The other brands besides Delonghi tend to be quite noisy buggers, we have A Delonghi and it works like champ! DVD players however I am really not too sure of, perhaps one of the bigger names like Sony/LG would be better than California :-)

Steve (& other NHs),
Any idea on where the best place to buy a Delonghi would be, and about how much it should set me back?
I'm also about to leave the country for a few weeks - do you know if some kind of duty-free fillip is still in existence, and what the deal is with that?

After an exhausting search of what seemed like every dvd player in Hanoi, cheap and not, I finally found the Toshiba SD-690KA which plays everything from any region and was super cheap to boot. Media Mart on Hai Ba Trung. Short of that, I suggest picking up model dvd players and checking them yourself because most salespeople had no idea what I was talking about.

I can remember that someone informed about the shops selling DeLonghi dehummies, but I cannot find this answer.
Where can I find them? Tx!

We just bought some Delonghi units at the appliance store on the second floor of Syrena Tower.

I can't remember what they paid.

Here is the address.

51 Xuan Dieu
Syrena Tower,
Tây Hồ,
Hanoi

We still have 2 dehumidifiers for sale. They're really excellent, very quiet and have large capacity. We ran the 2 in the worst conditions in 2007 and they kept our very large house in Tay Ho very dry. They cost us about $250 each but we're selling them for $150 each. We only used them for a couple of weeks in 2007 and didn't need them this year (we're in a different house). Send email to rickfro@gmail.com if you're interested.

I bought my Delonghi dehumidifier from the duty-free Hapro store on Giang Vo: don't know if you can purchase there without having entered the country within the last five days though.

For DVD players, take a look at Carings (4th floor, Vincom Towers) or Nguyen Kim (the big electronic supermarket at Trang Thi street). Or you can find quite a few electronic stores along Hai Ba Trung street.
For 700~1000k, I guess you can have a player that should play all kinds of DVD. Just ask the shopkeeper for recommendation. Even the Chinese brand will do just fine.