New Blu-ray Player Is Rock Soup

The Samsung BD-P1600 seems to have it act together.  For an almost entry level Blu-ray player, it sports a name brand disc player, BD-Live functionality, and also can stream video from a NetFlix account.  All in all, I'd think that it would be capable of everything that you would expect a new Blu-ray set top box to do these days, and the $300 price tag is not too far off the mark for the fuller feature set offered.

However, when delved into a little deeper, not all is so well done.  The BD-Live function needs "an additional 1 gig of storage."  Huh?  Where is that coming from?  A flash drive maybe?  Couldn't they just put the memory into the device already?

If that wasn't enough, it also is wireless capable, but needs another Samsung adapter to enable this.  Personally, I'd just rather have an Ethernet port, and let me choose if I hook it up via Powerline, or a wireless bridge adapter.  The mere thought of being locked into a propietary network solution sends a shiver down my spine.

At any rate, the player is showing up in Best Buys.  Just be aware that it needs some more dough to make it fully featured.

Comments

[Alan]

Regretfully, I bought one of these last weekend. The wireless ethernet requires a special antenna available, but neither the store nor Samsung knew anything about that. In fact, Samsung's help line didn't have any docs for the model at either Level 1 or 2 support - I had to read the antenna model to them - and couldn't find the antenna anywhere in their system. (The only hits I got on google turned out to be for an XLS spreadsheet and a French electronics store.)

Buy the 1600 at your own risk. Who knows how much the antenna will cost and when it will actually arrive.

Samsung really botched this.

P.S. The Best Buy salesperson talked me out of the BD-P2550, saying the 1600 was "just like it, but wireless".

[Mr. Stone]

Well I just bought one of these and sorry but it's great. First off, it lists for $50 cheaper then the P2550 and with price matching, I got it for $75 cheaper. Add that to the fact that the 2550 doesn't have wireless either nor the option for it and who cares about the cost of the dongle - It's gonna cost you anyways. HOWEVER, who the !?@$ is gonna put wireless on a video player? Anyone serious is gonna hardwire this thing.

So that being said, It's smaller and Netflix and Pandora are great. I'm streaming HD content off Netflix which is also great.

As for the 1gig more memory for BD-Live - Hmm... yea... Those memory sticks are really expensive... about $5 for a 2gig one these days - so yea - I guess they could of just built it in but the option to pop it on and off may have something to do with psychos who plan on downloading oogles of content and maybe they want to categorize... hmmm..

Now all in all, this is my first BR player mainly because the cost is just silly. I know, I know, this player or it's next version that will pwn this will probably be $49 at Wal-Mart but hey, what can you do - It's still great to be able to watch ANYTHING Netflix has to offer instantly which with a 2 year old wanting to watch something interesting, it's nice to have an arsenal waiting at your fingertips.

I'd say go for it - Worth it now that you can price match it for $249 now!