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A lot of thought has gone into exactly what punters are after from smart AV gear, and the streamlined selection of smart TV services is wisely restricted to BBC iPlayer, YouTube, Acetrax and Picasa in the UK and Netflix, VUDU and YouTube in the US versions of the Toshiba BDX3300.
The flip-side is that everything on the Toshiba BDX3300 is accessed in a very manual way that won't be to a lot users' taste. However, judged purely as a standalone Blu-ray player, there's little to fault the Toshiba BDX3300.
We liked
The way the Toshiba BDX3300 doesn't bother to disguise its BBC iPlayer, Acetrax, YouTube and Picasa services as apps is somewhat refreshing, since the functionality is identical to much more expensive - and certainly more polished, usability-wise - smart TVs and Blu-ray players.
When it comes to pure Full HD picture quality, the Toshiba BDX3300 delivers, and we also like the fact that it can support an awful lot of digital files via USB and over a network.
We disliked
The front end of the Toshiba BDX3300 is the most basic we've seen, and it can sometimes be slow, too, but the main pain is an overly small remote.
We'll avoid demanding the flavour of the month Netflix app, since the choice of movies on that platform isn't exactly extensive, but it would be nice to have that and LoveFilm to maximise choice beyond Acetrax. If we were being picky, MKV support via USB wouldn't go amiss either - it manages to play the rather niche lossless FLAC music files, after all.
Final verdict
It may lack finesse and at times appears a tad archaic, but we can't find it within us to criticise anything on a super-slim Blu-ray player that combines the best of the smart TV landscape with a price that hovers under £80/£120.
For a simple 2D Blu-ray upgrade with some YouTube goodness, we can't recommend the Toshiba BDX3300 highly enough.
Also consider
At this cheaper end of the 2D Blu-ray market the main challengers are models from the likes of Philips and LG, although for a little more you can get 3D Blu-ray support, too.
The step-up Toshiba BDX5300 is one candidate in that regard, as is the Sony BDP-S390 and Samsung BD-E6100.
