What's not to like about PS3? Playing videos games, accessing PlayStation Network, intuitive firmware updates via WIFI/ LAN/Flash Media, abundance of video formats support and least but not last, most consistent and fastest loading time Blu-ray player to date.

Japanese site PhileWeb has put a 2nd generation BD recorder, a few 3rd generation Blu-Ray standalones, and the good old PS3 http://www.phileweb.com/review/article/200810/31/12.html; no surprises here, PS3 once again came out on top in terms of disc loading speed.

If you have one of those older generation Blu-ray players, you know how frustrating it can be when it comes to loading BD-JAVA interactive menu. Painfully slow! The newest Sony entry level BDP-S350 and a $2,000 flagship BDP-S5000ES promise an improvement in this area, but how do the 3rd generation BD players stack up against the cell-power PS3?

Still behind... test after test PS3 has proved to be the fastest load times out of any standalone BD players. Can any BD player come even close to the PlayStation 3? It better be equipped with a Sigma design SoC SMP 8644.

Title in test: Men in Black
Sony PS3: 43 seconds
Sony BDP-S350?66 seconds
Sony BDP-S5000ES?67 seconds
Sony BD Recorder: BDZ-T50: 80 seconds
Sony BD Recorder: BDZ-X100?81 seconds

The author went beyond player's loading times, comparing DVD-upconvert quality among the 5 units; and the result from PS3 is not too far off up against the flagship S500ES.

Judging from the screenshots (linked above), the appearance of background lines on the S500ES would add more detail to overall picture from a viewing distance, as the author put it, more high definition look. Frankly, it's darn hard to tell a difference.. you be the judge! More PlayStation 3 News...