Laser’s $99 Blu-Ray player certainly fits the company’s general theme of offering tech products that might not be the shiniest or, indeed in this case the most fingerprint resistant, but in showing it off last week, company representatives did make one interesting claim for it — it offers region free capability for Blu-Ray playback.
Region free BR playback isn’t an entirely new feature, even in the budget space, but it’s still the case that most players sold in Australia are locked to Region B, limiting us to local discs as well as those from Europe and Africa, but locking out US and Japanese discs entirely.
Laser’s claim to me was that the player, similar to the region free models that Kogan’s offered in the past, can switch regions via a menu command. It’s worth noting that the web page for the player doesn’t make that claim, although that may be so that they don’t run foul of the Blu-Ray licensing conditions. Laser’s $99 price point is ever so slightly cheaper than Kogan’s offerings, with company representatives stating that the $99 RRP may be undercut by some retailers, perhaps making it the cheapest region-free Blu-Ray player on the Australian marketplace. Having to menu switch isn’t quite as handy as having a player that’ll flick regions for you without messing around, but it’s still potentially handy if you like the look or price of some of the discs that only launch stateside.
[LaserCo]