I have opted to revise my recent post considering brader's HD afficionado's "damdamin".
a. Brands will always stand on its own merits, suggestions are solicited by the TS
b. those of us who prefer to help newbies :
- b.1 provide practical tips to save and stretch budgets. so knowing disk prices is 50% higher than pre-Thai flood, I'd say preowned disk is attractive, but its no secret i get all my disks new and from a fellow brader @ PDVD, and when I am really busy i even ask some to get it from him directly and i install 'em and ship, so chill.
- b.2 help newbies who plan to go to a shop, and advise them to shop around and compare brands side by side, so it is best to visit a multibrand sellers, they can lay down the all for you. Do not mistake confidence for certain brands as a push, coz i see it as a save newbies not to walk into an ambush, i mean, a shop with one brand and worse dated products.
Audition in shops with multibrand NMT so it wont limit your options to the brand they sell (those with single brands) minsan kasi nahihiya ang users cant walk away, so buy siya despite with the hanging question "ok ba 'to?". I personally own multibrand Egreat,Measy,Pch,mede8er 500, Hi-Media --- kanya-kanyanng strengths kasi.
1055 vs. 1073 vs 1185 Realteks which to buy? - 1185 hands down (1073 and 1055 are still out there but is no longer produced in larger quantities) if your budget is 5K for a player, hanap ka ng 1185 that fits the budget, coz meron yan, strip out the wifi dongle and/or warranty 12 months.
on used disks - i recommend this for those in budget and simply due to the abnormal high price. i cant bring myself to buy a 4k disk at 6k price tag, maybe because i order regularly and the 50% jump is just too much. just practical tips to save money. its a
choice to stretch your mulah.
some people collect contents, some watch then discard.
Those who still wish to buy disks go for used disks these days, at least until price goes down. It is a risk some prefer to take at 20%~50% less cost of the new ones. I also help friends who upgrade HDD to get rid of their disk, ones trash is another ones gold mine.
I recently had a binge of 2TB used and so far all of the 6 i purchased at a time the price is courting 5800/2TB, i got them for 4600-5000 with contents in them. aba eh ok yun. it gave me the opportunity to dispose my old 1TB and 1.5TB, without the sting of an expensive buy.
[UPDATED]
Its always a function of your taste and budget. some dont mind the flimsy finish or funny remotes that gets changed 2 times (guess what brand) but others are very particular with aesthetics.
1st time NMT buyer here's my recommendation
-- grab a preowned if 1073 is your taste, (dont but old stock!)
-- grab a 1185 chip like Measy e8HDL/X6 (won't mention EGreat 1185 kasi you can always go to the
PDVD marketplace 
)
--grab a preowned disk, nego for freebies, or if you want new buy disk only when you see 2TB at < 4k
-- Audition at shops with
multibrand NMT para di ka ma lock in o ma-limit ang options. I own multibrand Egreat,Measy,Pch,mede8er for a baseline, kanya-kanyanng strengths kasi.
-- Realtek all things equal go for 1185 over 1073. but grab the 1073 if they are preowned and priced low, I gave away my last stock of 1073 under 4k recently, i have not reordered since (1073 is a good chip, but its just not new and for the same price range, go 1185).
-- is torrent importent -- look for torrent client na transmissions or MLdonkey. bandwidth throttling, and which you can set the target drives (tree huggers run their DL on external USB disks)
Happy hunting, and save your budget for bigger disk capacity later.
1st time NMT considering Realtek, here's a quickie guide:
you want NMT to play movies, no networking (1055 is best fit for tight budgets)
you want NMT to be networked (1073,1185 in, 1055 out)
you want NMT with web browsing (1185 is in,1073 & 1055 out, check out the Mede8er 500X2 ),
you want NMT to
download reliably (i'd recommend torrent client na transmissions with bandwidth throttling, test it with > 5GB downloads,Measy e8HDL beta has this fixed recently )
sa 1st time NMT considering Sigma, key is full BD navigation menu :
To enjoy BD full navigation menu from HD content go sigma
To enjoy BD full navigation menu from HD content + BDROM inside:
if you have a BD player existing bundled with your new display, just grab an NMT without BDROM
if you want the cheapest Realtek player, . if walang front button control unlike the Mede8er line,
DO NOT BUY units with cheapy remote so ask how much is the remote replacement and ask if other
Realtek based NMT remotes is compatible to the unit before buying or ask how much is a spare(if the vendor cannot supply you one, walk away!).
1073 chip are still available pero since invest ka, go look for 1185 chip at may really low cost 1185 chip out there (as in < 5k!). this avoids your wondering later on had it been 1073 lang kinuha mo.
Is budget a priority? go for (< 5K, realtek 1185, w/o wifi )
--- no-internal-drive-tray: Egreat R6A-ii(eSATA + USB disks) + Egreat R1-ii (disk plugs direct to unit)
---with-internal-drive-tray: Measy X6
Is download is a priority? go for Transmissions torrent app that can pick storage disk for download use AND limit bandwidth throttling for upload. MLDonkey app is also good. (both DL app is found in Egreat S100 pro/S900). Neighbor web does ok download for smaller files pero if you really one a kick ass DL , transmissions is good.
BDROM + MKV playback priority? If budget is no issue, go for PCH C300 or Egreat S900 (built in BDROM, + disk combo)
Disks are priced higher than it was Q3/2011, I'd go for preowned meantime and get 720p files (quantity).
