I test 4K Blu-ray players for a living and here's the difference between premium and budget
When you buy one of the best TVs, most of which now have 4K resolution, you want to feed it the best quality possible. I recently tested 4K Blu-ray vs streaming, and although I found the picture with both to be closer than expected, it became clear during my comparison that 4K Blu-ray was superior - especially when it came to audio quality.
If you’re thinking of buying one of the best 4K Blu-ray players, you’ll find that, in terms of price and features, the market can be as diverse as TVs themselves. You can pay as little as $199 / £159 / AU$399 for a basic player, up to over $999 / £999/ AU$1,699 for a premium model.
While there are competitors within the 4K Blu-ray player market, the main manufacturer is Panasonic, which makes consistently high-quality, well-built models that rate highly regardless of whether they are budget, mid-range or premium. Other manufacturers include Sony, Raevon and Magnetar (with the latter two at the premium end of the market).
It should be no problem to opt for a budget model because a 4K Blu-ray player just plays discs, right? Well, a budget player will give you 4K Blu-ray disc playback, but there are a lot of other factors to consider including HDR support, upscaling, audio quality, connectivity and even built-in smart features. The best 4K Blu-ray players do more than just play discs nowadays.
Whilst there are many great 4K Blu-ray players, I’ll primarily discuss three models here: the Panasonic DP-UB154 (and DP-UB150) as the budget entry, the Panasonic DP-UB820 for the mid-range, and the Panasonic DP-UB9000 as the premium option (with a few more at the premium end).
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Unsurprisingly, spending more on a player will get you a more premium 4K Blu-ray experience. The UB9000 has all the bells and whistles (barring SACD) that you need and delivers audio and video at the highest quality level. But then again, none of these 4K Blu-ray players will let you down, and they offer enough positives at their respective prices.
If you can stretch your budget for the UB820 ($425 / £349 / AU$769), you’ll find it absolutely worth it. Panasonic’s mid-range player has many of the premium UB9000’s features at just over a third of that player’s price. From my personal experience, the UB820 is built to last and delivers excellent picture quality. There are good reasons why the Panasonic UB820 sits at the top of our list of the best 4K Blu-ray players.
So, opening this up to the floor, what’s your experience and advice?
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