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Take the Blu-ray plunge with $198* Magnavox player

Get a $100 gift card when you buy any of three Blu-ray players from Walmart (including a Sony PS3!)

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").
Rick Broida
Walmart

Walmart is currently offering a $100 gift card on Blu-ray players (including the Sony PlayStation 3). That means if you buy the Magnavox NB500MG9 for $298, you're effectively getting it for $198.

The catch is that it's an online-only gift card, meaning you can't use it for, say, groceries. However, you could probably eBay it for cash.

The player itself delivers 1080p output, upconverts regular DVDs, and supports Profile 1.1. It includes both HDMI and component-video outputs as well as a coaxial digital audio output. Curiously, it doesn't appear anywhere on Magnavox's Web site (probably because it's made by Funai), and online reviews are few and far between. Of course, if you have any problems, you can undoubtedly return the player to any Walmart store (though the gift card is non-refundable).

Personally, I'd opt for the $299* PlayStation 3 instead, as you're getting a killer game console for just a hundred bucks more. What about you? Is this deal good enough to get you to take the Blu-ray plunge?

Thanks to reader David for sharing this deal!

Update: Several readers and a PR rep for Wal-Mart pointed out that if you buy a player in-store, you get a gift card you can use in stores. Nice!