The Sony UBP-X700 is at the leading edge of 4K Blu-ray technology and rewards with a solid performance at an inexpensive price. Find more in our Sony UBP-X700 Streaming 4K Ultra HD Review And Best Price.
The Good The Sony UBP-X700 may be a compact powerhouse that gives similar performance and better features than the X800 for a $50 discount. The player includes a number of streaming options, and Dolby Vision support is forthcoming.The time it takes for the player to load Netflix is insanely fast.
The Bad Only supports streaming 4K HDR from YouTube. Both cheaper competitors and Sony’s own X800 offer better DVD performance.
Sony UBP-X700 Streaming 4K Ultra HD Best Price
4K Blu-ray is growing up. Current players offer better performance and cheaper prices than their predecessors. the newest batch of UHD players are available for between $100 and $200 and offer things the first adopters couldn’t, including compatibility with Dolby Vision discs.
With a software update available later this year, the Sony X700 will work with Dolby Vision-encoded discs, lending owners of DV-equipped TVs a way of future-proofing.
Unlike the cheaper LG UP870 and therefore the Oppo UBP-203, which are strictly disc players, the Sony UBP-X700 offers the simplest of both disc media and streaming. It’s relatively fast, offers all of the apps you would like , and its picture quality is top notch.
“But what about the Sony X800?”, you would possibly say, especially as that one’s not departure . Performance-wise may be a “> it is a wash between the 2 Sony players — the most benefit to the costlier model is a nicer-looking box and marginally better DVD performance. At a $50 saving and with the promise of Dolby Vision within the future, there is no real reason to not buy the X700. Don’t need streaming, though? save money and obtain the equally impressive LG UP870.
The Sony UBP-X700 is out there for $199, £269 or AU$349.
Sony UBP-X700 Streaming 4K Ultra HD Review
Design and features
In terms of design, the X700 sits somewhere between the up-market, book-like X800 and compact HD models just like the BDP-S3700 The X700 measures a foot across and boasts a two-tone finish, but it lacks a display on the front panel — all you will find there are play and eject buttons. To the left of the front panel may be a drop-down drawer that hides the disc mechanism.
Apart from the planning , what’s the difference between the X700 and therefore the $250 X800? Two words: Dolby Vision. nobody likes a format war, but Dolby’s baby is one among a couple of HDR technologies vying for your attention. While support isn’t coming till mid-2018, the X700 also includes the more widespread HDR 10, so you will have most of the bases covered.
Connectivity
Connectivity is just like the X800’s with two HDMI ports — one for audio and video and a second for decoding audio from an older, non-4K-sporting AV receiver. The player also comes with a coaxial digital port, which may be a bit unusual, as most TVs and sound bars support optical, plus it offers a USB connection.
The menu is sensibly laid out and just about just like the X800’s, plus the X700 has most of the apps you’ll invite , including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Panora, Spotify and Hulu. The player also supports 4K streaming from Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and YouTube, but only the latter in HDR. Lastly, If you somehow still need it the player includes Miracast for streaming your mobile device’s screen to your player also as DLNA.
The remote is compact and fun with quick access to most of the functions you will need .
Sony UBP-X700 Streaming 4K Ultra HD performance Review
There’s a reason Sony players are so popular — in our testing they need proven to be consistently good performers — and therefore the X700 again acquits itself quite well. We found it had been equally comfortable with HD discs, 4K Blu-ray and YouTube HDR streams. Compared to the X800 though, the more-expensive player was a touch bit better at playing DVDs, with less moire on the sides of the buildings in our Star Trek test disc. The X700 gives you a choice of two different settings for upscaling — Auto1 (2K) and Auto2 (4K). As Auto1 (2) was better than Auto2 with this test, which indicates that the scaler in our LG OLED TV was taking up the work to bring it to 4K. against this , we found both the LG UP X870 and Sony X800 to try to to a far better job of reproducing DVDs with less jaggies.
So the X700 put during a good show picture quality-wise and in terms of speed it had been equally adept. Most surprising was how quickly the player loaded Netflix — at just one .89 seconds it is the fastest a player has ever performed this test. It felt instantaneous. While we might always recommend a fanatical Roku box rather than a Blu-ray as your main streamer the X700 may be a excellent alternative. That said, the X800 is not any slouch either — since we first checked out the X800, its loading times have also improved, and on the disc side it’s now the second-quickest at loading the Batman versus Superman 4K BD.
Finally, we watched variety of HDR discs, both in HDR 10 and Dolby Vision. Why Dolby Vision when it isn’t supported yet? We had some troubles last year with the Xbox One ($500 at Amazon) overblowing HDR highlights on the Dolby-sporting Despicable Me 2 test disc and wanted to ascertain if the X700 did an equivalent . the solution is, no; it simply read the HDR 10 layer and relayed it without issue.
Likewise, Mad Max Fury Road looked lovely, with a way more natural palette when played through the LG OLED55C8P TV than we’d seen previously. once you first see the procession of vehicles as they chase the war-truck (Chapter 2 17.00), the ultra-red details of the flaming exhausts and therefore the blind guitarist’s velour outfit “pop” but don’t look completely unrealistic.
Should you buy it?
For your extra 50 bucks, what does the X800 give you? the foremost obvious answer may be a premium build — while the X700 seems like something you retain during a motorhome, the X800 more befits a home AV system. the opposite is that the X800 may be a little faster with 4K load times. But things can change drastically in 12 months, for while the X800 was the simplest player at this point last year, that’s not the case. In its place we present two alternatives: for the streamers, this X700 is that the best choice , while for people that strictly need a disc player, the LG UP870 is shaping up to be a budget superstar. Look out for a full review of the LG player soon.
Sony UBP-X700 Streaming 4K Ultra HD customer Review
Great picture quality but Dolby Vision needs work!
Bought this a few weeks ago with the updated firmware that supports Dolby Vision.
Overall great image quality. The set is a bit basic in bulid and much smaller that the UBP-X800 with no digital display or screen on the set.
However one huge advatange is that with a firmware update it supports Dolby Vision. This is, however SEVERELY hampered – unfortunately, the unit does not auto-switch when you play a Dolby Vision disc which means that a) the switching has to be done manually from the menu and b) if you don’t know a disc has Dolby Vision and you don’t therefore activate it in the menu, you miss out on the benefits (it can be quite difficult to see on Blu Ray discs whether a Dolby Vision signal is included)
Sony – this could be an excellent product… please come up with a firmware update that auto-switches Dolby Vision on when it detects a Dolby Vision signal!!
By Sony Reviewer
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