Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony BDP-S350 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player

My good friend has one of these, and she loves it. I am looking for a blue ray player, but at this price i might as well go for the PS3, unless this were to drop down to 250, at that price ppl would buy this over the PS3 any day of the week. I might even buy two. one for my parents and my self. hehehe

Had a case of the wants based on all the glowing reviews of a better picture. The first generation machines appeared to have had too many downsides but this second generation addressed some of those problems such as very slow loading. It's still slow but not terribly. But there are still issues. How good a picture you see on your TV will depend on the quality of your equipment and the quality of the production of the Blu-ray disc which you have no control over and to my knowledge know way to know until it's plugged in, they're not all the same. Of the four discs I tried, three worked and one didn't. The one that didn't work appeared to be flaw free it just would not load, the other three worked fine. Was there a remarkable huge difference in picture quality as some have stated (yes I have a rather new 1080P TV), no despite what some have stated. I looked at four displays at Best Buy and had the same impression there but I still bought the Sony, brought it home and decided it wasn't worth it, it's going back today. I'll wait until the cost comes down, and it will, then I'll try again. By the way Sony tech support for this model is weak, sounded as if I was talking to a Munchkin from Mars. And as an aside some pundit from the electronics industry said Blu-ray would be dead in five years, ten at most but that won't keep me from trying again in six months to a year.

Well I waited and the cost has dropped dramatically, $150 plus shipping direct from Sony with 12 month interest free financing. This unit has played all discs, standard DVD's look very well also but I stand by my original assessment. With a split screen display at a retailer I could see a difference but I had to look for the differences. It could be that the Sony just plays the standard DVD's that well. The bonus with the Bluray are the extras, better sound if you have a receiver to that takes advantage among others.

Based on the new unit it would be four stars now but as many have stated Amazon doesn't allow a star rating update.

I'll keep it short:

1 - Picture is not as sharp. (Ex: I have a Toshiba HD-DVD connected to the same TV and THAT'S what HD should look like. This machine looks like a slightly sharper regular DVD player)

2 - broke after 6 months, had to replace

3 - Cannot upscale regular DVDs to save it's life.

4- takes too long to start up

5 - remote control is sluggish

I bought SONY because they invented the format. Going to purchase Panasonic next.

I did a side by side comparison with the PS3. The PS3 loads disks more than twice as fast. Plus some newer Blu-ray disks wouldn't even work on this model. The PS3 also has a great system for storing pictures, videos, and music. Don't waste your money on this...get the PS3 even if you don's play games.

It is still too early to give a great review, but so far it has been very good. I need more time to be very accurate. Come back in 2 months and I will give a very accurate review.