Recently I was browsing through one of our neighborhood big box stores and spied some Samsung Blu Ray players going for a fraction of the price I would have paid a few months ago.  I was a little shocked at how much they came down in price.  Although I was expecting it – just look at how fast the regular DVD players went down in price – I wasn’t expecting it so soon.

I went ahead and bought the Samsung BD-P1600 model because it was on sale and because it had some features that I thought I would enjoy.  It was a very good price for an entry-level Blu Ray player and it came with the Dark Knight Blu Ray movie.

I really liked how even my old DVD’s played fantastically through my older television so I have no isssues with the quality of the product.  I don’t even have an issue with the front cover that comes down when you open the disk tray with the remote like the reviewer at CNET does.  I thought that was a cool feature.  Who cares if you can’t use the front panel controls until you pull the flap down.  Most people use the remote to control their DVD players – from their couch.

But this is not really a review of the Samsung BD-P1600 Blu Ray DVD player but is a review of my buying experience with this player.  I bought this player based on price.  I bought this player while I was in a hurry.  I’m not sure the salesperson who sold it to me would have taken the time to tell me more but what he did tell me was that is was wireless ready and I could watch YouTube videos through my television.  But I needed one thing that he didn’t tell me about -

The Samsung WIS09ABGN LinkStick

When I got the player home I was excited.  Not because I wanted to watch movies in blu ray but because I was going to be able to wirelessly access my home network to watch YouTube videos.  Once I tried to connect to my network I found that I couldn’t without a wireless adapter.  I checked the manual and thought like all the products which tout their own products I would buy any cheap wireless adapter I could find.  Didn’t work.  So I ran around town looking for Samsung’s proprietary adapter.  I found one and have been happy since.

But there is still one more thing…..

The first thing that comes up when you hook up wirelessly the unit asks you if you want to upgrade the firmware.

DON”T DO IT!!!

I tried to but it got stuck at the last step where it says not to stop your unit or it might not work.  It stayed stuck overnight.  A call to customer service and she told me not to upgrade the firmware unless there was something wrong with the unit and it was okay to unplug the unit.  A subsequent search on the internet came back with other people who had the same problems and even worse for those whose upgrade went through.  Now their players are inoperable and they have to send their units back.

Except for this one caveat I would highly recommend this product for those just entering the Blu Ray DVD market.  There is a model upgrade that includes the wireless adapter if you don’t want to hunt around for it later after buying the BD-P1600.

Enjoy your new player.