Sony Blu-ray Player BDP-S360 [Review]

Expert Rating:

Good looks, quick browsing in pop menus, quick simple interface

No YouTube or online video, no USB support, no internal memory for BD Live Content, no DivX support, no eject button on remoteAfter a long wait we finally received a Blu-ray player from Sony; the BDP-S360. The Blu-ray players we have seen so far have all had a lot of features to offer and their quality too was pretty good when compared the Sony PlayStation 3 as the benchmark. Since the PlayStation 3 and the Blu-ray player we have for review today are both Sony products, there is a lot we can expect from the player. The BDP-S360 should ideally match up or perform better than the PS3. So let's see what this Sony Blu-ray player has in store.

Build & Design

The Sony BDP-S360 has quite a resemblance to one of the previous Blu-ray players we have tested earlier. Its design is striking similar to that of the Samsung BD-P1600. We have the same glossy front encompassing the tray and the display on the BDP-S360 as well. The player size is that of a standard Blu-ray player, and is not large or bulky. The player can easily sit in your shelf without the need for creating more space in case you are replacing your old DVD Player with this one.

The face of the player has a thin bar that houses two buttons on it. At the far left is the power ON/OFF/Standby and to the right is the eject button for the tray. The buttons are finished off in chrome and can be easily spotted on the player. There isn't any Standby light on the player, which is not so much bad, as it turns off completely.

The rest of the front of the player is a flap which auto opens when the media tray is ejected. Between the flap and the thin bar there is an LED light that glows when media is inserted into the player or the player is in use. To the extreme right side of the flap is the Play and Stop buttons. To the left of the buttons is the display of the player. The display is large enough to be viewed even from a distance.

At the rear of the device there are plenty of output connectors. To the right there is a USB port that is used only to save BD Live content. To the left there is an Ethernet port, an HDMI port, Optical Audio, Coaxial and Component outputs. There is acooling fan placed in the center at the rear, which runs pretty silent as compared to other Blu-ray players I've tested till date.