One of the great mysteries that confronts modern man is his inability to program a VCR, so you would have thought that it was incumbent on manufacturers to make programming a DVD recorder simpler. Unfortunately nobody told the author of the Philips DVDR890 instruction manual. It omits a vital step from the general instructions for programming the device to record a show in advance - it took three attempts to get the feature to work, and only after stumbling across the missing instructions in the section for using G-codes (though I wasn't planning to use G-codes).

Earlier I had been frustrated by the absence of provided AV cabling, needed to connect the 890 to the TV (funnily enough, Philips' magnificent new 92cm Matchline Pixel Plus, launched at the same time as the recorder).

The recorder automatically tuned itself into the available TV channels without any problems and it was easy enough to change the channel numbers to suit those the TV set operated off. It should be noted that this review was conducted in a regional area where at least four channels had good to excellent reception under normal conditions.

The 890 offers a range of options, one of which  is extra long play, which supposedly gives you up to six hours recording time on a single DVD, however, you would need perfect reception - and probably a booster for regional users - to get anywhere near acceptable quality. Even on the second highest setting, which gives two hours on a 4.5GB disc, the video was only average.

The 890 records in DVD+R and DVD+RW, making it backward compatible with most of the other numerous DVD formats, however, as no single format has yet been adopted as a uniform standard, there is still an element of risk in buying any DVD recorder.
In the end, the price tag of $1,999 doesn't justify the average recording functionality.