I won't reiterate the previous reviewers' comments about excellent video/audio quality and very fast disc loading except to agree. I bought this unit to reduce the movie-playing workload on the Playstation 3 and so far its playback is every bit as good in my opinion as the outstanding and fast PS3.
But I wanted to point out a few good/bad points that may have been buried or overlooked:
Good:
- The best surprise I've found so far was the Subtitle On/Off button; this is incredibly handy and is something I've asked Sony to add to their firmware months ago. I'm sure many others use subtitles occasionally to clearly understand dialogue, but how many times have you been frustrated to have to skip through as many as 40 (yes, I have Blu-rays with that many) subtitle language options just to turn subtitles off? Now it's on/off with a single button click - VERY handy, and a big thumbs-up from me for an excellent and useful feature that will be well used in years to come.
- YouTube quality. I don't have much interest in YouTube, and certainly didn't buy the player for that reason, but I'm amazed at how good the video quality appears on this player (I have a 58" 1080p Panasonic plasma, so defects show easily). Audio is still YouTube-poor, but video is the best I've seen if the source quality is high. I don't have Netflix so can't comment on it, but may activate the free trial to check its streaming quality.
- Ease of network setup. I connected to my router with a wired connection and that was it; the BD390 just worked without fiddling (except to tell it I was using wired instead of wireless). It not only connected and was able to find a firmware update, but the media-playing function immediately discovered my networked computers and allowed playback/viewing of everything I tried (folder browsing is a little weak, as is the alphabetizing, so it's not nearly as easy to use as the PS3 media functions but it does work fairly well).
Bad (I ignored all of these in my overall score, since they don't impact the outstanding video/audio performance for the price):
- No display dimming. Others have mentioned this, but it really needs to be fixed with a timed dimming or user-settable option in a firmware update. In a dark room it's by far the brightest display in my equipment stack, the characters are large and clunky looking and it's obnoxious even in peripheral vision. If you agree, please go to LG's website, click Support then the option to email suggestions. I did, and they responded the next day (unfortunately saying it's not on the to-do list, but "your suggestion will be forwarded to our engineers"). I hope they get thousands of suggestions.
- Text entry (for YouTube searching, login etc) is painful but that's to be expected when you have to arrow-arrow-click instead of using a keyboard. Fortunately, my needs make this a very infrequent problem.
- Remote design is mediocre, but not terrible. Doesn't matter to me because I use a Logitech Harmony One for everything (I had my Harmony 90% configured for the BD390 and ready to go before the player even arrived).
- Onscreen navigation and information displays during movie playback are useful but far inferior to the beautiful and intuitive displays on the PS3. If I didn't have the Playstation for comparison it wouldn't be a big deal but they're just not as well designed. If LG wanted to do it, this could be improved with firmware updates.
- The top-front of the control panel is a little tacky-looking with the bright finish and the feel of the on/off and open/close buttons is a little cheap. Not a big deal; these can be handled with the remote control, it's just a minor nit and placing them on the top edge is a good idea so they can be found easily even in a dimly-lit room. Others have complained that these two top-edge buttons are on the wrong sides of the unit; I disagree. If the open/close button were on the left (next to the disc tray), the tray would likely hit your hand when you pressed the button because it opens almost instantly. Locating it on the right, next to the other disc-play buttons, eliminates this possibility so it's a smart design decision.
- Removing a disc from the player's tray is a little awkward since there are no cutouts on the tray sides to lift it out; you simply can't grasp the edges without risking fingerprints on the data side. My workaround is simple; use one finger in the center disc hole to lift it out, then grab with the other hand.
I disagree with those who say DVD upscaling is less than great; my eyes aren't perfect but it's very very good and I can't see any improvement when using the PS3, the LG is just as good and is obviously much better than the Sony and Philips 1080p upscaling DVD (not Blu-ray) players I've used in this setup previously. I stopped using those, playing even DVDs on the PS3, because they worked but not nearly as well. Now the LG can do all movie playback, which is why I bought it.
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