/DVD player has a beautiful picture. It would be great if only needed for playing dvd's. But we were hoping to get tv reception for major network channels. We could not, even after buying a higher powered antenna for it. I returned the set.

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