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Fully Equipped: When will we see the $99 Blu-ray player?

In his latest installment of Fully Equipped, David Carnoy discusses how the price for Blu-ray players is quickly heading downward, but the price for Blu-ray movies may also have to come down before mainstream consumers consider making the switch from DVD.

David Carnoy Executive Editor / Reviews
Executive Editor David Carnoy has been a leading member of CNET's Reviews team since 2000. He covers the gamut of gadgets and is a notable reviewer of mobile accessories and portable audio products, including headphones and speakers. He's also an e-reader and e-publishing expert as well as the author of the novels Knife Music, The Big Exit and Lucidity. All the titles are available as Kindle, iBooks, Nook e-books and audiobooks.
Expertise Mobile accessories and portable audio, including headphones, earbuds and speakers Credentials
  • Maggie Award for Best Regularly Featured Web Column/Consumer
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David Carnoy

Memorex: Leading the cheap Blu-ray charge. Buy.com

We've been keeping an eye on prices for Blu-ray players and it appears that a handful of budget brand models are starting to crack the $150 barrier. The other day Woot.com had the Memorex MVBD2510 player at $139.99 for a one-day sale and now TheNerds.net is selling it for $146.99 (shipping included) and Buy.com has it at $149.99. That's on top of both the Samsung BD-P1500 and the Sony BDP-S300 slipping in and out of sub-$200 territory at Amazon and other outlets.

While $150 isn't bad, I think we're going to see $99 fairly soon, with a couple of stops at $129.99. As we found out with HD-DVD players, $99 really is a magic price point, though it is worth pointing out that these budget Blu-ray players are only profile 1.1 while the $99 HD DVD players were fully up to spec and allowed for firmware upgrades via Ethernet (the cheap Blu-ray players can't be updated and sometimes simply can't play certain movies). Profile 1.1 players aren't BD-Live enabled, which means you won't be able to access certain interactive features--for better or worse.

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