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Price Watch: Sharp Blu-ray player, $179.99

Finally, a late-model Blu-ray player for a reasonable price, and no rebates required!

Rick Broida Senior Editor
Rick Broida is the author of numerous books and thousands of reviews, features and blog posts. He writes CNET's popular Cheapskate blog and co-hosts Protocol 1: A Travelers Podcast (about the TV show Travelers). He lives in Michigan, where he previously owned two escape rooms (chronicled in the ebook "I Was a Middle-Aged Zombie").
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Rick Broida
Take the Blu-ray plunge for a reasonable $179.99 Sharp
If you're planning to put a Blu-ray player under the tree, menorah, or Festivus pole this year, Sears has a solid deal: The Sharp Aquos BD-HP21U for $179.99. That's plus shipping (a very reasonable $7.50), but you can bypass that cost by picking it up in-store.

This is a new model, not a refurb. It's also new to Sharp's Aquos line of Blu-ray players, following the previous BD-HP20U (which I own, and like for its reasonably speedy start-up time). CNET hasn't reviewed it yet, but notes that it shares its predecessor's quick-start capabilities (discs load in about 10 seconds) and can decode both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD audio. Alas, it's Profile 1.1, which doesn't bother me but will undoubtedly discourage some.

The BD-HP21U sells for upwards of $299.99 at many stores, so $179.99 is an unequivocally good deal. If you're in the market for a Blu-ray player, that is. I gotta admit, my BD-HP20U sits idle much of the time. Of course, I'm more into TV than movies anyway. 30 Rock, woo!

Update: Eagle-eyed reader fbny71 just reported that Woot.com has a new Memorex player for just $139.99, plus $5 shipping. Woot, indeed! (Today only, though.)

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