We're planning a Blu-ray Supertest that will pit the Panasonic (and its BD60 sibling) against the new Sony and Pioneer players (and others) at this price-point, but it's up there for the money right now.
However, if you've more money to spend, consider the likes of the Denon DVD-2500BT Blu-ray transport, which will deliver superior movie sound and vision (into a receiver that offer HD Audio decoding) - put quite simply, it's engineered to make more of the digital data avaialble on each Blu-ray disc (reading and transferring it more faithfully). It'll play DVDs better, too.
Up from that, better-quality components, engineering and software can yield yet more benefits - which is where you start hitting the £1000+ brigage from Denon, Sony and Pioneer, Marantz etc.