Toshiba’s HD-E1 Player Hits UK December 18, 2006

Read more DVRs , Gadgets , Home Entertainment , Portable Media , Storage , TV

For you early adopters of all things new and largely untested, comes the next generation of Toshiba’s HD DVD player. The HD-E1 is now available to order from the company’s UK Web site and will set you back the guts of £450.

If you think that’s expensive, remember that Sony’s dedicated Blu-ray player, the much-delayed BDP-S1 is double that and the Samsung BDP-1000 clocks in around £750-800. This makes the Tosh a bargain, then. So what do you get?

It’s certainly not as bulky as the Sony effort and supports a wide array of audio formats, Dolby True HD, DTS-HD, Dolby Digital Plus etc. It comes with one HDMI connection and can playback regular DVDs and CDs too. This is the vanilla model, so to speak, but there’s a feature-heavy version due out in January for a not insubstantial £650. Toshiba is running a deal with the HD-E1 to throw in 8 free DVD rentals with ilovefilm.

Although the HD-E1 is still significantly cheaper than Blu-ray players (Amazon is flogging it for just £397 but with rubbish availability), there are not enough HD DVD movies or high-def TV broadcasts out here to warrant most of you reaching for your flexible friends. Wait a year.

What we really need is a player that will handle both formats. Anyone?-Martin Lynch

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