By Carl Laron on November 14, 2011 in
They're here. We've been waiting for Blu-ray players to crack the $50 barrier for a while now, and the first round of Black Friday circulars reveals that the wait is over. We know of at least two offers, and there's the possibility of more once all is said and done. While you can still save a tiny bit by opting for a DVD player, at this price point, a Blu-ray player makes far more sense for anyone with an HDTV, or that thinks they might get an HDTV in the next year or two. Don't forget, in addition to delivering pristine (or at least near-pristine) video quality with high-def Blu-ray discs, Blu-ray players are completely compatible with DVDs, and usually do as good a job -- or better -- than most DVD players when it comes to taking those discs and scaling their standard-def images for display on an HDTV. But are these bargain Black Friday Blu-ray players really a bargain? Let's find out
Picking the best cheap Blu-ray player deal
Thus far, two sub-$50 Blu-ray players have appeared in the Black Friday circulars. Walmart is offering the LG BD610 at $49, while Best Buy has placed the Toshiba BDX2150 on sale for $39.99. Of the two, we find the Toshiba disc spinner to be the better buy, and the price is not the only reason why. The LG BD610 looks to be a promotional player, perhaps introduced specifically for the holidays. It's not officially acknowledged on the LG web site, though you can find its users' manual. Glancing through that, we see that the feature lineup is bare-bones to the extreme. Most glaring is that there is no Internet connectivity at all. That means no streaming content of course, but also no support for BD-Live features that are part of many discs. However, movies on all discs should play back perfectly well, and other LG Blu-ray players, such as the company's budget-oriented BD630, which is profiled in our report on Blu-ray players, score well for video quality with both Blu-ray Discs and DVDs.
The Toshiba BDX2150 doesn't have an extensive track record, but is a little more of a known quantity, and is certainly better equipped in the features department. Unlike the LG player, there is full support for BD-Live, and some access to Internet content, including Netflix, Vudu, Blockbuster on Demand, CinemaNow, YouTube, Pandora and Picasa. There's an Ethernet port for hooking your player to your home's network. However, while Wi-Fi support is built-in, you'll need to budget more than the cost of the player (*Est. $50) for an adapter if you need to connect wirelessly. User reports are generally -- though not universally -- solid. Happy owners reporting in at Amazon.com and BestBuy.com praise performance and ease of use. Grousing comes in the form of complaints about the cost of the Wi-Fi , well as the fact that the player won't remember where you are in a disc if you stop playback and come back to it later. Still, feedback is good enough at the normal selling price of $75 to say that at a penny under $40, Best Buy's Black Friday offer of the Toshiba BDX2150 is pretty good deal. Be quick, though; only 20 per store and we'd expect these to fly.