When we originally planned to drive to Seattle in the same car, I figured we'd need some kind of portable entertainment unit to keep us entertained. A full-on laptop would be overkill – we just wanted to find something to play a DVD movie or two. It'd be great to have on long plane rides, anyway. Had to find something with long battery life, great features, and… and… found Panasonic's DVD-LS55:

• 7-inch Diagonal Widescreen
• Freestyle LCD Display
• Built-in Recharger Function
• 10 Hour Life on a Charge
• 4:3 / 16:9 / Zoom Screen Selector
• Support for DVD-Video, DVD-Audio (2 channel), DVD-RAM, DVD-R, HighMAT (Level 2), CD, CD-R/RW, WMA, MP3, JPEG
• Built-in Dolby Digital® Surround Sound Decoder
• Built-in DTS® Surround Sound Decoder
• Two Headphone Jacks
• S-Video / Composite Video Out
• FM Transmitter for Car Stereo Playback
• 22.76 ounces!

This thing's a beaut! When we don't need to use it for travel, it's acting as our bedroom TV DVD player. The DVD-LS55 isn't the least expensive unit out there, but I'm the kind of guy who runs fast from “cheap” hardware.