I like to think of myself as a 3rd generation nightmarish consumer to brick and mortar store. In my classification, the 1st gen are the ones that actually do research on consumer products before purchases. Back then, it would be magazines, newspaper, etc. Consumer Reports came into existenece and flourish in this era. The 2nd gen does the same thing except for 2 differences: 1) the medium is the web which means information distribution is lightning fast, adn 2) the source material include regular consumers’ reviews. The 3rd gen is now just starting to become wide-spread. These are people like me who bring their smart phone and do research in the store, matching exact models, price compare, etc. Yes, we are nightmares to brick and mortar stores who have always relied on a certain level of consumer ignorance. Well, no more.
Anyway, a couple nights ago my cheapy Toshiba DVD player went kaput, almost ate (as in chewed, digested, and excremented) the Netflix disc in the process. I saved the disc but I don’t stick anything else in that box again. So the question becomes: To Blu-ray or not to Blu-ray.
We went to Costco to pick up some fruits and vegetables… well, it was more like we rather spend a couple of hours in AC… and there are the Blu-ray players. There were on 3 or 4 choices. So wifey and lil girl went on while I stood at the electronics section and do my research. The Samsung BD-P1590 came out decent, not top of the line but not expensive either. So I gave it a go.
Connected everything, turned it on. The first thing it does is wanting to upgrade the firmware… oookay… I could have sworn I bought a Blu-ray player, not a computer. It took a while but I was impressed that the default network settings picked up enough to gain access to the web, grab the firmware update, and installed it.
The setup was fairly straight forward, language, date, time, timezone, all sorts of preferences. Well… straight forward is actually relative… It is straight forward for people in tune with technology. For those that had a tough time with the binking 12:00 on the VCR, this is probably several magnitude harder… not easier.
Now… all I need is some Blu-ray disc to really test it out…
Filed under: Consumer Electronics | Tagged: Blu-ray, HDTV, Samsung BD-P1590
