Customer Reviews

Excellent Player, Better Price
The purpose of this review is to provide much needed information concerning this player. Prior to buying, I scoured the internet and could only find a few pieces of information here and there, so I thought it would be helpful to outline some of the player's features.

Technical Specifications:

- Profile 1.1 (BD BonusView Enabled)
- Front access USB port for convenient firmware updates
- Full HD output
- 7.1 channels of surround sound with Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby True HD, and dts-HD Master Audio technologies
- Digital coaxial output
- Express reaction startup

Does not include:

- An ethernet port or internal wireless device to access BD Live features

This is an excellent entry-level blu-ray player. The colors are vibrant and the picture is crisp connected to my Samsung LCD television via the HDMI port. Disc loading times are miniscule, with the player initiating playback in less than one minute. I have tested both recent and older blu-ray titles (Watchmen, The Prestige, Death Race) and have experienced no problems loading the disc or enjoying the non-BD Live special features. The unit itself is very sleek and slender and weighs less than five pounds. Additionally, the player is silent during use.

I highly recommend this player to anyone interested in owning a great blu-ray player at the low-end of the price spectrum. Although the player is not BD Live compliant, LG still deserves to be commended for releasing an affordable alternative to the price-conscious consumer.

[...]

great blu ray player for the money
I believe I am the first to review this product. At first, I was a little hesitant to buy, because I have not heard any comments from other buyers. Currently, I am a very satisfied customer. Blu-ray playback and regular DVD playback are excellent, fantastic picture quality and amazing sound. It has all of the Dolby TrueHD and DTS MA HD audio decoders. For those with older AV receivers like mine, it comes with a digital coaxial jack instead of the newer optical. The best feature of this player is that I have encountered zero skipping or other playback issues. I had originally bought a Samsung BDP1500, and it was absolute crap, could not play half of the blu ray discs and had multiple menu navigation issues and functionality issues. This LG has none, and I am quite suprised that this entry level model is EXcellent. I highly encourage others to buy. The only gripe I have is that the price is now $20 lower than when i had purchased.

Errors and Omissions
I am rushing to put up this review before fully evaluating the unit, because issues with the specs given at the LG site as well as at least one error in the user manual need to be discussed. I will probably add more later after a full evaluation.

First, if you have read LG's specs, you will believe that there is a component video output as well as an optical audio output. Neither of these exists. There is HDMI, composite video, stereo audio, and a coaxial connection for digital audio.

The only cable supplied is for composite video, useless for HD, not even very good for SD. Thus, until the HDMI cable I ordered to use with it arrives, I won't be able to comment on video quality. Others say it is very good.

The unit does fine with DVDs and is an excellent music player. The screen display when a disc of mp3s is inserted is much like that of a portable music player, with pretty icons that scroll across the screen.

The remote control has a few functions that work with a TV. In the manual it says to hold the TV power button and punch in a single digit corresponding to your TV brand. What you do in reality is input the full remote code for your TV while holding the red button. That works fine.

With these omissions and errors, do we really know what we are getting here? Are some of the really important specifications inaccurate? Was this product rushed to market too quickly, perhaps with engineering problems unsolved?

The unit is attractive looking, and I like what I have experienced with it so far. The price seems excellent for what you get, even if that's less than LG says it is. I would advise caution in purchasing it, though, because of the issues I have outlined. I will update this review later after a lot of use and evaluation.

Update 1: As of today (9/27/09) it appears that LG's spec sheet has been corrected. It still states that a component video cable is supplied. Wouldn't be much use with no component output. I have had a chance to do more testing with mine and am feeling confident this is a good product.