dvd-vcr and other dvd combos

I ordered a TV for my daughters birthday three weeks in advance. Not only did it not arrive, but Amazon.com didn't even have the decency to respond to any of my e-mails asking where it was, or what happened to it. Do your self a favor, and NEVER buy anything from these idiots!!!!!!

I purchased one of these for the bedroom. I thought 24" would be a bit too big, but it's actually a nice size for widescreen letterbox DVDs when it's near the foot of your bed. The unit does take up a lot of space though, and it's heavy. 24-25 inches is kind of an awkward size for a TV--too big for a bedroom but too small for a living room. I thought it'd be convenient to have the DVD and VCR combined with the TV, especially only having one remote. Unfortunately while the TV picture quality's pretty good, the built-in VCR and DVD aren't up to par with units I could have bought separately.

The way you get the VCR to record, or stop recording, isn't completely intuitive to me, and the programming options are minimal. It doesn't rewind tapes too fast either. The good thing is, you can record a TV program while watching a DVD. The DVD player, however, is even worse--it takes forever to load a disc, move between chapters, etc. and it's very finicky about disc condition, sometimes refusing to load/play ones at all when my Pioneer unit in the living room doesn't even flinch.

Although it does have the desirable side-mounted speakers, there's only one on each side and they're a paltry 1.5 watts each, hardly adequate for DVD soundtracks or playing music CDs. But, at least is has digital audio output if you want to use an external amp and speakers.

The remote glows nicely if you've left it in direct light, doesn't have awkward buttons at the very bottom, and you can use many of the buttons by feel, however, a lot of them are same-sized and in a perfect grid pattern, and while the button glows the labels do not, so in the dark they really all look the same. The on-screen menus aren't the best I've seen either.

Overall though, I'm pretty happy with this product except for the slow and finicky DVD player. The flat screen does provide a good picture, and the speakers aren't too bad for low-volume listening. It's certainly nice to only have one remote for three devices, and which can actually control all the features.