Customer Reviews: Read 20 more reviews...
 Junk - Stay Away January 1, 2009
I purchased this item in October 2007. The first unit arrived with a dead remote control. That was replaced and the very lightly used unit worked well enough until this month. Now any disk returns a "This disc cannot be played. Please check disc." error. The same error noted by several other reviews.
Beware - Beware: December 30, 2008
I purchased this DVD Recorder on January 15 2008. From the start it was very noisy when turned on. This should have been a clue of what was to come. In about two months it would just not play at all. Then it would and then not and so on. I have read the nightmare repair problems so I let it go. Now it has not worked for five days. I am not sure what I will do now but I am not happy. So DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS ONE.
Buyer Beware December 15, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I purchased this model in December 2007 for $279. I was generally happy with its recording, but about 60 days ago it began to refuse to play any disk--the same problem cited in other reviews. Samsung customer service was slow and troublesome and even their reps suggested I not fax but rather "upload" a copy of my reciept--then claimed they had not received the fax and could not read my .tif file scan. Then the surprise: parts covered for 90 days but labor was $48 in advance. Based on my calls, they know there is something wrong with the disk reader engineering and they should have done a recall. I am surprised they don't get hit with a class action suit. So now I have prepaid the labor and will have to mail in the unit--and a new one is $179! Never again will I buy a Samsung product without (1) checking the warranty and buying a full parts and labor warranty (so they just send me a new one) and (2) checking Amazon reviews which are the best consumer reviews availabe.
It is now a pile of Junk! December 12, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The problems with this Samsung DVD/VCR recorder have been manifold and progressive. It started to really go downhill after I had the unit about 16 months, or 4-months after the warrantee expired. Similar to other dissatisfied owners of this unit who have posted here, I've had similar problems with it recognizing a disc. I'm fed up with the opening door and message I get: "This disc cannot be played. Please check disc." This now occurs when trying to record on a new disc (every disc format its supposed to accept), record on a disc previously burned on this unit (not finalized), play a disc previously recorded and finalized on this unit, or now, even play a prerecorded one I purchased. The error messages sometimes occur so fast I don't have a chance to read them before they disappear.br /br /The details of the progressive nature of this failure, over several months time, are well detailed here by others and I won't repeat them. From day one I was not satisfied with the excessive time it took to load and finalize discs and should have returned it then. My bad. I now have a big pile of ruined discs (I believe they're called coasters).br /br /I called Samsung support tonight and spoke with a representative, detailing what the problems were with the DVD recorder. After she had me reset the unit (press forward and reverse search/skip buttons on the unit at the same time for 5 seconds), to no avail, I was told that I'd had to return the unit to Samsung for a flat rate repair charge of $80.00, more than half the price of a new unit. Actually, I was going to do it until I found out that the repaired unit would only be guaranteed for one month. How's that for confidence in their repair job?br /br /The bottom line is that I'm throwing in the towel rather than spend good money after bad. This Samsung DVD/VCR is going into the dumpster, cutting my losses. I just ordered a Toshiba unit from Amazon that I hope will give better service. I would have originally given this unit, when it worked, only 3 stars because of it's "clunky" behavior but now would give it zero stars if I could. A word to the wise should be sufficient.
Don't Buy! October 25, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
We have had this DVD-VR357 for over a year now, and would not recommend it to anyone. We love being able to record onto DVDs, and wanted to transfer some old VHSs over to DVD. For this, it worked fine. The problems we've had are numerous, and here are a few:br /It's VERY slow. Put your DVD in and wait. and wait. OK, no big deal. But when you record something, when you're finished, it takes several minutes to 'stop' - and I'm not talking finalizing-that's another 5-6 minutes. Guess I was spoiled with our Toshiba, it was at least 3x's faster.br /br /The disc also has to be sparkling clean to play, or "no disc" displayed.br /br /The worst problem was with an entire batch of Sony DVD-RW discs, they would make the machine do all sorts of strange stuff, and then the dvd would'nt play anymore. Anything recorded was lost. We are using Memorex now and it doesn't happen so much, but we don't use RW at all anymore. br /br /We taped a favorite program just this week (NCIS) and when we sat down to view, it was botched. That is what brought me here, to warn anyone thinking of buying this model. One of the reasons we chose this model is the high ratings it had at the time. I notice that others are having problems now, too. br /br /I probably wouldn't even use Samsung again to be safe. We had a Toshiba last time, good chance that'll be our next purchase, which looks like it will be soon! br /br /On a positive note, the VHS works fine, tho we didn't use it much. The FF features worked good, too.
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