IFA 2011: Hands-On with Sony Blu-ray Player

The segment of media players and other multimedia devices is one that grew substantially over the past few years, economic recession or no, and Sony just made its most recent move in this field.

The 2011 IFA trade show already got us much to talk and write about, as obvious from how we set up a special section for all the news coming from there.

Two of our fellow editors even went to the event and spent their time getting up close and personal with many a gadget and electronic consumer, in addition to PCs.

Sony is one company that brought an extensive collection of new and old things to the exhibition, like the NEX-7 digital camera and the Tablet P (which we even caught on video) and other things.

There was even the SMP-N200, a media player that can connect to the net and also play media off USB storage devices, like flash drives and HDDs.

On the subject of multimedia, Sony also created a new Blu-ray player, one that we also managed to snap a few photos of.

The product bears the name of BDP-S185 and features the Precision Cinema HD Upscale technology, which enhances the quality of videos in lower formats.

The product can actually play 1,080p media with no issue and, to make it matter, Sony put in an HDMI output.

Furthermore, though playing optical disks is its primary purpose, the BDP-S185 has a USB port as well, meaning that it should be able to do the same as the SMP-N200 above.

The company also threw in the XrossMediaBar, which makes navigation fast and images more realistic, and smooth.

Finally, compared to the 2010 BDP-S370, the newcomer consumes 47% less power (19W-20W), in addition to other benefits, like smaller CO2 footprint and width. No pricing and availability details exist, unfortunately.



Note: Fellow editors Cosmin Vasile and Sorin Nita are on the floor at the 2011 IFA Show and are keeping us posted with pictures and live reports on the latest product previews and launches.