LG BD590 Review Thread

[goodstuff]

Just picked this up over the weekend at Best Buy for $379. I was originally going to pick up the Sony BDP-S570, but once I saw this was coming out with a hard drive at the same time I gave this a shot and I'm very glad I did. I currently own the following players for comparison: Sony BDP-S550, PS3, Panasonic BD10, Samsung BD-1000.

The LG BD590 is an excellent Blu-ray player with a convenient 250GB hard drive built-in to store movies, music, photos etc. The HD can also be used to store your BD-Live data if desired. You can search & rename files and can rip CD's directly to the hard drive or copy/play files from an external USB hard drive/memory stick. Files can also be transferred from the internal HD to a USB device. Nice looking user interfaces and dynamic info screens. Remote is nicely laid out and can control your TV if programmed. No backlighting.

Blu-ray startup from tray to menu is probably the quickest I've seen, probably besting the Playstation 3. Java menus move smooth and quickly. PQ and AQ is pretty much what you can expect from most BD players these days...excellent. There is a pretty cool Zoom function that works with BD's as well. The Gracenote feature (internet connection required) is awesome which can display the movie info with graphics for your Blu-ray and DVD's (with no playback interruption) as well as CD's.

If you're not in the mood for a BD, there are many streaming options with this player, which can be accessed via the built-in wireless B/G/N adapter or ethernet cable. Netflix, Vudu, Youtube, AccuWeather, Roxio CinemaNow, Pandora and Picasa Web Gallery. Excellent interfaces on these as well. Very smooth playback (depending on your internet connection of course). Playback of shared media files on your PC via the DLNA networking is very easy as well. Great feature!

Only minor nitpicks are the only USB port in the front behind the flip down faceplate and you can't dim/turn off the front display. There are no multichannel analog audio out jacks or S-video on this player.

Comes with composite video cables and Nero Media Essentials install CD for PC networking.