LG BD550 Blu ray Player Review

If you have Ethernet connectivity in your living room, the smart move is to go with an entry-level Blu-ray player. Most such players available in 2010 offer much of the functionality of step-up models, minus built-in Wi-Fi. That’s the case with the LG BD550 ($150 street), which is nearly identical to the step-up BD570, except it lacks Wi-Fi and DLNA compatibility and costs about $100 less. If you can live without those features, the BD550 still delivers excellent image quality, relatively speedy load times, and a generous suite of streaming-media services, including Netflix, Vudu, Pandora, and YouTube. It’s missing the expandable Apps platform of the competing Samsung BD-C5500, but if you mostly care about core streaming services, the BD550 is a solid entry-level choice.

Design
At first glance, the exterior design of the BD550 looks almost identical to the step-up BD570, but we actually liked it a little better. The main difference is that the BD570 has one long flip-down panel that covered the entire front panel, whereas the BD550 is broken up into three sections: disc tray on the left, power and eject buttons in the middle, and a flip-down panel on the right. We preferred the partitioned design since the BD550′s automatic door mechanism tends to work better. We also favored the LG’s more low-key look compared with the Samsung BD-C5500.

LG’s included remote control is a complete redesign over last year’s clicker. The main surface is glossy black, which looks sleek coming out of the box, but being a remote, it naturally accumulates fingerprints quickly. Its button layout is mostly straightforward. Playback controls have a “hill” that runs underneath them, making it easy to find by feel; there are also nubs on the rewind/fast-forward buttons. The remote’s main directional pad is surrounded by six buttons, which is a little more cluttered than most Blu-ray remotes we use, but we didn’t find it that troublesome. Along its bottom are a few buttons for controlling a TV.

User interface
We loved the dead-simple user interface on last year’s BD390, so we were a little dismayed to see that LG has given this year’s model a complete interface overhaul. The redesign moves all the streaming-media features off the main page onto the separate Netcast interface. We see why that makes sense–there are simply too many streaming-media services to fit them all on the main page–but Samsung’s new interface does a better job of letting you quickly jump to the service you want. We also found the “floating ice cubes” design a little goofy and slightly slower to navigate.

Netcast is what LG calls its suite of media-streaming services. Once you enter the Netcast section, you’re greeted by large tiles with the names of services. We found this design more to our liking; navigating the streaming services feels speedy and there are large buttons for each service. LG’s YouTube layout is also one of the best we’ve seen, and we found it quick and easy to browse for videos. The exception, as always, is using the onscreen keyboard to input search terms; perhaps we’ll see QWERTY keyboard remotes on future players to alleviate that problem.

The BD550 lacks a quick start mode and therefore by default uses very little power in standby mode. In comparison, the Sony BDP-S570 has an annual cost of $7.35 with its quick start feature enabled. The downside with the BD550 is that you don’t have the option of faster load times if you’re willing to pay the extra cost. Though the BD550 is a relatively faster player overall, we would have liked a quick start option for those willing to use more energy to cut down on the initial bootup time.