This is my second Blu-Ray disc player. I have been using another one by LG for about a year and a half, and the two are comparable when it comes to basic functionality – playing Blu-Rays and DVDs, having decent picture and audio quality, and solid basic connectivity. However, when it comes to the more advanced features (streaming videos, connection external memory storage), the advantage is clearly with the LG player. Here are some of my observations.

**** Setup ****

Setup was fairly straightforward. The invention of HDMI cables is probably one of the greatest developments in the world of personal home entertainment – one simple solid cable replaces a warren of unwieldy components. The player is light and it fits in most spaces designated for DVD players and similar devices. It is definitely much larger than the simplest small DVD player, so if you need something simple that just plays good old DVDs, you might consider getting one of those smaller units.

**** Bootup ****

Bootup time was OK, probably a slight improvement over my other Blu-Ray player. Nothing spectacular though – definitely not an “ultra-fast” booting. This is not such a big deal for me, but if this is one of the reasons why you are considering this player you might want to think twice before buying it.

**** Video/Audio Playback ****

I haven’t tested this player with the highest level TV or audio equipment, so I can’t really say much about its full capabilities. However, for the general movie-playing purposes it is very good. I’ve had a few issues with the player freezing while playing a particular Blu-Ray disc, but other than that it has worked just fine.

**** Software ****

The menus are not very intuitively laid out. It seems that they tried to make them into four-directional “arrow” configuration to supposedly make them easier to access using the remote’s keypad, but for me this didn’t really work out all that well. I often found myself looking around too much for some very basic setting or option.

**** Network/other features ****

Networking has been the single most frustrating “feature” of this player. The player has Wi-Fi connectivity, but for the longest time I could not get it to stream ANY content, even though it was able to connect to my local network. I have only occasionally been able to use the built-in Netflix feature. The player also has a feature that lets you stream media content from your home computer, but this was so cumbersome to set up that I pretty much gave up on it. There is also an option to play media directly from a USB device, but this only worked with flash drives and not external HD drives. On top of that, I couldn’t play many different media types, including Apple’s .mov format. This made it almost completely useless for me – this is exactly the format in which I shoot most of my personal movies.

**** Conclusion ****

If you are looking for some basic no-frills Blu-Ray player, and don’t intend to use high-end TVs and sound systems, then this player would work for you. However, for anything beyond this basic functionality the player is almost useless.