Panasonic PV-V4523S VHS VCR

Pros: Relatively simple to operate, versatile, and so far reliable
Cons: Setting the clock automatically

Panasonic PV-V4523S VHS VCR I bought this VCR one year ago exactly, in February 2004. At the time, my old, faithful Toshiba VCR, bought in 1984, had bitten the dust (it's been repaired since for more money than my new Panasonic cost, but I had ...

Pros: Works well playing and recording with smooth tape operation. Intelligent messages and menus.
Cons: Confusing set up and cheap documentation. Minor faults only.

I needed a second machine. My other machine recently purchased, a Toshiba W625CF, is not usable after a couple of months (playback is extremely jittery - needs to be repaired). I would not buy another Toshiba for this fault and other bad design decisions.

The Panasonic has worked well so far, and the menus are not crystal clear, but way more intelligent than the Toshiba.

The tape operation and control for this machine seems to be very smooth. Index searching works well, as does the search-until-counter-at-zero search (which also appears to broken or not implemented well on the Toshiba).

Setup was not trivial and I found those menus confusing. However there isn't much to do there and it is a one-time (or infrequent) operation. The "manual" is simply a couple of big loose sheets which is a bit disappointing but the information is there.

Not much else to say. The VCR is on the way out it appears, but this model seems acceptable and competitively priced.

The Toshiba W625CF was $10 more but even without the jittery playback would not stack up as well as the Panasonic.