Samsung Blu Ray Player; Three models Reviewed, Flagship, Midrange, and Budget players!

You'll find it in one of Samsung's newest players right here.

Update 07/16/10: The Samsung Blu Ray Player BD-C7900 will replace the BD-C6900 soon.

We will be conducting this review when the models are released.

The updated models boast a few extra outputs over the old ones, subscribe to our RSS feed bottom left to get the update when it is available.

Also, the BD-C6800 will replace the BD-C6500 blue ray player model and the BD-C5900 will replace the BD-C5500 models. The differences between these new blue ray models and the old ones are slight but may be important for you.

Home Speaker Review of the Latest Samsung Blu Ray Player and 3D Players:

The Flagship model - the Samsung BD-C6900 blu ray player:

This is the highest quality Samsung Blu Ray Player that I’ve tested. While watching "James Bond - Quantum of Solace" the picture and sound was truly remarkable. (2D)

This player is 3D Blu Ray capable and is Samsung's flagship Blu Ray player.

Load times and boot up times were very, very fast. No waiting for the discs to load while you take a quick nap. Put in the disc and it is ready to go before you get to the couch. Very nice!

The Samsung BD-C6900 also has a nice set of 7.1 channel analog outputs. This capability allows consumers to keep their old A/V receiver that does not have HDMI inputs.

With these analog outputs you can still utilize the latest audio recording techniques such as Dolby TrueHD by outputting the signal through the analog outs. This feature is available on very few blu ray players in this price range. Most manufacturers are getting away from analog outputs on their machines. I think this is a necessary output connection scheme and I’m glad to see it on the Samsung.

The video performance of Samsungs BD-C6900 is beat by the Oppo BDP8300 machine that I used for a reference. But the difference may not be worth the extra $140 that the Oppo BDP 83 demands.

Myself, I would opt for the Oppo BDP8300 mainly because I thought that the 7.1 analog outputs on it were a little bit better for audio quality. And the Oppo had slightly better video quality as I already mentioned.

But honestly, on most HDTV sets you probably would not recognize the difference between the Oppo and the Samsung flagship model. You have to decide if it’s worth paying $500 for the Oppo or $360 for the Samsung Blu-Ray Player BD-C6900. You may be able to find the Samsung for less than that on Amazon at the previous link.

• Internet capable

• 1GB of memory storage

• Network capable

• Decent remote control

Samsung Mid-Range Blu Ray Player model:

The BD-C6500 does have 7.1 channel analog outputs as well which is a nice added feature. This is really nice if you have an older A/V receiver and may not wish to upgrade to an HDMI capable receiver. It also has 1GB of memory storage.

The analog outputs on the Samsung Blu-Ray Player BD-C6500 allow the use of the latest decoding like Dolby TrueHD. These analog outputs are not included on other Blu Ray players in this price class. The video performance was nearly identical to the flagship Blu Ray player BD-C6900 above.

• Internet capable

• 1GB of memory storage

• Network capable

• Decent remote control

The Samsung Budget Blu Ray Player:

The BD-C5500 has no 7.1 channel analog outputs. It has no WIfi either. No onboard memory storage functions as do the other two models.

The BD-C5500 does have DLNA. This makes it easy to share information over a network.

The Blu Ray picture looks really good, in fact nearly identical to the other machines on our test patterns and calibration tests.

Operational speed is pathetically slow. One of the slowest I’ve seen.

Overall, for the price of this budget machine it does perform pretty well.

If you can afford it I would opt for one of the models above but if the budget is tight Samsung BD-C5500 will get the job done.

Summary - Samsung Blu Ray Player Review:

If you can afford it the Samsung Blu Ray-Player BD-C6900 is the model to beat. Second on the want list should be the 6500 model and last but not least the 5500 model.

But, I would expect these to be the results. How can you justify paying more for something if the performance and features are not present to back up the additional price? You wouldn’t buy it. And I wouldn’t either.

Find the right Player for You?

What you gain with the two better models is mostly features.

The more expensive models have much quicker response and loading times, more outputs, along with some saving and streaming features.

That’s it in a nutshell; if you need the features of the better models you owe it to yourself to drop the additional coin on them.

For slightly more investment my pick is the Oppo BDP83 Blue Ray Player

. The Oppo is priced right around $500 -if that is affordable, you can’t go wrong with that machine as well.

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