LG's BD590, to be released later this year,
features a built-in 250GB hard drive.
Photo: LG Electronics

As our latest Blu-ray player Ratings (available to subscribers) show, prices for players continue to fall, even while the number of features increases. With players at almost every price now able to deliver consistently excellent high-definition picture quality, it’s likely that a Blu-ray player is on more of our shopping wish lists.

All the models in our Blu-ray Ratings have BonusView, a picture-in-picture feature that lets you view additional content in a smaller window while the movie is playing, and most are now BD-Live models that can access extra content–such as outtakes, additional directors' or actors' commentaries, or even video games–from a movie studio's servers.

Perhaps of greater interest, though, is that there are more models that can leverage this Web access to offer more enticing fare—namely, the same types of services, such as YouTube videos, Flickr and Picasa photos and streaming movies—that are now available on Internet-connected TVs. That makes a Blu-ray player one of the most economical ways to get Internet content on our TVs.

Blu-ray prices have continued to fall, with full-featured, top-rated players from major brands starting at less than $200, and budget BD-Live models with access streaming movies starting at $150, and sometimes even less.

We’re also seeing more players with new features. Several models have either built-in Wi-Fi, or the ability to accept an optional wireless USB Wi-Fi dongle, which can be especially handy if you don’t have an Ethernet jack near your home-entertainment center.

And even more features are on the way. For example, an upcoming model from LG, the BD590, is the first Blu-ray player we’ve seen with a built-in 250GB hard drive, which can be used for storing music, photos and home videos. There will also be more portable Blu-ray players joining the single model in our Ratings.

But perhaps the most exciting development for Blu-ray this year is the impending arrival of the first 3D models now that the Blu-ray 3D specification has been finalized. At the recent Consumer Electronics Show, several major brands, including Panasonic, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba, all announced their first 3D Blu-ray players, which will be able to play 3D Blu-ray discs when they arrive later this year.

We still don’t know how much they’ll cost or exactly when they arrive, but we expect them to be priced considerably higher than standard players. We’re looking forward to getting one of these 3D models in our lab as soon as they’re available, so keep checking back with our blog for updates.

—James K. Willcox

No wonder AT&T is having trouble keeping up with the data demands of iPhone users. Consumers using iPhones suck up almost twice as much data on their Apple devices as owners of most other smart phones. And a small minority of iFanatics are true data hogs, uploading and downloading up to three or more times data than the average iPhone owner.
That’s according to exclusive new research conducted for Consumer Reports by Validas, a company that provides Web-based wireless bill analysis and optimization services to consumers and businesses at MyValidas.com and FixMyCellBill.com.

On average, iPhone users consume 273 MBs of data per month. That compares with 54 MBs for consumer users of Blackberrys and 150 MBs for consumers who use other brands of smart phones, the Validas study found.

Another 12 percent of iPhone users use at least 500 MBs per month with their crush of emails, Web surfing, and other activity related to the device’s more than 100,000 available software applications. And about a third of those data junkies use more than 1 MB of data. (See chart below.)

Ordinarily, exact numbers on iPhone data usage would be AT&T proprietary information, and that carrier rebuffed our request for specifics. “For competitive reasons, we do not disclose the usage of our iPhone customers,” said Mark Siegel, an AT&T spokesman.
So we asked Validas, which has independent access to such information from its 100,000 customers per month, who are also customers of AT&T and other carriers and upload their electronic bills for analysis and cost-cutting recommendations.

Also, the data usage pattern among iPhone owners is unique when compared to other types of cell phones. More than 80 percent of non-business Blackberry users eat up less than 50 MB of data per month. Most users of other non-iPhone, non-Blackberry smart phones, 54 percent, similarly consume less than 50 MB of data each month. But fewer than 20 percent of iPhone owners are so frugal with their data consumption. (See chart above.)

The Validas’ data usage figures are all the more startling because they include only consumer users and exclude business accounts and folks who “tether,” or use their cell phone like a modem. Such usage, which can send data usage into the stratosphere, is difficult to do with an AT&T iPhone but is possible with many other smart phones.

Validas analyzed data usage on nearly 14,000 individual consumer wireless cell phone lines, including 757 iPhone and 783 Blackberry lines.

As we previously reported, iStress may have also contributed to making AT&T a service satisfaction cellar dweller in our latest annual overall carrier Ratings and city-by-city carrier Ratings.
I’ll report more about cell phone usage, based on other intriguing Validas analytics, in an upcoming post to both this blog and the ConsumerReports.org Money Blog.

—Jeff Blyskal

Today's electronics deals, courtesy of the Consumerist:

• Newegg : Sansa Clip 8GB MP3 Player for $37 + Free Shipping
• Lenovo : Lenovo Wireless Multimedia Remote with Keyboard for $41.99 w/ Coupon USPCF16336 w/ Free Shipping
• Dell Business: Dell E2310H 23-inch Widescreen HD LCD Flat Panel Monitor $161 Shipped
• HP Home: HP Envy 13 Laptop $1,274.99 + free shipping
• HP Direct:
  HP dv7t Intel Core i7-720QM Quad-Core
  17.3in Laptop (3GB/320GB/Discrete Graphics/2 Batteries) $989
• Amazon: Dell Inspiron Mini 10 Netbook with digital TV tuner $320.99 + free shipping
• Amazon: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction $51.99 + free shipping

Related: TV Ratings and buying tips; Computer Ratings and buying tips; Video game console buying tips and video: "Choosing a video game system"; MP3 player Ratings and buying tips.

Neither Consumer Reports nor The Consumerist receive anything in
exchange for featuring these deals; the posts are intended to be purely
informational. These deals are often fleeting, with prices changing or
products becoming unavailable as the day progresses.

These posts are not an endorsement of the featured products or
the Web sites that sell them—though some of the sites may be included,
and recommended, in our Ratings of retailers for computers and other major electronics (both available to subscribers). Price shouldn't be your only criterion. Be wary of lower-priced deals that seem too good to be true, and check return policies for restocking fees and other gotchas.

For general buying advice for many of the products on sale above, check out our free Buying Guides.

Casio G'zOne Rock
Photo: Verizon

Smart phones, with their advanced capabilities and cool apps, have been garnering most of the attention on electronics blogs, including this one. But we haven't lost our enthusiasm for testing conventional cell phones—as it happens, the phones most still people buy. In fact, Consumer Reports Ratings tables are brimming with innovative handsets designed for people who'd rather talk and occasionally text rather than check e-mail or play with apps. Here's a sneak peek at three such models just added to our cell-phone Ratings (available to subscribers):

Casio G'zOne Rock ($150), Verizon

With its thick, hardened case, this third-generation G'zOne is as rugged and water-resistant as ever. In addition to its trademark bright LED flashlight, the new G'zOne adds a compass, thermometer, and pedometer to its arsenal of handy outdoor. Other features that are less practical but nonetheless fun: You can mute incoming calls and alerts by simply turning the handset face-down. In multimedia mode, you can go on to another song or picture by shaking the phone.

Sanyo Incognito Black ($50), Sprint

When activated, the Incognito's mirror-like exterior transforms into a display and touch-sensitive keypad with vibration feedback. The phone opens up like an eye-glass case to reveal a 2.6-inch screen and a keyboard (among the best we've seen), with dedicated keys for emoticons (tiny icon "faces" embedded into to text that convey the writer's state of mind or intent), camera, and other functions. Its customizable internal interface is relatively easy to navigate and geared toward heavy texters and social networkers.

Sony Ericsson Equinox ($50), T-Mobile

The Equinox is designed for people who prefer talking with their hands. Well, not really. But this innovative phone does interpret hand gestures, allowing you to mute alarms and incoming calls by sweeping your hand over the phone. A circular indentation on this folding phone's cover can be programmed to glow a specific color matched to people on your contact list (blue for Mary, red for John, etc.). There's even an FM radio.

—Mike Gikas

If you liked Google's "Parisian Love" commercial during the Super Bowl you'll probably also enjoy the six other "Search Stories" the company has released over the past couple of months.

While most of Sunday's Super Bowl ads took carefully crafted aim at viewers' funny bone or stomach (frequently both), during the third quarter Google chose to disarm fans with thirty seconds of unabashed sentimentality.  Like a starkly unique magazine cover that pops off a newsstand rack, Google's "Parisian Love" commercial was, in my view, neither overly testosteroned nor misogynistic, which set Google apart from the competition.

As if it needed to.

With Google's share of the Web search market at around eighty-five percent in January, the company really didn't need to run a commercial. (Maybe Yahoo, the distant runner up, or Microsoft, which hopes its Bing search engine will overtake Google, should have forked over the estimated $3 mil.)  But Google's marketing is cut from the same cloth as Apple's. Both realize the phenomenal power of understatement and emotion in a noisy, impersonal marketplace.

Despite Google's massive wealth, size, and geopolitical influence—and the wariness those instill in consumer reporters—its prevailing public image (Steve Jobs's recent reported comments notwithstanding) is as unassuming and American as apple pie.  The only other company I can think of being so approachably megalomaniacal is Hank Scorpio's.

Skeptics (who I will probaby hear from) see Google's heart-string-plucking as a tactic to lull you into false sense of trust and security. They might be right, although I really did like "High School."  

—Nick K. Mandle