Sony BDP-S350 review

The BDP-S350 was a Profile 1.1 player at its launch but Sony has made good on its promise and made it Profile 2.0 through a firmware update.

You'll need to leave a flash drive in the rear-mounted USB port to access BD Live content, though. S-video and coaxial S/PDIF interfaces are unusual inclusions, but are hardly essential. The smart onscreen menus mimic the PlayStation 3's, and HD photo slideshows from data discs are handled elegantly.

Performance was almost the fastest of any player on test, taking one minute and 42 seconds on average to show the main menu of a Blu-ray disc. We had to use the Quick Start mode to achieve this, though, which increases standby power from 1W to 8W. Deactivating Quick Start added 20 seconds to startup times, but this is still faster than average. Using the player was fast, too, with menus reloading quickly and an accurate response to multiple chapter-skip requests. The ability to jump back by 10 seconds is great for catching a line of dialogue again, but there's no slow-motion or frame-advance playback. Blu-ray disc playback produced biting detail but the HQV test disc indicated that de-interlacing of 1080i footage could be better. DVD playback was excellent, producing impressive detail enhancement without excessive compression artefacts. Codes that make the S350 play multi-region DVDs are easy to find online.

This player isn't perfect. It can't decode DTS HD Master Audio soundtracks, although it can send the signal to a compatible AV receiver. The Home button on the remote control, just below the navigation pad, is in effect the same as Stop. It's a little too easy to press by accident, and having to go through all the copyright notices and menus on discs that don't let you pick up where you left off is annoying. It's also disappointing that DVDs in 4:3 aspect ratio are stretched to widescreen, although this isn't hard to fix using your TV's settings. Sony's PlayStation 3 doesn't share any of these issues, but the S350's lower price, lower running costs and quieter operation make it our favourite set-top player.