Sony BDP-S185 Blu-Ray Disc Player (2012 Model)

They didn't include the remote, so had to return it.I've had this issue with Sony before, in fact, I took two 25 lb weights (for arm curls), with the sony unit (that I couldn't find the remote for, none of the sony/universal remotes I had worked with it, about 20 tried), and I threw the weights as hard as I could at the player... BAM! SMASHED THE CRUD OUT OF IT, picked them up and SMASHED THEM AGAIN... OK, I was out the cost of the player, but no 'dvd player' (or BluRay player) should fail to work WITHOUT THE REMOTE, for God's sake, put a stupid set of buttons on the unit so I can move the cursor and select the 'play' (because, some idiot didn't set it up so if you hit the 'play' button on the unit it sends the center button if the 'play' feature has been disabled.Sony should either fix this, or get the heck out of the business. To be fair, a lot of other idiot companies are doing it too, but that is no excuse for not including a 10 cent button on the unit...To make matters worse, I bought this unit for a gift for my brother, that I had given 100 DVDs to and a bunch of BluRays, so now he has to print a label and return it..I used to have a Sony TV, it lasted 2 decades, but when I bought it, it didn't have the remote, and ONLY THAT REMOTE would allow you to use the stupid thing fully... this was around 1990, so in 31 YEARS Sony hasn't learned, and I doubt they will listen now, but still...

We got a defective unit so we sent it back. Now, I would have ordered another one and simply swapped it out but the company refused to allow me to return it. They're a third-party company, not affiliated with SONY. It was only after I got in contact with Amazon CS that my issue was resolved. They allowed me to return it and refunded me. Even Sony tech support was lovely. The woman apologized and told me I had a defective unit after she attempted to repair it via remote signal. That's that and I thought it was over. Then the first phone call came. A man from the Video & Audio Center (place of purchase) called and told me to remove my feedback or they would be forced to file a complaint. I was like, "Are you kidding me?" I called Amazon and let them know. They flagged the company. The second call came a week later. It was a young lady and she sounded like she'd been dealing with this rubbish all day. She asked me to remove the review and offered me a $15 giftcard for my trouble. I hung up and called Amazon. They removed the company from Amazon completely. If this had turned out any other way, I would still only have given it 1 star but that's not the point. A company based in Dubai should know that business is done slightly different in the US and the UK. I'm going to rate the overall experience: 1 star.

I bought this as a "family" Christmas gift and of course put it to use immediately as is a mom's prerogative to do. I chose this blu-ray player out of all the ones offered by Amazon for one reason - it plays every app imaginable. It includes Amazon video, Netflix, Hulu plus, Pandora, Crackle, YouTube, Cinema Now, Vudu and more. I bought a new unit not a refurbished one and it was on sale for $68. I also had the option of buying an HDMI cable ( DVI Gear HDMI Cable 2M 6 feet , $3.98) that was available as an add-on only item (which confused me as the cable shipped separately from my order and arrived 2 days before my blu-ray player) which I bought because the blu-ray player does not come with one. Most electronics that use HDMI cables these days require that you buy one separately which I personally hate, but what can you do, right? It does come with the red/white/yellow cable so you can hook it up without using an HDMI cable but you won't get the best picture possible using the cable that comes with it.It comes with a child lock for the drawer so you don't have to worry about little ones putting foreign objects into the disc tray. It also has parental controls that apply to the discs being played and to the internet content and is password controlled. I haven't personally used the parental controls yet so I don't know how effective or ineffective they are.In addition to the expected blu-rays and dvds the owner's manual says it plays DVD-R/W discs that have been finalized, but it also says it won't play unauthorized copies of copyrighted media. It has a usb port to play stuff stored on your thumb drives. It also displays photos and plays music cds. The list of file types that it recognizes and plays is way too long for me to list them all here.Back to the blu-ray player - It has a very small footprint when compared to others that I've looked at. It measures 11.5 inches wide, 7.5 inches from front to back and 1.75 inches tall. It plays both DVDs and blu-ray discs which is the norm. It has a ton of options and different things to watch but you have to have a high-speed internet connection to use them and an Ethernet cable to plug the blu-ray player into the modem. Also to watch Netflix, Hulu plus and Amazon video you must subscribe to each service separately. Hulu is $7.99 monthly, Netflix is (with no DVDs by mail) $4.99 a month for limited streaming or $7.99 a month for unlimited streaming and Amazon instant video is free when you are an Amazon Prime member at $79 a year or a $7.99 a month plan. The month by month plans can be canceled at any time, but will end your ability to watch them on your blu-ray player, but while active your subscriptions allow you to watch on your PC and a multitude of other devices like tablets and smart phones.I think it's worth it to have all three, but that's just my individual preference mostly because my 6 year old daughter loves the options offered by these services (mostly Netflix for watching what is available on DVD already and Hulu Plus for watching current TV shows.) and I use Prime for it's free shipping mostly and have only used the video service once. Some of the available services like Pandora are free and some like Vudu are like a pay-per-view channel. All in all it offers options for just about everyone.There are drawbacks in my opinion. 1)The need to pay for each service separately and the confusing menu. It took a few days for my husband and daughter to learn how to use it without asking me for help as I'm the only one who read the instruction book. 2) You have to plug it into your modem to enable these services. While It didn't make a difference for me because my modem is right next to my TV it may be something that is inconvenient for others. 3) You have to go online and register your blu-ray player with Sony and connect each of your accounts to your blu-ray player individually. It took me about 30 minutes to get it hooked up to my TV, register with Sony and connect each of the services I subscribe to.Keep in mind that I don't use all of the available services and I'm not a Mrs Fix it type when it comes to electronics. It may take you more or less time to finish this process.Bottom line: my family and I are enjoying our new blu-ray player. We can watch or listen to just about anything we want to whenever we want to. It is an enjoyable versatile addition to our home electronics set up. I think just about everyone that's in the market for a blu-ray player would find this unit to be more than acceptable - even desirable.UPDATE: My daughter just tried to play a blu-ray disc (RIO the animated bird movie) and we ran into a problem. It wouldn't play. The screen displayed a message stating (not precisely word for word but really close): This disc requires local storage of 1 MB or more in order to play. Your device is set up for local storage, but no storage device was found. I contacted Sony by way of customer support live chat and was told that I need to purchase a usb memory stick of 1 GB or larger to correct this problem. I find this annoying to say the least. If I had known this when I bought the blu-ray player I would have bought a usb thumb drive at the same time. My daughter is now watching the dvd version of RIO with no problem (we have the triple disc package) but now I need to go get that thumb drive because the blu-ray disc contains games that she was looking forward to playing.