Samsung's 4K Blu-ray player goes on sale March, costs $400

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The Samsung UBD-K8500 is available to pre-order now in the US and will be released and available in shops from March.

Samsung has announced that the world’s first 4K Blu-ray player will go on pre-order today in the US priced at $400, with deliveries expected in March. Pre-order pages are live now on Best Buy and Crutchfield online stores in the US.

Samsung stole a march on its 4K competition at IFA 2015 with the announcement of the UBD-K8500, but details were rather thin on the ground. Now we’ve had our eyes on a finished sample, things are a little clearer.

The back panel is relatively straight forward, with an ethernet port for networking (or there’s wi-fi built in), one digital optical output and two HDMI outputs – one for audio and one for video.

There is a USB port on the front, which will be capable of feeding 4K content to the player – handy for viewing your own content while we wait for discs to catch up.

There is also a UHD upscaler on board for upscaling content to 4K, plus it supports 3D Blu-rays and CDs.

Samsung has partnered with Hollywood studios to ensure consumers have a selection of Ultra HD Blu-rays, with 20th Century Fox promising to release more than 100 4K Ultra HD discs with HDR including films like The Martian and Peanuts.

While Samsung may be the first to offer pre-orders, the competition is finally picking up. Panasonic announced its Ultra HD Blu-ray player at CES 2016, with deliveries expected in the early part of the year and a price “under $1000”.

MORE: CES 2016 highlights

Verity Burns
Verity Burns

Verity is a freelance technology journalist and former Multimedia Editor at What Hi-Fi?. 

Having chalked up more than 15 years in the industry, she has covered the highs and lows across the breadth of consumer tech, sometimes travelling to the other side of the world to do so. With a specialism in audio and TV, however, it means she's managed to spend a lot of time watching films and listening to music in the name of "work".

You'll occasionally catch her on BBC Radio commenting on the latest tech news stories, and always find her in the living room, tweaking terrible TV settings at parties.