Sony BDP S300 - Expert Reviews

Pros: >Solid picture performance., 24p and analogue surround outputs included. ,

Cons: Build quality and performance no better than rivals. Lethargic operation.

Verdict: A decent effort at an affordable player, but most people would be better off with a PS3 instead.

Review summary: Blu-ray offers a revolution in home cinema, with top-quality pictures and better sound than you've ever heard from your favourite movies. With hundreds of titles already on sale, and blockbusters such as Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End on the wa

Review summary: It seems Sony has come up with a winner in the battle to build a less-expensive Blu-ray player. Other than the maddeningly slow menu navigation and one-time near-crash, the BDP-S300 performed beautifully, and it has a nice feature set. Perhaps most import

Review summary: While the PS3 remains a top-notch Blu-ray player with video game capability thrown in as an extra feature (do I hear groans from Sony marketing?), there are plenty of us who would rather have a dedicated BD player in the house than a game console. The BDP

Pros: Superb playback of Blu-ray Discs, Good upconversion of standard definition DVDs from the HDMI output, Affordably priced

Cons: Sluggish disc loading, though competitive with most current Blu-ray players, Will not decode Dolby TrueHD, Will not properly play the advanced extra features and games on some discs, Occasional freeze-ups

Pros: Excellent picture quality on Blu-ray and DVD; DVD upconversion up to 1080p; HDMI output.

Cons: No onboard Dolby TrueHD decoding; slow load times, particularly unbearable on newer BD Java discs like

Verdict: The BDP-S300 is a decent choice if you're limiting yourself to a relatively cheap, standard-design Blu-ray player, but everyone else should consider the competition.