Top Blu-ray Player Deals for 2009: A Blu-ray Buyer's Guide

[MrBoylan]

As the holiday shopping season winds up, we offer our recommendations for the best deals on the best Blu-ray players for 2009.

More...

[bboplive]

Which of these players do you recommend for someone who is looking for great Blu-ray performance, plus great upscaling for standard DVD's?

I was looking at the LG BD390 but it appears this is hard to find due to it being discontinued, plus the price has been ramped up, probably due to the scarcity as well. 2nd choice may be the PlayStation 3 (PS3) Slim for $299, but I am not a gamer. It would also be nice to have the Netflix feature, so I would not have to add the Roku box.

[MrBoylan]

Which of these players do you recommend for someone who is looking for great Blu-ray performance, plus great upscaling for standard DVD's?

I was looking at the LG BD390 but it appears this is hard to find due to it being discontinued, plus the price has been ramped up, probably due to the scarcity as well. 2nd choice may be the PlayStation 3 (PS3) Slim for $299, but I am not a gamer. It would also be nice to have the Netflix feature, so I would not have to add the Roku box.

Now is a tricky time to buy. The Panasonic BD80 and LG BD390 are both excellent choices but are pretty hard to find as they sold out existing stock around Black Friday/Cyber Monday and new models will be announced at CES to replace them. I suspect the Panasonic replacement player will be 3D-enabled but no word yet on whether they might add Netflix streaming to VIERACast.

Our review sample of the Samsung BD-P3600 was a strong performer, having everything you are looking for but there have been a higher than average number of negative posts on forums and user reviews about reliability. If you get a good one, I'd say you'd be in good shape.

If you're not into gaming, then the PS3 is a bit of a hard sell. It's more expensive than most full featured standalone Blu-ray players and lacks IR control which makes it difficult to integrate into a home theater system. You can buy a Bluetooth Blu-ray remote for the PS3, but that will cost an additional $20 and doesn't allow you to integrate this with an IR-based learning or integrated remote. Logitech makes a PS3 Bluetooth/IR adapter that allows you to control all PS3 Blu-ray-related functions from a Harmony remote but this module alone costs about $60.

You might want to hang tight until early Spring when the new models should most likely start rolling out. I've seen LG's new stuff (under NDA) and it looks pretty cool. Also, if 3-D seems interesting to you, then you won't have too long to wait for 3D-enabled Blu-ray models that will support the new Blu-ray 3-D specifications. I don't believe that current players can be upgraded to support 3-D, with the possible exception of the PS3 which may have the processing horsepower to support the dual concurrent video streams required for 3-D.

[bboplive]

Thanks, very informative. I guess if you did not want to wait for Spring you could just fork over $500 for the Oppo BDP-83 and then get a Roku box ($125) for the Internet streaming stuff. I think there is an option to add a ASUS wireless bridge for $70, again adding to the already high price ($700 total).

[MrBoylan]

Thanks, very informative. I guess if you did not want to wait for Spring you could just fork over $500 for the Oppo BDP-83 and then get a Roku box ($125) for the Internet streaming stuff. I think there is an option to add a ASUS wireless bridge for $70, again adding to the already high price ($700 total).

The OPPO is an excellent player, but when you said you wanted Netflix w/o Roku, I didn't bother recommending it. If the ASUS bridge is wireless N then go for it. It's only money.

You'll have to throw them all away next year anyway for AVATAR IN BLU-RAY 3D (apparently with a restored Alien sex scene)!

-Chris

[darkhelmet13]

just found out about this site through a review of a blu ray player on amazon. i was wondering about the price of the 3d enabled blu ray devices. thanks in advance

[MrBoylan]

just found out about this site through a review of a blu ray player on amazon. i was wondering about the price of the 3d enabled blu ray devices. thanks in advance

The least expensive Blu-ray 3D Disc player we've seen so far is Sony's BDP-S470 which will sell for around $200:

Sony unveils details on 3D-enabled Blu-ray Players

Pre-order links for BDP-S470:

• BDP-S470 on Amazon.com
• BDP-S470 at Sonystyle.com

Haven't seen pricing announcements yet from Samsung or Panasonic on their Blu-ray 3D players.

-CB