Sony BDP-S350

Roundup: Three Blu-ray players for less than $300

During the 2008 holiday season, we found plenty of affordable Blu-ray players to recommend under $300. Fast-forward a couple months, and we're surprised to find that many of those players are either discontinued (Panasonic DMP-BD35) or are no longer discounted.

You can still get a few Blu-ray players for a bargain, but you'll have to give up some features to get under the $300 mark. None of these players have multichannel analog-audio outputs and they also lack onboard decoding for DTS-HD Master Audio. That being said, most people won't have any complaints with the Blu-ray image quality … Read more

CRUTCHFIELD has the Sony BDP-S350 Blu-ray Disc high-definition player for $269.99, after $30 savings, plus free shipping.

CRUTCHFIELD has Sony BDP-S350 Blu-ray Disc high-definition player for $269.99, after $30 savings, plus free shipping. >> Regular price is $299.99 >> Sale price is $269.99 >> Savings $30 (10%) >> Click here for deal

Sony BDP-S350 gets BD-Live firmware update, price drop

Sony has added BD-Live capability to the BDP-S350, making good on a promise it made when the Blu-ray player was released earlier this year. The upgrade is available as a free firmware update for existing users; it downloads and installs to the unit straight over the Internet at the click of a button. Even better, the price of the player has dropped to $300. That means--for the time being, at least--the player is 25 percent more affordable than the PlayStation 3. … Read more

Blu-ray players rumored to hit $249 by autumn

Sony will be dropping the prices on its standalone (non-PlayStation 3) Blu-ray players by $100 in September, according to an anonymous source cited by CE insider Gary Merson on his HD Guru Web site.

Around the same time, the source claims that budget players manufactured by Funai and sold under the labels Philips, Magnavox, Sylvania, and Insignia could drop as low as $249. Specifically, the Sony BDP-S350 would drop from $400 to $300, and the as-yet-unreleased step-up model, the BDP-S550, would be introduced at $400, instead of the $500 price that was previously announced.

Now, anonymous sources are a dime a dozen on the Internet, but our normal degree of "beware stuff you see on a blog" cynicism is tempered by two points. First: Merson's had a good track record on getting the inside scoop on forthcoming price drops in the past (example). Second, the fact that prices are coming down as we approach the all-important holiday buying season just makes sense--we'd be more surprised if the prices didn't fall. … Read more

Review: Sony BDP-S350

We know you may not be interested in a standalone Blu-ray player, but at least the Sony BDP-S350 brings something new to the table.

We just posted our full review, and as you can tell from the image, the BDP-S350 is smaller than any other Blu-ray player we've seen, measuring just 8.75 inches deep. It also has a quick start feature, which powers on the player in just a few seconds, although engaging the feature means the BDP-S350 will sip about 9 watts of juice even when it's powered "off."

Most importantly to videophiles, the image quality is actually pretty good, surpassing most of its budget competition and only slightly stumbling on video-based Blu-ray discs.

So why did the BDP-S350 get a relatively lukewarm rating?… Read more