I've started to spend alot of nights away from work on business and need some form of media player to keep me sane. Most of the hotels only have channels 1-5 and a real bonus if they have freeview. At home I have 1TB of movies/tv shows that I would like to watch. Below are my thoughts on the choices and I'd welcome your opinion on the best. My budget is £200, although I could stretch a little

1) Portable DVD player (don't really want to cart a load of DVD'd around, plus the time to convert)

2) Portable DVD/Divx player (Could put a few films on DVD and would take alot less time to put on disc)

3) Netbook, but would this be powerful enough to play movies? (could use internet in hotel, asuming they have wireless. I can network the netbook to my home network and transfer media)

4) Small standalone DVD/Divx player that I could connect to the hotel's tv via Scart (Again, I could put a few movies on a single DVD)

I have a work laptop but this is locked to prevent using the internet and I cant download any codecs to play film on it.

Thanks in advance

Netbook would get my vote. I've got a little 1.2ghz dual core and that runs everything I've run at it fine, except for 1080p youtube, then it struggles/stutters. Can also use it for browsing as you said, and I can get some very, very basic games running on it (like the indy pack from Steam).

Could you not USB the codecs to the other laptop?

I'm not an administrator and can't do anything with the laptop. Got some sensitive material on it and work would not be happy if I was trying to bypass security.

Most hotels seem to disable the connections on the TV, so i wouldn't gamble on that option myself.

What about an iPad?

£249 + vat at Makro on Special, as iPad 2 is due soon... loads of movie options, use of WiFi in hotels etc..

Al.

What about an iPad?

£249 + vat at Makro on Special, as iPad 2 is due soon... loads of movie options, use of WiFi in hotels etc..

Al.

£300 is too much to stretch. A £200 netbook seems to be top of the list

Netbooks are a bit hit n miss...

I have a Aspire One (n270) which i use for the same things as you.. but its getting a bit long in the tooth these days, struggles with decent quality flash, and also 720p MKV files

If you are going to get a netbook, i would make sure its got at least an atom 4xx cpu and preferably nvidia ION chipset, as this can hardware decode.

Ive been looking at various tablets to replace the Aspire.. i had hight hopes for the crop of Tegra2 tablets running android.. but turns out they are a bit gimped when it comes to decoding video... so itll prob be an ipad

Probably get a netbook today from currys. Got a package bell n450 for £199 with 250gb hdd. Should do the trick I hope??