Magnavox NB500MGX Blu-Ray Player

 BRD's are very good in it, as you would expect, but it's a slow and laggy process.  Even the manual mentions that turn on is slow, especially when using the HDMI output.  There is also a certain disconnect between issuing the player a command (like "Menu") and it actually responding, sometimes leading to multiple, accidental button presses.  

The other quirk (though I don't know if this is on purpose or not) is that when you stop a BRD, it in effect, "mutes" the video output, leading my TV to think there is no device connected.  My only other experience with a Blueray player is the Playstation 3, which, of course, is a different beast.  

Video quality with regular DVD's is a mixed bag.  On the one hand, the built-in scaler works wonders with material like anime, providing output quality that nearly looks native HD.  Other material, however, looks like a badly compressed Youtube video.  Twilight is especially grainy and pixilated on this player, though it is still better than a regular DVD player outputting 480i to my monitor.   Most media, however, falls somewhere in between, and the picture fidelity is more a limit of the original material than the player.  

The remote is reminiscent of the Sony remotes of the 1980's, with many same-sized/colored/shaped buttons, and unless you memorize the locations of buttons early on (at least the common ones), it's more or less useless in a dark room.  Fortunately, the main transport buttons and the essential menu buttons are more logically arranged, though the location and size of the pause button is a bit confounding.  I would have had the Stop and Pause buttons switched around, I think.  

At this price point, network connectivity for BDLive features would be a bit much to ask, and the NB500MGX delivers on that point.  This also throws out any possibility of an easy firmware upgrade, meaning that when Magnavox finally acknowledges the existence of this product (it still has not appeared on their website), firmware updates will be done in the round about download>burn>stick-disc-in-drive>cross eyes and pray method.  Fortunately, it has not required such operations yet, and every BRD I thew at it has operated without a hitch (if not painfully slow).  

For the price ($128), it cannot be beat.  If you want a Blueray player for a bedroom, guest room, or just a cheapy, it's the perfect unit.