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Review on πŸ“€ Sony BDP-S380 Blu-ray Disc Player (Black) (2011 Model): High-Quality Entertainment at Your Fingertips by David Plunkett

Revainrating 5 out of 5

It works flawlessly after a firmware update

I've had a standalone Sony Blu Ray player since June 2009 years and never had a problem with it. From time to time I get a rental CD with problems but I put them in other players and they have problems in the same spot so this is definitely a CD. I bought this model as my third (after my Playstation 3) player in June. 2011. It doesn't have the funny (albeit nonsensical) flapper door that my 2009 player has, but it seems Java stuff commonly used on Blu-ray discs, run slightly faster (probably it has a faster processor and/or more RAM). So I would give this model 5 stars. except that unlike my 2009 model, this one turned off as a power saver if you stopped the drive for too long. That was fine for a DVD as it could return to the same spot fairly quickly, but most Blu-rays would "forget" the spot when you turn it back on. My 2009 player was spinning the disc after about 5 minutes, which seemed like a good solution for both disc storage and power saving. Well, the good news is that after a firmware update, this 2011 model now also stops the drive instead of shutting it down completely. There may still be a setting to turn it off entirely, but I find it absolutely frustrating having to remember to write down where you were on the disc and then rewind to it - I could end up doing this dozens of times a day, and this "feature" would cost the player the same as at least 2 stars for me, although everything else works great. Now this behavior has changed - I easily give 5 stars here and recommend it to others. It runs everything I put on it, it's quiet, it's a year old, no issues etc. Seems like they've added some new streaming features since I bought it, but I use those things in the Not at the moment so can't comment on it. It's cool that they're adding it retrospectively. TO EDIT: I think I should mention that if you are looking for a Blu-Ray player, it might be worth taking a look at a Playstation 3 such as the PlayStation 3 160GB system. You are not silent

Pros
  • Instantly stream a variety of movies, TV shows, sports, videos and music from Netflix, YouTube, Pandora, Hulu Plus and more
Cons
  • I'll write back later