Holiday deals in the weeks to come: With the holiday shopping season coming up fast, until the end of the year I am going to try to find and feature products that make great gifts and are a good deal as well, especially with prices trending upwards.

Smart toothbrushes are an extremely popular product category, and starting us off is a full-featured model from Oclean. The Oclean X Lite Sonic Electric Toothbrush features a large screen to show how you brushed and where you missed, high-end bristles from DuPont for a more comfortable and effective clean and a simple USB-C connection for charging. Regularly $69.99, using the code XLITE40 at checkout on oclean.com saves a whopping $40, bringing it down to only $29.99. At under $30 it makes a wonderful gift, a great second toothbrush or an affordable introduction to a new way of brushing.

Q. I have an old Sony DVD player that does everything I want it to do. It has a display on the front that can show total time elapsed, total time remaining, chapter time elapsed, or chapter time remaining. When I put a DVD in the player it just starts playing.

In order to play Blu-ray and 4K discs I have to buy a 4K Blu-ray player. It seems that every 4K player does lots more than play discs. They connect to the internet, play games, stream music, view stored photos and much more, and to that end they present successive screens full of choices to select from. As far as I can tell, none of them has an option to specify a default action so I am forced to click through until I get to the place where my plain old DVD player would be when I just inserted the disc. I have also not found one with a front-panel display.

Is there such a thing as a 4K Blu-ray player without bells and whistles that just plays the disc when loaded? Ideally, I want one exactly like my Sony DVD player but that can play the modern formats.

—D.E., Minneapolis

A. Such a 4K Blu-ray player does not exist. They are inherently complex digital devices that need regular updates as do computers and smartphones, which is a primary reason for the internet connection. We can get you somewhat close to what you want, though.

I usually recommend Panasonic 4K Blu-ray players because they lead the industry in image quality and reliability while costing the same or less as competitors. While they do not start playing the disc automatically, the home screen is simple and logical. All you have to do is click on "Videos" (where the cursor starts) then "Disc" to start playback. So all you have to do is put in the disc and click the remote twice to get where you want to be.

The $549.99 Panasonic DP-UB820 has a front display. That may seem pricey, but you literally can't get better image quality as it has the same video circuitry of Panasonic's state-of-the-art $1,199.99 DP-UB9000 player. This circuitry improves the picture of regular DVDs as well as Blu-ray and 4K Blu-ray discs. For much less, the Panasonic DP-UB150 lacks a display and the high-end video circuitry, but sells for around $180. When you have your player you will certainly appreciate it as the difference in picture quality with a 4K disc is profound, especially on a large-screen 4K TV.

Q. Are there any current discount codes for the ZVOX AV855 soundbars?

—L.R., Hutchinson, Minnesota

A. The AV855 is currently $20 off and the code Z30 at checkout on zvox.com saves another $30.

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