Over the Thanksgiving break I had the chance to do a little shopping and picked up the Samsung BD-P1600. This little box is essentially a Blu-ray player with a network connection that allows you to stream Netflix, YouTube, Pandora, and other streaming services. Some of the streaming services are free and some are premium paid content.
The BD-P1600 is the lower-end model of the three that are currently available (BD-P3600 and BD-P4600). The Samsung BD-P1600 is pretty cheap and I was able to pick one up at Fry’s Electronics for about $145. The main reason I got this was to replace my Xbox 360. I moved the Xbox out into the living room and the BD-P1600 was a good replacement for my Netflix/DVD player.
When I first turned on the box it asked me to upgrade the firmware, which I did. The upgrade took quite sometime. I would say about 40 minutes. I’ve been using it for a few days and all the functions it’s meant to do did so without any problems. The DVD up-conversion worked well and the Netflix, Youtube, and Pandora streamed as it would if you played it on a computer. The only thing I noticed is that the initial buffering time could be long. For Netflix it took about 30 to 40 seconds before it played. Some users my get put off by the menu of the device. It’s just not user intuitive, but after playing with it for a while you’ll remember what each menu and selection does and you can breeze through what you need to do with a few presses of the buttons.
Anyone looking for a cheap Blu-ray player with Netflix capabilities this Samsung BD-P1600 maybe just the item for you.
Rating: 
Pros:
Inexpensive
Streams Netflix, Youtube, and Pandora
Supports Wifi
Good DVD up-conversion
Cons:
Lengthy firmware upgrades
Non intuitive menus
Wifi dongle sold seperately
Long buffering times