Sony PlayStation 3 Slim Console (250GB Model)
From Sony
Customer Reviews
Well cool!
After purchasing a 40" Sony Bravia we were looking to buy a BlueRay Player - the price difference between a nice BD Player and the PS3 Slim was not hugely different so I opted for the PS3. My only other foray in to games consoles was an X-Box many years ago (which I have mainly used for playing back DVDs! The PS3 has surprised me in so many ways...
1)It's set up was very straight forward via HDMIDI cable.
2)It automatically picked up our WIFI (I thought this would have to be an extra purchase). So I can now surf the net 'big screen style!)
3)No extras are required to watch DVDs (I purchased a DVD remote for £14 as my parents found it easier to use than the controller)
4)BBC Iplayer (and Five on Demand) finally comes into its own - the streaming quality and resolution on full screen are quite incredible. (From those that I have tried, the only one I can't play is the ITV one)
5)The resolution on PS3 Games is pin sharp, the Dual Shock controller takes a bit of getting use to until you realise it moves with you! - I would recommend the Wireless mics if you want to use SingStar
I have barley touched the surface of this product yet but, if you are looking for a multimedia player that covers BlueRay, WIFI and gaming I would really recommend this to you!
The ps3 does it all
This is the new ps3 slim which i invested in shortly after they came out, the workings of console itself is the same as the original ps3 but the shell is considerably smaller and the scale on which is made and works is smaller to save power and money. This means it easier to move about becuase its smaller and lighter, its also uses about a third less energy now also.
As a games console the ps3 is excellent, it may not have as good a library of games as the xbox and it may not have as good an online service, but its online is free which is great and the games it has are now starting to show the difference graphically between the xbox and ps3 e.g. uncharted 2 against any xbox game will show the ps3 to be considerably more powerful.In saying this i don't mean the ps3 has bad games it still has some great exclusives e.g. metal gear, uncharted, killzone and little big planet to name but a few. So don't be too much put off by the 360's catalogue.
Another advantage is that you don't need to pay for the additional bits and bobs that you do with xbox e.g. if you want to go wireless its built into the ps3 but with the xbox its around £60 for the adapter, the batteries are built in rechargable with the playstation the xbox requires a play and charge kit at around £15.
The ps3 is also a media playback machine, it can play just about any common file type thrown at it except .mkv, it plays music, videos , dvds, pictures but another big advantage is it a blu-ray player built in, and not a awful quality blu-ray player , a very high quality one doe to the magnitide of processing power supporting the ps3. This is the 250GB model also, this gives you a huge amount of room to save any media you may be wanting, so you can wirelessly transfer videos over from your pc and watch them on a tv rather than a monitor. Or if you want install a full operating system on it, the hard drive has the room for it.
The only minor concern with it is it can heat up a lot when playing this is because its been smaller and therefore the heat will have more of an effect against the casing, but i just hope that it isn't too detrimental on the workings of the ps3.
Decided to upgrade from our beloved 40gb PS3 to this gorgeous thing. We've used our 40gb machine every day for either playing games or watching a blu-ray since it came out and I think what swayed us most were two things the great saving on electrical consumption and the massive hard drive.
The machine itself is a lot smaller than the original especially in height ie the old machine is nearly 4" high and this is nearly half that. Depth is about the same but on the width approximately a couple of inch has been removed and the surface texture is much improved. Although we loved the glossy finish of our old machine this matt (slightly rough) surface is much more finger-friendly. The power-on switch is now at the front with the eject button - a great improvement from having to rummage around the back of the machine, and they are both actual round buttons that click not the touch-sensitive panel, again for us an improvement, also the power cable is slightly less bulky (two pin instead of three). Other than that everything else seems the same for setting up. I checked the the latest software upgrade and ours is up-to-date.
For us a big improvement on a system that we loved anyway - very happy to recommend.
