Shipping: Now

Since the introduction of the DVD format into the market place three years ago, the price tag for DVD players has dropped from more than $1,500 to levels that even non-video/audiophiles can now afford.

Today, we are looking at one of the newest DVD players available, the entry-level KD1800U from Chinese manufacturer "Konka".

Konka, which rhymes with "Tonka", has been manufacturing hundreds of consumer electronics products in five production plants across mainland China for 20 years. Currently, Konka offers over 450 different products, in fifteen electronic categories, with their highest sales volumes generated by their annual production of millions of television sets.

An industry friend described Konka to us as "The Sony of China" and after researching the company for this review, we'd have to agree, but with one slight modification: we would call Konka "The Sony of China, but with Samsung's prices."

Konka offers incredible prices on their products, even at the high end. Value for the dollar is what the company is all about.

As an example, at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas we were shocked to see multiple Konka HDTV 34" direct view televisions in their booth (numbered ominously as "666" in the show guide) which offered integrated HDTV decoders for a total cost of $4,100.

By comparison, Sony's nearly identical quality 34" HDTV with decoder costs approximately $5,500.

Thankfully Konka opened up a branch office in the United States last year, KonkaUSA, and the onslaught of new product introductions from the company has begun. (For the curious, Konka told us they'll be shipping that 34" HDTV, the HD3498U, to North America sometime in the summertime, or slightly thereafter).

Part of KonkaUSA's stable of initial products for the North American market, in addition to standard televisions, are DVD players.

Two models have been announced, today's KD1800U and the upcoming HD1900U, which will begin shipping next month. Later in the year the HD2100U player will round out the line for 2000.

We'll go into the details of each player in a moment, for now lets introduce readers to one of the best low-cost DVD players we've seen yet.