Sony PlayStation 3 Slim (120 GB)

The refreshed Sony PlayStation 3 Slim remains a top choice for anyone looking for a high-performance Blu-ray Disc player -- and a complete no-brainer for someone who is also interested in the PS3's prowess as a high-end video gaming machine. Though some stand-alone players are now quicker off the mark, the PlayStation 3 Slim is still fast enough in its own right. However, some say that performance is just a tiny bit slower than the old PS3 "fat," and they add that the disc-loading mechanism is both noisier and less smooth. Image quality with Blu-ray discs is unbeatable. Praise is harder to come by when it comes to DVD playback, though some say that it's acceptable for non-critical viewing.

Feature-wise, there's little that's not packed into the PS3 Slim. It has the decoders for the lossless TrueHD and DTS-HD Master audio formats built in, and the ability to bitstream those formats to receivers that have their own decoders is newly added and much appreciated. Netflix streaming is also now on-board (or will be in a matter of weeks). Support for BD-Live is enhanced by the inclusion of a built-in Wi-Fi radio. Because it uses Bluetooth rather than the more common RF, the PS3 doesn't play well with most universal remote controls, though some workarounds from other companies are available. You can control Blu-ray playback with the included game controller, but most will find springing for an optional A/V remote (*Est. $20) to be a worthwhile investment. Some purists are turned off by the idea of using a gaming console as a high-end Blu-ray player, but the majority of consumers don't seem to mind. Some features -- like the ability to use the Linux operating system and backward compatibility with PS2 games (though the latter feature was removed from some recent versions of the old PS3 as well) -- have been removed, but those don't impact the PS3 Slim's performance as a Blu-ray player. For more information on the PS3 Slim's game playing abilities, see the ConsumerSearch report on Video Game Consoles.

If you don't care about gaming, the LG BD390 (Discontinued) is a little bit faster, and offers most of the same features and more, including multichannel analog audio outputs. Wi-Fi streaming from the Internet is also built in, and as of November 2009, Netflix is among the available content partners. Picture quality with Blu-ray Discs and DVDs is first-rate. There are no issues if you want to use a standard universal remote for control. However, while it costs roughly the same, you can't use the LG BD390 to play video games or surf the Internet (the PS3 slim includes a basic built-in web browser). A 250 GB hard drive version of the Sony PlayStation 3 Slim (*Est. $350) is also available, but that extra hard-drive capacity is not terribly important if you'll mainly be using it to view Blu-ray Discs.