Samsung HT-BD7200

(Credit: Samsung)

The HT-X710T was one of Samsung's funkier home theater products of 2008, a 2.1-style (two speakers plus subwoofer) home theater system with a tapered, wall-mountable DVD player head unit. While the 2009 follow-up shares a similar "Touch of Color" red-accented design and curved enclosures, the HT-BD7200 gets a Blu-ray upgrade (replete with BD-Live capability and Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio decoding) and support for streaming Netflix online video and the Pandora music service. It's also Wi-Fi-ready, but you'll need to invest in a separate USB 802.11n dongle, or stick with wired Ethernet connectivity instead. Other niceties include an iPod dock and the ability to stream audio from A2DP-compatible Bluetooth audio devices, such as music phones. Like the other Blu-ray home-theater-in-a-box systems in Samsung's 2009 lineup, the HT-BD7200 also includes a "green-friendly" kelp-based subwoofer.

The HT-BD7200 will be available in June for $800. Alternatives include the Samsung HT-BD8200 (speakerbar plus wireless subwoofer) and the HT-BD1250 (standard 5.1-channel design), which--aside from their different designs--offer the same basic feature sets.