And so it begins. With the day after Thanksgiving in the USA (more affectionately known as
Black Friday) closing in, we're starting to see the earliest slippage of deals from big box retailers. Up first this year is Sears, which has let loose a laundry list of discounts that will be available for a limited time on November 28th. When peering at the items we care about, the most notable inclusion is a Sony Blu-ray player for $179.99; granted, we've seen the
BDP-S300 for under $200 already, but the link takes us to Sony's fresher, better
BDP-S350. Hard to say how legitimate that is, but at any rate, those looking for BD and audio can find Samsung's HT-BD2E Blu-ray home theater system for $599.99, and folks just now looking to dive into DVD will find a Memorex DVD player for $14.99. Check the read link for the full rundown, and get prepared for an onslaught of lists just like this from elsewhere as B-Day draws closer.
[Via
I4U News]
posted Oct 27th 2008 11:35AM
under 15 was the magic price point for me! DVD here i come!
that's still too expensive. I'm waiting for $9.99. until then, VHS for me.
lol
That's about what I paid last holiday season for my HD-DVD player (also at Sears actually, a place that I really never go, but it was a good deal), so I expect that this is probably a good price point for most people.
christ, is that time of year already?
Not a fan of br myself but at that price they will definitely sell a truck load. Interesting to see how the software sales are impacted as well.
What's the difference between the 350 and the 550? Anyone?
The S550 has multichannel analog out (via 7.1 rca ports) on the back of the player. As the S350 only has analog stereo out. If you have an HDMI 1.1 receiver or prepro, the S350 will do. Also, the S350 didn't ship with profile 2.0 (available through firmware update) I think the S550 shipps with profile 2.0
To add to what TonyD said, the 350 doesn't have 1gb of onboard memory so it's profile 1.1 out of the box. However, if you plug in a 1gb or larger flash drive (can be had for almost nothing these days) in the USB port on the back it will bring it to profile 2.0.
If you have an HDMI receiver or plan on getting one in the near future save your money and get the 350. Otherwise the 550 is ideal since you can get high def audio on an old receiver using the analog outputs.
Okay, so, if you don't care about analog audio outs, then, as far as performance is concerned, there's really not much other difference between the S350 & S550?
The analog outs justifies the price difference? What about performance? Loading times?
deja vu, so does this mean Blu Ray will be calling it quits in January?
Profile 1.0 isn't going to tempt me to buy a standalone player (or recommend it to anyone else), let alone stand in line, but hopefully it'll put price pressure on the real players.
It's profile 2.0 upgradable. 1.1 out of the box.
Oh, I thought it was the 300. Good deal, then.
Wake me when the Sony 350 is $100.
I got the Samsung 1500 (also 1.1 but add the 1gig usb drive and download the 2.0 firmware to have bd live) for $150 couple weeks ago and some had a 10% coupon making it $135 so this is no big woop.