Sony BDP-S6200 review

The BDP-S6200 is by far the biggest Blu-ray machine Sony has in 2014, but it also carries by far the biggest price tag. Does it do enough beyond the niche appeal of mediocre 4K upscaling?

We liked

It loads discs and apps faster than any other Sony Blu-ray player, and it does make Blu-ray discs look better on an Ultra HD 4K TV than Sony's other machines, though only keen eyes will notice. Apps are plentiful and just as impressive as the BDP-S6200's disc-spinning skills is USB playback. Attach a thumbdrive and the BDP-S6200 can play all manner of file formats, from MKV, MOV and AVI to music in MP4, M4A and WMA – and even lossless AIFF, FLAC and WAV – formats. What's more, there are USB slots on both the front and back of the BDP-S6200.

We disliked

Where's ITV Player and 4OD on the UK version? Without them, SEN is incomplete – and UK buyers will be tempted with Samsung devices or YouView.

The provision of Opera TV Store is an attempt to add more value, but it only clutters-up an already old-looking user interface and there are zero apps within it worth using. Usability of SEN apps is hampered by having them on a scroll-down menu that seems to go on forever. It needs to rank them by most used.

Also for a high-end Blu-ray machine with (mostly unconvincing) 4K upscaling, the BDP-S6200 lets itself down with the remote control. A plastic device that's smaller than a phone, it sports two big shortcut buttons – blue for SEN and red for Netflix. We're not sure where the Amazon Instant button will go on next year's remote, or whatever other on-demand services catch-on. The lack of analogue audio outputs might annoy some, too.

Final verdict

Do you need Ultra HD 4K upscaling? Probably not, but we all know where this is heading. Your next TV will likely be an UHD TV, but by the time you buy it 4K upscaling will have gone to a whole new level than what the BDP-S6200 can muster. In which case we're left with dual core processing (and so a speedier, though ageing user interface), a bigger physical footprint and unconvincing 4K upscaling as the only features that lift the BDP-S6200 above its cheaper sibling, the BDP-S5200.

Comparisons aside, however, the BDP-S6200 has a decent smart TV apps package, excellent digital file support, and unquestionable quality in in both 2D and 3D Blu-ray disc playback.