Projectors Reviews, price and comparision

You don't always get what you pay for. Sometimes, an expensive device can be overshadowed by its less pricey competitors. At $299.99 (list), the 3D-enabled Sharp BD-HP35U is certainly priced to be a premium Blu-ray player. It even has the stylish chassis of a premium Blu-ray player. Unfortunately, beyond its shiny surface and hefty price tag lie some issues that make the player pale in comparison with its $200 competitors.

Design
The front of the 2.0-by-15.9-by-7.8-inch (HWD), 5.1-pound player is flat, black, and glossy. A ring of blue LEDs in the center and a small LCD on the left side of the front panel serve as notification lights for the BD-HP35U. The disc tray comes out of the right side of the front panel. Power, Tray Open/Close, and Playback Control buttons sit on the top edge of the left side of the panel, giving you some control without the remote. Finally, there's a USB port under the buttons, ready to accept a flash drive or the included Wi-Fi dongle. The outputs on the back of the player are barebones: HDMI and optical audio are the only outputs, joined by a second USB port and an Ethernet jack. It's odd to see a Blu-ray player without some sort of analog output like component video. The second USB port is important, because the BD-HP35U doesn't have any onboard memory; if you want to access BD-Live features without an Ethernet connection, you'll need both ports, one for a USB flash drive and the other for the Wi-Fi dongle. About that dongle: While the player doesn't come with built-in Wi-Fi, the small dongle that enables Wi-Fi networking is bundled. It's a tiny plastic rectangle that fits unassumingly into the player's front USB port without jutting out too much.

The 6.6-inch remote is simple and functional, with no bells, whistles, or wasted buttons. While the Playback buttons feel a bit small, the number navigation pads are easy to find under your thumb, and a separate column of TV buttons (Power, Input, Volume, and Channel) can access basic HDTV functions if the display is HDMI-CEC compatible. This type of control can be assured with Sharp's HDMI-CEC-enabled LC-60LE835U ($2,799.99, 3.5 stars) 60-inch HDTV that shares the BD-HP35U's 3D capabilities.

The BD-HP35U's on-screen interface is rough and unattractive. It offers very little in the way of graphical flourishes or animations, and only a sparse handful of icons to add variety against the harsh, blocky text of the menus. The menu system looks more like a service back-end interface, like one a repairman would activate when fixing your cable box. Compared with the much more polished interfaces seen in Sony, Samsung, and Panasonic's Blu-ray players, Sharp's menu system just looks, well, ugly.

Unfortunately, the Web apps available on the player are limited; you can access Netflix, Vudu, YouTube, CinemaNow, Pandora, and that's pretty much it. It's a small selection compared with the services you can find on the Sony BDP-S770 ($249.99, 3.5 stars) or Samsung's BD-C6500 ($249.99, 4 stars), for example.

Performance
According to our lab speed tests, the BD-HP35U is a very sluggish player. Like most Blu-ray devices, it has a quick start-up feature that lets the player boot up faster. Without the quick start-up feature enabled, it took an average of 27.3 seconds to turn on and reach the Main Menu screen. With the feature enabled, it took approximately 3 seconds to start. However, the feature made the deck shut down slower, and a full power cycle of turning the player off and turning it back on again took about as much time as it took to start up without the feature. Our older, non-BD-Live test disc (Talladega Nights) took a respectable average of 16.6 seconds to start. Our BD-Live test discs (Predators and It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia Season 5) took much more time; the Blu-ray Disc disclaimer screen appeared in an average of 47 seconds, and the first video, in the form of the studio logo sequence and FX network trailer, respectively, appeared in an average of 1 minute and 25.7 seconds. If you want to watch a newer Blu-ray Disc, you have time to get a cup of coffee after closing the player's tray. The Sony BDP-S770, in contrast, loads non-BD-Live discs in 15.5 seconds and BD-Live discs in 29.7 seconds.

According to Sharp, the BD-HC35U can only process and output 1080p video at 24 frames per second (fps), the standard rate of film. Because of this, the player failed all of our motion processing tests for 30/60 frames per second video. It still showed the video, but it was jerky and produced tearing in moving text and panning scenes. It performed very well in film motion processing tests with 24fps video, but when watching television shows on Blu-Ray (or any other video recorded at 30 fps), the player shows its faults. For a Blu-ray player, 3D performance can be evaluated so far as its ability to read 3D media; everything after that relies upon the 3D display's ability to show the picture. The BD-HC35U could read the discs and send the picture to our test HDTV, so it passes that test at least.

The blue circle and smart design might make the Sharp BD-HC35U look striking, but under the hood it's a mediocre Blu-ray player with a high price. An unattractive interface with few Web services, slow load speeds, and a bizarre quirk with 30fps video detract from this player's appeal. The $250 Sony BDP-S770 or the Vizio VBR-W200 ($199.99, 3.5 stars) cost less and offer better overall performance, more pleasing menu systems, and a wider array of Web apps.