A quick market survey will reveal that a Netflix subscription has become a minimum standard with Blu-Ray players. Additionally, most of these players allow access to Pandora and Picasa and they also have some pay-per- view plan wherein you can stream movies from sites like Amazon or Vudu. Basically, every effort has been made to incorporate all modern forms of home entertainment into a single device.

What to look for in a Blu-Ray player?

One would imagine that video quality would be the key factor while choosing a Blu-Ray player. Truth be told, every Blu-Ray player out there excels in that department almost uniformly. Therefore, one can’t really make a decision based on just the picture quality. Interestingly, it is the additional features like Wi-Fi connectivity, ability to stream videos etc. which make all the difference. That’s why big players like LG and Sony have come up with innovative features to stay ahead in the competition. Price is also an important consideration when it comes to buying a Blu-Ray player. You can find a decent player for about a $100 while high end Blu-Ray players can cost up to $500. The choice will depend eventually on your budget and personal requirements.

Considering these factors, we have put together a list of the best Blu-Ray players out there. We have tried to choose players from different price ranges since this will help you compare their features along with their costs.

1. Sony BDP-S380- Priced at close to $110, the Sony BDP-S380 offers complete value for money. It has a sleek design with a matt black finish and the video processing is surprisingly fast. The networking options are great, you can access Hulu Plus, Netflix, Amazon, Pandora. Slacker etc. On the flip side, the video processing can get a little sloppy at times, but, it is still ideal for casual use around the house. You can also try out other Blu-Ray players like LG BP620 and Panasonic DMP-BDT 220, which fall in the same price range.

2. LG BD 670- The LG BD 670 has a very simple and minimalistic design, but it’s performance sets it apart from many others. Both the video processing and 3D are exceptional with no jerks or breaks in between. The player comes with in-built Wi-Fi connectivity allowing the users to connect to a variety of online streaming platforms. Price wise, it falls somewhere in the mid-range section (it is priced at close t0 $250), but we can assure you that your money will be well spent.

3. Sony Play Station 3- Yes, we know that the Sony Play Station 3 is a gaming console, but, the good news is that is doubles up as a Blu-Ray player as well. So, it has all the features of a normal Blu-ray player like Wi-Fi connectivity and other networking options. But, it goes a step ahead since you can use it for all your gaming interests as well. To top it all off, it is quite affordable at $250. If you are willing to spend some extra money, you can also try Oppo BDP-93 and LG BD 690, both of which come highly recommended.

Top Sellers: MP3 Players

MP3 players take the crown this year for top selling consumer electronics. The best selling MP3 player: Apple’s 4^th generation iPod Touch, and it’s not all that surprising, considering that the iPod Touch has been in the top spot of our MP3 Players for quite some time now. It seems that the iPod Touch’s inclusion of the iTunes App Store was the driving source behind its strong sales. iPods lacking the App Store, such as the Nano and Shuffle, weren’t particularly strong sellers this year as people chose cheaper alternatives, like the Sansa Fuze. The Zune HD also sold well with those who don’t care for the taste of the Apple Kool-Aid.

Runner Up: Digital Cameras

Similar to the MP3 player sales, there was a very clear dichotomy in digital camera purchases, with the majority of sales being either expensive SLRs or cheaper point-and-shoots. The midrange digital cameras were not a big seller. The best selling SLR was Canon’s EOS Rebel T2i, one of our highest ranked Digital SLR Cameras. The best selling Compact Digital Cameras really were scattered across the board, but the majority were sub-$100 cameras.

Bronze Goes to: Blu-Ray Players

For the past couple years, the falling prices of HDTVs have let them dominate the holiday sales figures, but this year, things were a little different. It seems many people already owned an HDTV now and felt it was time to transition fully into the HD era. This of course led to Blu-Ray Players making it among the third best selling electronics of the 2010 holiday season. The drop in price also helped as well, like Sony’s BDP-S470 internet connected Blu-Ray player going on sale for just over $100.

Other Strong Sellers

Advertising appeared to work out very well for some products this last holiday season. The Kindle‘s aggressive attack on Apple’s iPad resulted in excellent sales for the Amazon e-Reader. The Xbox 360 saw a strong bump in sales, thanks largely to the brand new Microsoft Kinect motion based controller, which absolutely dominated in gaming related sales.

Of course, if you really want to get technical, gift cards were actually the number one selling item this last holiday season, and by a very wide margin. Roughly 75% of shoppers bought at least one gift card. That’s several billion gift cards sold world-wide. To put that into perspective, very few electronics sell more than a million units over the holiday season, but hey, who’s counting?