Read The Fine Print Before Taking A Great Gadget Deal

Carolyn bought a Sony Blu-ray player for her husband for Christmas. The player’s box boasted of its streaming capabilities, but to use them, she would need to purchase a separate wireless adapter. No problem – she picked up an inexpensive one at the store and gave that to her husband as well. She missed one detail: the only compatible adapter must be ordered directly from Sony, and costs $75. Sometimes, great holiday season electronics deals aren’t what they seem at first glance.

I thought I would share my story about my Sony Blu-ray player that I purchased for my husband this Christmas. I am attaching a photo of the box the player came in, you can clearly see that a wireless LAN adapter is needed ( although in very tiny lettering). In fact the entire box is plastered with hulu, netflix, you tube, etc. icons that its awesome wi-fi capabilities will soon bring into my home. I purchased the Blu-ray player and a Netgear 300 mbps adapter for $35, wrapped both and put them under the tree. After setting up said Blu-ray, and setting up the adapter we find that the adapter is not being detected by the player?

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I contact Sony to see what is going on, turns out you can ONLY use Sony brand adapters with this blu-ray player, and you cannot wire it directly. This is news to me, since they did not even sell Sony brand adapters at the retailer I purchased the Blu-ray from, or even their online site. Also, turns out the Sony brand is around $75, plus s/h, since it can only be ordered online (hmmm). I feel this should have been printed on the box, since now I am stuck with restocking fees, for both items if I choose to return them for a different brand, cheaper wi-fi built in player.

Just thought I would share my frustrations and my story to warn some other readers that some of these holiday blu-ray deals are just too good to be true.

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