A development of the BD-P1500, this new BD-P1600 irons out the main faults and aims at the budget buyer.

The kit, build and design

You can tell straight away that this is a basic machine: its connectivity is minimal, the menus don’t have many options and the remote, although it has the look of the new Samsung TV remotes, looks a bit cheap. At the end of the day though, this is what you expect from an entry-level player aimed at new users: a minimum of connections and features to simplify use.


It can all the same read JPEG, mp3 and even DiVX formats via its USB sockets. Note that MKV’s are not supported but that subtitles function no problem. It isn’t possible to resynchronise them to the image however. The USB sockets do not allow you to read AVCHD files.

The second USB socket is designed for the optional Samsung Wi-Fi dongle so you can do away with the cable network connection. The cable connection is in any case practically useless as it doesn’t allow you to access shared multimedia files.


The good surprise comes on start-up. You need 40 seconds to start the player up, insert the disk and start watching your film. This might seem long but it's as good as it gets for Blu-ray players. Often the same process can take over a minute.

Nevertheless, on the negative side, the small fan at the back of the casing is slightly too audible. When you think how small the player is, it might have been better to design a larger casing without this accessory.

Image quality

The image quality is close to what you get on the BD-P1500. Namely, nice, sharp HD with neutral colours, and good SD. Note however that the results are a little down on the competition such as the Pioneer BDP-320. Upscaling of SD sources on the Pioneer are, for example, better than on the BD-1600. But these aren’t comparable players. The BD-P1600 is aimed at entry-level buyers and offers very good results for what it costs.

Sound formats

Contrary to the BD-P1500, this player can decode all formats including DTS-HD MA. However analogue 7.1 outs are still not offered and you have to make do with stereo outs as well as the optical out and the HDMI 1.3 out. This means you have to use the HDMI 1.3 if you want to benefit from HD sound. Otherwise you can listen to HD downscaled to Dolby Digital or DTS via the optical out.