Samsung's slim BD-P4600 Blu-ray player gets reviewed
By Donald Melanson 
posted May 5th 2009 6:06PM
posted May 5th 2009 6:06PM
Samsung's new BD-P4600 Blu-ray player certainly impresses on first glance and, according to the folks at CNET, it has quite a bit more going for it than just good looks, even if it's not entirely without its share of faults. On the upside, the player and its HQV like image processing can apparently hold its own when it comes to the all-important question of image quality, and it packs no shortage of non-Blu-ray features as well, including Netflix and Pandora support, a bundled WiFi USB dongle, 1GB of on-board memory, and support for media streaming off a connected PC. Unfortunately, that protruding USB dongle does cramp the style of the player somewhat and, while the PC streaming is certainly welcome, it can apparently be a bit of a chore to get set up properly. Of course, there's also the small matter of the $500 price tag, although CNET says Samsung's cheaper BD-P3600 model should provide an adequate, if slightly less slim substitute for those looking for some more bang for the buck.
Is it just me or is it that blu-ray player prices aren't drastically dropping due to the inclusion of features that most "BLU-RAY" owners wouldn't really care about.
I mean we have seen how useless BD-Live is and how no one uses it, and so packing in wifi dongles for it is pointless because hardly anyone will use it. Then there is netflix and pandora support. Ok, I live in Canada and we dont have those so I can't comment too much but why would you want a blu-ray player if all you did is stream movies off the net. Then there are the media streaming capabilities etc...
I know most here will low rank this and say it's nice to have additional features etc...
But my response is, to those who just want to watch blu-ray movies in HD, why not make a player that only does that and have the price reflect it. Guaranteed you'll have tons of sales.
And going down in models doesn't help because they have these semi-useless features in them too and last I checked the bdp-1600 is going for close to 300 in canada.
Its the same thing with the new televisions... They are focusing less on making the picture quality amazing and adding crap like yahoo widgets, rss streams etc...
Exactly, with $200 2.0 players here and there, there is no reason why we shouldn't have the option for a $100 1.0 player for those who could care less about special features.
dam i would actually consider it for the streaming ability's if it wasn't so farkin expensive can build a lowend htpc for streaming with bd drive for that much
manufactures should stop luring the Early Adopters with these crap looks and features and focus on lowering the price instead. Oh wait, without the EA there would not be eny extra money collected to lower the price of these warez. LOL!