2. Inside the Box

Opening the oversized box reveals an upper compartment with the remote control, paperwork, cables and a Netflix coupon clearly visible. You'd think for the price Netflix would have gone all out with a promotion but instead it's a typical one-month free trial found countless times before. The cabling includes a power cord, 6 foot HDMI, S-video and analog audio. As wonderful as the HDMI cable is it does me no good at this time. More on that later.

The remote control is a big heavy monster that dwarfs and outweighs my Momitsu V880 remote by quite a bit. In some respect it has an old school 1970s look and feel that while outdated evokes a feeling of a sturdy and reliable product. Apparently batteries weren't included back then because I had to scrounge around the house for 4 AAA's. It's a good thing my newborn daughter has a variety of toys that take batteries so a stash was readily available. Otherwise the suspense of diving in would have been postponed because a dollar worth of batteries somehow broke Toshiba's sales margins to keep the retail price at $499.99.

If the size of the remote is an eye opener then the size of the player will blow eyes right of people's heads. As such the same arguments made for the remote apply here as well. Affixed to the player's top is a shelf talker explaining the benefits of the player including its ability to up-convert existing DVDs to 1080i. Best Buy would be wise to get one of these up on a shelf ASAP.