I'm new to the Region-Free world but I stumbled across this review at DVD Beaver: http://207.136.67.23/film/DVDReview2/malata.htm and the unit seems pretty great, for its size and price. I did a search on the forum and couldn't find anything about it. Does anyone own this or have any opinions on the unit?

I have a Malata 520 and love it. This one, for the price looks great. But, Malata makes lots of electronics and sells them under other names and to others who rebadge them - some Sony are Malata inside. I saw a small DVD player at a Best Buy recently for about $30 that looks a lot like the same system - but, might not be. I don't think you would go wrong with this one. Region-free opens up a lot and Malata knows how to do this.

It's a pretty good unit but some of the cheaper Malata's are really hit and miss. I had three 500s before giving up, each with their share of problems. i finally got a 558 and it is fantastic. The difference in the construction between the two models is obvious. The 558 is just a more solid, professional machine. I got mine in chinatown (toronto) for C$140 (about us$105). They also sell the 393A there for C$80, tax included. If you can afford the 558, 580 or 520, I recommend them over the sub $100 models.

But those are much larger units, correct?

I saw HKFlix is selling this DVD player for pretty cheap (by HKFlix standards anyway). It looks pretty cool, and they claim it will convert PAL...
They did a review of it at DVDBeaver, and they seemed to like it... but has anyone else tried it, or heard anything about it?