Sony PS3 loses its Blu-ray crown

Reviewers have begun to weigh in on the Sony PS3 Slim's prowess as a Blu-ray player. While the new $299 price has helped re-establish the console as a great value -- especially for those interested in its game-playing abilities -- performance tests reveal some shortcomings. To be sure, tons of pluses remain, and the PS3 Slim remains a very capable Blu-ray spinner. However, if your only interest is in playing back Blu-ray discs, we think that some standalone players deserve serious consideration as well.

The biggest disappointment in reviews is that the PS3 Slim no longer wears the crown as the fastest Blu-ray player of them all. Tests at EngadgetHD reveal that while the PS3 Slim is nearly as fast as the original at start up, it lags behind by several seconds when it comes to actually getting a disc up and running . CNET benchmarks performance as well, and reports that the PS3 Slim is also slower than much of the current crop of standalone Blu-ray players, though somewhat surprisingly, the gap isn't as big with movies that are notoriously pokey to load in the first place (because of their more complex menus). On the other hand, Britain's Home Cinema Choice magazine doesn't grumble much about speeds once the disc is loaded, but says that the slot-loading mechanism itself isn't as good as the one that it is replacing.

There are other minuses as well -- the inability to stream additional content from Netflix or other providers, for example -- but also some noteworthy pluses, including the fact that the PS3 Slim still provides Blu-ray image quality that stands up well when compared to other current players. Many are also happy to see that the ability to send unprocessed high-definition audio to home theater receivers with their own decoders has finally been added; that's something that  many standalone Blu-ray players can already do. Energy efficiency is also greatly improved over the original PS3, though most other Blu-ray players remain superior in that regard.

We'll have a fresh look at Blu-ray players ready in the near future, and we'll dig even deeper into the Sony PS3 Slim's disc playing abilities then. In the meantime, our current report on Blu-ray players includes up-to-date information on some top alternatives, including the Oppo BDP-83, LG BD390 and the Panasonic DMP-BD60K.