pspan class=”mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image” style=”display: inline;”img alt=”s5000es front_cr.jpg” src=”http://uk.gizmodo.com/s5000es%20front_cr.jpg” width=”583″ height=”300″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” //span/p pDedicated Blu-ray players – excluding the PS3 – have been slow to come down in price. This Christmas though, there were quite a few new sub-£200 players on offer, from the new a href=”http://uk.gizmodo.com/2008/11/28/sharps_new_bluray_player_costs.html”Sharp BD-HP21H/a to the BDP-S350 from Sony. That doesn’t mean though that there’s aren’t still Blu-ray playersout there designed of offer the best possible HD performance while simultaneously stomping all over your credit card. The Sony BDP-S5000ES [ES stands for ‘Elevated Standard] is just one device, sporting an anti-recession price tag of £1,100. Over the break, we managed to get hold of one to see if there’s £900-worth of reasons to buy this over the £200 S350, itself an admirable spinner. /p pThe first thing you notice about the S5000ES is that it’s big, like two fat DVD players strapped together. It weighs in at 10KG, making you at least feel like you’re getting more Blu-bang for your buck, so to speak. The reinforced chassis is designed to reduce unwanted vibration during playback./p pAround the back there’s just about every connection option you might want – although there is no SCART. Still, if you’re spending over £1,100 on the ultimate in HD viewing, connecting anything by SCART is no longer a consideration. Ironically, it has a composite connection [sub-SCART quality] and a bundled cable but no HDMI cable. Why there’s no bundled HDMI cable with a machine this expensive is both a mystery and a disappointment. /p pspan class=”mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image” style=”display: inline;”img alt=”s5000es back.jpg” src=”http://uk.gizmodo.com/s5000es%20back.jpg” width=”588″ height=”411″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” //span/p pJump now to see the main features and connectivity options before we get down to the meaty bit: how does it perform? /pimg width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’http://feeds.uk.gizmodo.com/c/552/f/9581/s/2a68580/mf.gif’ border=’0’/div class=’mf-viral’table border=’0’trtd valign=’middle’a href=”http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/sendemail2.html?title=HANDS-ON: Sony’s Flagship BDP-S5000ES Blu-ray Playerlink=http://uk.gizmodo.com/2008/12/30/handson_sonys_flagship_bdps500.html” target=”_blank”img src=”http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/emailthis2.gif” border=”0″ //a/tdtd valign=’middle’a href=”http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/bookmark.cfm?title=HANDS-ON: Sony’s Flagship BDP-S5000ES Blu-ray Playerlink=http://uk.gizmodo.com/2008/12/30/handson_sonys_flagship_bdps500.html” target=”_blank”img src=”http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/bookmark.gif” border=”0″ //a/td/tr/table/divbr/br/a href=”http://da.feedsportal.com/r/27588690765/u/0/f/9581/c/552/s/44467584/a2.htm”img src=”http://da.feedsportal.com/r/27588690765/u/0/f/9581/c/552/s/44467584/a2.img” border=”0″//a
