Aiwa XD-AX10S Review

Overall Rating

Support for DVD-/+ R & RW
Disc load speed
MP3 Audio

No random play for MP3's (that I've found anyway)
No S-video out

I recently bought a DVD burner so I could "share home movies with the family...", but soon found that my aged Toshiba DVD couldn't play DVD-R. As the old machine worked perfectly well, I didn't want to waste a lot of money on getting a new one. Imagine my suprise when I saw the Aiwa XD-AX10S for under £60 in Sainsburys. Well I had no choice really.

This machine is ideal so far. It appears to play all formats with no problem (I use a Pioneer 106 burner).

The sound is fine and the picture is as well.

The thing that really suprised me was how quickly discs load. For instance, my daughter has the Bob The Builder Christmas DVD which used to take 20-30 seconds going between menus - this machine seems to go between the menus in under 10 seconds.

The setup on the machine is quite detailed with plenty of menus to keep you busy optimising the configuration.

The only downsides are that I can't find a random feature for MP3 playback (it may be in there, but I've only had the machine 3 days), and there is no s-video out. Not a biggie, but I do like to know the option is there.

For £60 this is the best bargain I've bought in years. Let's hope it lasts 4 years like my old machine.