Sony BDPS7200 Dual Core 3D 4K Upscaling Blu-ray Player with Wi-Fi (2014 Model)

I have had this Sony BDPS7200 Blu-ray player for about 2 months and so far there have been no issues with its operation and function. My main concern when ordering was several reviews stating there was a problem with "freeze-ups" while streaming or even when first turning the unit on, requiring a hard reboot (i.e., unplugging from the mains receptacle). I have previously had this problem personally with other Sony Blu-ray players, but so far after many hours of use, the unit has performed perfectly. And the picture quality is excellent! I am glad that, at least for this model, Sony abandoned the stealth fighter look of previous players, and returned to a more traditional rectangular cabinet, which fits better (both aesthetically and functionally) with other components of similar size and shape. If I had to find a negative, it would be the diminutive remote control. Although functional, I wish Sony had kept the larger remote size, which were easier to hold and operate than the remote included with this player.

Not perfect, but overall I am pleased with this unit. I was tentative about purchasing this unit after reading about so many lockup issues, but decided to take a chance anyway. Styling wise, the player has a nice understated, yet upscale look. And I really like having a display which the lower model 2015 Sony's do not have. Then I set it on the shelf of my entertainment center and it was wobbly on the feet, which was disappointing for a supposedly top of the line unit. I couldn't really determine definitively if the case was slightly twisted or if two of the feet on opposite end corners (diagonally) were higher than the other two. After paying a somewhat premium price, I started to call Amazon and return it as a defective unit but decided to place a 1/16" rubber pad under one of the feet to stabilize the player and connected the unit to my system to see how it performed first.After working thru a failure to connect to the internet thru my wired network that turned out to be a bad connector on my ethernet cable, I fired the Sony up. I have owned 3 other Sony BD players over the last 5 years, so setup was similar and no trouble even though this unit has many more setup options due to it's advanced capabilities. Fairly straightforward menu navigation. Operationally, with content streamed over the internet the picture is awesome, much better than my Roku 3. The circuitry to enhance streamed content appears to work very well. Upscaling of standard DVD's to near HD picture is equally impressive. The picture quality from Blu Ray disc playback is very good also and the audio via my Denon AVR-X3000 is impressive. I can't comment on 3D playback or 4K upconversion performance.I was torn between this unit and a Yamaha BD-S677. In spite of the reported lockup issues with the S7200, one of the reasons I decided to go with this Sony is it's high resolution file playback capablity. It can play WAV, FLAC, ALAC, AIFF, DSD and DSDIFF 192kHz/24bit files while the Yamaha can only play WAV, FLAC, and ALAC 192kHz/24bit files. Both can play SACD discs. I have not tested all file types, but did play WAV, FLAC, and DSD64 files from a USB stick via the front connector and the unit performed awesome. The manual states that these type files can only be played thru the USB connector and only stereo, but I have some multi channel WAV files that it played, plus I streamed FLAC files from my PC over my home network. So thumbs up on the hi res file playback capability.Now the not so good part. It appears to only happen with the Amazon streaming app, but after streaming from Amazon for 20 minutes to 1 1/2 hours the unit does lock up. The only button on the remote that will respond is the OFF button, and then the unit shuts off and flashed OFF on the display until you unplug the power cord and reset the unit. Very annoying. I searched the internet and found several references to similar behavior attributed to the Amazon app. Kind of ironic - I have a membership to Amazon Prime, purchased this unit and received it in 2 days thru Amazon Prime, yet I cannot watch Amazon Prime (or purchased Amazon content) using this Sony. I tried several other streaming apps, including Netflix, and have not experienced any issues with them - just with the Amazon app. Likewise, I have played several Blu Ray and DVD discs along with CD's and SACD discs with no issues.I am pleased with the S7200's performance and capabilities, so I will be keeping it unless it starts to misbehave in any mode other than Amazon streaming. The picture and sound are amazing and I am pleased with this purchase. The uneven feet do not seem to cause any issues and the disc playback is smooth and quiet. (I had tried a Sony S6500 from BB prior to this purchase, but it vibrated terribly during disc playback and locked up also - so it was returned) .

This is a slightly mixed-bag but overall I find it to be quite a disappointment, particularly for the money.I can't really say anything bad about the principal function of the device -- the BluRay playback. It works well enough and so far as I can tell the picture quality is fine (I don't really have a television capable of showing off its strengths), but all of that is dependent on a very big "if" which is, IF the machine is working at all, which isn't that common as it turns out. It seems to lock up all the time and when it does, the only way to get it working again is to power cycle it . . . and the only way to do that is to unplug it. In my case, as I am sure is the same for many others -- the plug is behind an entertainment center in a place very difficult to access so unplugging it is no treat. Would it have been so hard to allow one to reboot the thing by holding in the power button for a few seconds or even to use a power cord which can be unplugged at the unit? (or better yet, create software for the thing which actually works rather than locking up).Offhand it seems to have a lot of features but then for its price (did I mention it's kind of pricey?) it should have a lot of features. On the other hand, those features don't really work all that well. For all of the features which require connecting to the internet, good luck -- that's certainly no treat. Half the time it simply fails to connect to anything with no error message or anything -- it just quits trying after a few seconds. I can repeat trying until the cows come home and nothing happens. I have verified that it is connected to the router, there is nothing blocking its access to the internet -- it just fails to work. Usually I can get it to work by going through the "Easy Network Setup" routine once again (even though the network was already setup and working -- it has no trouble, for instance, accessing DLNA servers on my local network). Most of the time that will allow it to access internet based services though, even after that, it sometimes fails two or three times before it finally works. Once it does start working, it can take forever for it to actually access a service -- using my XBox 360, for instance, I can access Amazon Home Video within seconds -- it can take several minutes to do so using the Sony. And then, after watching a video, that's one of the times that it frequently locks up -- rather than going back to the app, the screen just goes black and the unit refuses to respond to almost anything (interestingly, if I press the button to open the disc tray at that point I will see a message that the function isn't available at that point -- fine, but then no other functions are available either). The DLNA functions are not that impressive either -- for instance, it doesn't seem capable of playing mpeg files.As others have pointed out, its connection options are pretty limited. While i don't find that particularly limiting -- HDMI is enough for my purposes -- at the price they are asking, they ought to at least offer some flexibility. Also, as some have pointed out, the unit seems rather flimsy -- unless something breaks on it, I don't know if that's a legitimate criticism but it doesn't inspire confidence, particularly given how poorly nearly everything else works.Basically, the only thing which really seems to work well is the BluRay function and that only works when the unit isn't locked up. Not much of an endorsement and I probably could have done a lot better at a fraction of the cost.