The 7 Best Portable DVD and Blu-Ray Players of 2019

Released in late 2016, NaviSkauto’s 4.3 pound, 12.5-inch portable DVD/CD player is an outstanding choice for road trips or even watching from the comfort of your own couch. The 12.5-inch display offers a screen resolution of 1366 x 768 and even swivels 270 degrees, so you can find the best angle for viewing. It rivals a 13-inch laptop, which makes lengthy viewing sessions more than manageable.

Fortunately, the inclusion of a powerful battery allows up to five hours of run time, so you’ll find enough juice for around two DVDs before needing to re-charge. Additionally, the NaviSkauto includes “last memory,” which offers error correction while playing and picks up where you left off with every new power up. Add in a USB/SD/MMC card reader for additional video formats and this portable DVD player is ready for the road.

Leave the iPad and the Internet-connected world at home with the 3.3-pound SYNAGY A10 portable DVD and CD player. Featuring a 10.1-inch TFT 1024 x 600 resolution display that swivels a full 270 degrees, this unit provides plenty of reason to skip out on tablet life and solely focus on your newest DVD pickup. The SYNAGY includes support for all types of DVDs and CDs, as well as JPEG images for viewing pictures on-the-go.

With 2.5-3 hours of battery life, there’s only enough room to watch one DVD before requiring a re-charge, but you can maximize battery life by lowering the sound of the speaker. Fortunately, you can re-charge the unit while on-the-go in a vehicle through an included car charger to avoid the battery life limitations altogether. Additionally, there’s an added USB port and SD card, as well as a remote control to round out the feature set.

With a large 14.1-inch display, the DR.J Professional Portable DVD Player offers a great combination of size and portability. The slightly-less-than-HD screen might not compare well against today’s best smartphone resolution, but it’s more than good (and large) enough for viewing multiple movies in a single session.

It takes a little adjusting out of the box to get the screen colors optimized, but if you want a big display that's still suited to a car headrest mount, the DR. J Professional may be the portable DVD player for you. The 270-degree swivel and 180-degree flipping allow for easy positioning no matter where you're traveling with it. Plus it only weighs about two pounds, which makes it exceptionally light and easy to pack despite its size.

For portable entertainment on a budget, a player with Blu-Ray support likely won’t be worth the significant extra cost. But a DVD player can still offer plenty of features and a quality viewing experience, which is what you’ll get with this Sunpin device. Its 9.5-inch TFT LCD screen delivers solid picture quality with enhanced brightness. You'll get decent audio from the built-in speakers, but as a bonus, dual earphone jacks let two people listen from separate sets of headphones at the same time.

Aside from playing most standard CD/DVD formats, the Sunpin player also supports a variety of digital media files from a USB drive or SD card. Included in the package is an A/V cable for sending the display to a TV, a headrest mounting case for watching in the backseat of a car, and a car charger for powering it up on the road. It weighs less than three pounds and can last up to five hours before needing to be recharged, so it makes a great travel companion. The player is available in black, blue, red, and purple color options.

Movies are a great way to keep kids busy on long trips, and UEME offers a DVD player designed to do exactly that. It comes in two styles: blue with a racecar design or pink with a princess-and-unicorn design. The models are otherwise identical, with a nine-inch 800 x 480-pixel LCD display that can swivel 180 degrees. It plays essentially any DVD and CD format, as well as most digital video and audio files through a USB port and SD card slot that supports up to 32GB.

At home, you can power or charge it with the power cord and connect it to a TV with the included A/V cable. Some other DVD players geared toward kids come with bonus accessories like game controllers and headphones, but UEME’s device includes extras that make it perfect for travel — it comes with a canvas case to easily and securely mount the device to the back of a car headrest, along with a car adapter to keep it charged and a remote to control playback. When not plugged in, the battery can provide you with about four hours of entertainment for the kids. 

There’s little question a 15.6-inch portable DVD player will have you doing a double-take, but Sylvania knocks it out of the park with this laptop-sized screen. Featuring 270 degrees of rotation, the 15.6-inch display offers plenty of screen space to enjoy the latest DVD releases in a package that’s just 5.1 pounds. While it has just 2.5 hours of battery life, the built-in card reader allows the addition of MP4 and DIVX formatted movies to go beyond the DVD space.

If you want to get comfortable, fold the Sylvania flat and watch it in any position that feels best. There’s an additional remote control for controlling the player from a distance, as well as a car-powered AC adapter included for all the power you need while on a road trip. Additionally, the built-in dual full-range stereo speakers offer crisp and clear sound. With a large display and anti-shock playback to help avoid skips, this portable DVD player is hard to pass up.