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• boboboy
  July 21st, 2010 on 11:44 pm

  Review by boboboy for PS3 250 GB Bundle (with LittleBigPlanet and HDMI Cable)
  Rating:
  First off, let me start my saying that I was in the market for a new next generation console and for me, the console had to be an HD console, since I thought it would go very well with my Sony Bravia HDTV that I’ve had for over a year now. Now of course, my main concern was hardware reliability. I’ve heard way too many stories of RROD on the Xbox 360, including online reports saying that it had the highest failure rate out of all the three consoles. The Wii was out because it’s not HD. The choice was obviously Sony, given that Sony hasn’t failed me in the past (My PS2 and PSOne still work to this day).

  However, after receiving this bundle, I realize I had paid too much. Despite the good reviews about Little Big Planet (it got 9.0 and 9.5 from Gamespot and IGN respectively), Little Big Planet didn’t interest me. Maybe I thought it was too kiddy or whatnot, but these are my own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of everyone else. If you’re interested in LBP, you might still want to skip out on this bundle. Keep reading, I’ll explain more.

  The next thing I realized was that I didn’t NEED 250 GB. Not ever. Why did I think I needed 250 GB? Well, I have an external hard drive that contains LOADS of HD movies. But when I tried plugging it into the PS3, guess what? The PS3 couldn’t read it! I spent 5 minutes looking like a dummy trying to find it on the PS3 user interface. I did some research online and found out that the PS3 only reads FAT32 formatted hard drives, and not NTFS formatted hard drives, which was what I had. For those of you who don’t know, FAT32 has a transfer limit of 4GB. That means you can’t transfer any file that is more than 4 GB. 99% of my HD movies were more than 4 GB in size. Thus, I wasn’t going to format my external just for the PS3. And I’m not going to pay for any movies on the Playstation online store. I already have all my movies on my external, so why would I pay for them again? Point is, the majority of the people out there who are cheap like me won’t need 250 GB.

  The last complaint I have is important. The bundle did NOT include the new CECH-2101B model. It actually included the old CECH-2001B model. The difference between the two is that the old model sports a 65nm RSX graphics chip, whereas the new model sports a 40nm RSX chip. The chip with the lower nm is better because it does the same as the higher nm chip, but it does so using less electricity, and thus produces less heat. So, you will benefit by having a quieter system, cheaper electric bill, and having a lesser chance for your PS3 to YLOD (system failure from overheating). People will say that it doesn’t make a big difference, but I say that with a 350 dollar console (the most I’ve ever paid for a console), I’d rather have peace-of-mind. Now, I probably wouldn’t be complaining about this if I had bought my PS3 months ago. But since the new model came out in March 2010, and it is now June, I expected that I would get the new model. If you bought the 120 GB version on Amazon, you will get the new model, as many people have confirmed.

  Overall, I’d highly recommend getting the 120 GB version and an HDMI cable separately. I would’ve gotten the Sony HDMI cables anyway, but the total price would still have been less than that of this bundle. Also, with the 120 GB version, I would’ve gotten the newer model (remember, my main concern was hardware failure). Good things about the PS3: it’s great, upscales DVD’s to 1080p, has a wireless adapter, can play blu-ray, can play PSOne games (though on an LCD HDTV, it looks ugly), the user interface is very easy to use, and Final Fantasy XIII looks absolutely gorgeous in all of its 1080p glory.
• Witzkeyman
  July 22nd, 2010 on 12:27 am

  Review by Witzkeyman for PS3 250 GB Bundle (with LittleBigPlanet and HDMI Cable)
  Rating:
  My male bonding experience with my 8 year old nephew:
  
  I remember renting LBP with my nephew a couple of years ago, and our bond grew tremendously after playing multiple 8 hour sessions of LBP. Before that, he wanted to play Pokemon with me, and couldn’t shut up about Pokemon. He didn’t want to play the PS3 in the living room, which my brother bought primarily for the purpose of watching Blu-Rays which were few and far between at that time. Now every time I visit my brother, my nephew wants to play LBP. LBP is good clean fun for younger children, and fun for adults as well.

  PlayStation3, 2008 to present day:
  
  Since 2008, PS3 has improved so much. The console doesn’t get as warm. The console takes up less space, and this console in particular can store 250 GB’s. Also, since those days Playstation Home has expanded to where it doesn’t freeze and is fun. One can buy properties inside the mall, and then furnish those properties to their liking (Santorini, Greece is my favorite). I have to admit I thought it was dumb at first, but quickly I became hooked and purchased all the properties with the furniture packages, walking around with clothes I bought for my avatar at the Diesel store. Oh, and don’t forget the free mini-games in Home (try bowling) or just have a conversation with other players while watching the sunset. Most importantly, Home is absolutely FREE!

  To summarize the Father’s Day Bundle:
  
  Playstation 3 really has it all! The PS3 Slim is reliable and has proven itself to be a reliable console ahead of the pack. The fact that presently (6/9/10) all PS3 120 GB’s and 250GB’s are out of stock at Amazon, you can’t go wrong with paying $350 for a system that costs the same price with a 5 dollar HDMI cable (I usually buy Amazon Basics) and a game that a father can enjoy with his son. Great deal Sony! Happy Father’s Day fathers.
• B. Mills
  July 22nd, 2010 on 1:19 am

  Review by B. Mills for PS3 250 GB Bundle (with LittleBigPlanet and HDMI Cable)
  Rating:
  O.K. so technically I don’t own this, but I wish i did. let me explain…

  I JUST bought the a 120 gig PS3 Slim to repalce my Phat. They jsut came out with a new model which uses less energy and makes less heat (EDIT: I have learned this may be the older PS3 slim model, still a good model though compared to the phat). At that time they didn’t have 250 gigs anywhere, I barely found a 120 gig actually. I would gladly have spent 400 for the 250 tho.

  I actually spent 300 for the 120… THIS package is 350 for a 250 gig model (more the TWICE the space on the HD) AND you get the GOTY edition of LBP (which is $ 30 on its own) AND an HDMI cable which DOES NOT usually come with the PS3 which will cost you [edit: some amount of money which is not free] bucks on a decent one.

  All in all this is a GREAT package and I don’t need to own one to see that. I do own a PS3 slim and I can attest to it running alot beter than the original phat which I had, it runs MUCH quieter. LBP is also my favorite game this generation.

  If you are thinking about getting a PS3 GET THIS PACKAGE! I looked into what a previous poster said abouty beter deals… there are none. I looked at Walmart and it will cost you something like 450 to get a comparable package, NOT a beter deal. This is ridiculous, I’m hoenstly kind of annoyed I just got a new PS3. Just my luck.
• Shala Kerrigan
  July 22nd, 2010 on 1:32 am

  Review by Shala Kerrigan for PS3 250 GB Bundle (with LittleBigPlanet and HDMI Cable)
  Rating:
  I’m happy with this bundle. I ordered it when I saw it, and it came quicker than expected. I told my husband his birthday present might be a day or two late and it arrived the day before his birthday.

  Setting up the system was easy and quick for him, and he was happy that the hdmi cable was included. He doesn’t always trust me to order games or game systems for him.
  
  The game included wasn’t to his tastes, but honestly? I don’t recall a single time we ever got a bundle that included a game he was interested in. What made this bundle a winner for me was that it IS a game my teenage daughter was interested in. She’s been having a blast with it. I told him what I was getting him for his birthday so if he wanted any particular game he could get it for himself. I also did order Final Fantasy XIII when it came up as a Gold Box deal recently.
  
  He put on a movie to see the quality of movie playback on the machine and we were all very happy with that.
  
  As a non-gamer looking for a good present for a husband who does like console games and for something my teens would like, this is a good deal. Everyone is very happy with it for movie playback, my daughter loves Little Big Planet and visually as a crafter, I love the look of Little Big Planet. Lots of great inspiration in the colors and shapes in the game.
  
  As far as stars go, I asked my husband and daughter. He rated the bundle as very good for the system and hdmi cable. When I asked my daughter about the game, she said it was one of her favorites that she ever played. “It’s very fun!”
• sethcloud
  July 22nd, 2010 on 1:53 am

  Review by sethcloud for PS3 250 GB Bundle (with LittleBigPlanet and HDMI Cable)
  Rating:
  i have bought the same system and had replaced it many times, but ever since i bought from amazon, i would have to say its the best deal i have gotten so far and its working great.thank you.
• A. Dent
  July 22nd, 2010 on 2:47 am

  Review by A. Dent for Sony PlayStation 3 Blu-ray Disc Remote
  Rating:
  I did not think I needed yet another remote control because I thought the six-axis had everything it needed for movie playing on the PS3 and, yet, I bought one. There were 2 initial reasons:

  - my wife was missing a ‘magic wand’ shaped remote for playing movies
  
  - Amazon had it at a great price in one of them lightning deals

  I ended up using it myself and, in fact, using it for more than just movie playing – see below.

  But, let’s do a quick inventory of features:

  = It’s blue-tooth enabled and, therefore, it’s not taking any ports on your PS3. This is probably important for anyone who has a “2-USB ports console”.
  
  = It’s wand-shaped, allowing the non-gamers to control their movie-watching activities while holding a familiar-shaped device in their hand.
  
  = It maps ALL the six-axis buttons and performs everything a six-axis would do, except for the joystick features of R3 and L3 (but you do have the push-down or ‘click’ abilities for them).
  
  = 2 AA battery powered (still with the original Sony batteries after 4 months of use)
  
  = Includes additional buttons that the movie-only users would expect on a remote such as:
  
  + a number pad
  
  + eject
  
  + red, green, blue, yellow buttons
  
  + play, stop, pause
  
  + slow(step), scan(left/right), prev/next
  
  + display, top menu, pop up menu, return
  
  + subtitles, angle, audio

  What is interesting about this remote is that you can use it for much more than movie-playing. Given that it has all the six-axis buttons, guess what? You can use it, and I do use it to:

  - surf the web
  
  - play music
  
  - shop at the PSN store
  
  - play certain games such as Sudoku
  
  - turn the PS3 on/off when your six-axis controllers are in the charger and I am playing GT5 that is using a racing wheel

  And, yes, you CAN turn the PS3 on and off with this remote. Turning it on is easy – you simply press the PlayStation button and the PS3 turns itself on. To turn it off, you either go as far to the left on the X-bar and all the way up and press Enter (the turn-off PlayStation icon will be highlighted) or you simply hold the PlayStation button pressed for a few seconds and then select ‘yes’ and press the X button a couple of times.

  Overall: I am happy with this peripheral. Yes, it’s one more remote control but it’s a pretty good one, for the reasons I stated above.

  _______________________________

  Notes – Aug 29, 2009, after 16 months of use

  I find that I’m using the remote more and more, not only for playing movies but for navigating the XMB and at the PSN Store, also when playing music or slideshows. Due to its very convenient arrows wheel with an ‘enter’ button in the middle, navigating the PS3 and doing just about anything other than playing games is a lot easier than using the PS3 game controller. Unlike the controller which normally requires two hands to hold, this is basically a one-hand operation where you hold the remote in one hand and operate the wheel with your thumb. And because it’s Bluetooth, not IR (Infrared), you don’t even need to point it at the PS3.

  And, one word on battery life. After about 15-16 months of operation, this is probably the third set of batteries so I’d estimate battery life to be about 4-6 months. Not too bad.
• S. Ragsdale
  July 22nd, 2010 on 3:01 am

  Review by S. Ragsdale for Sony PlayStation 3 Blu-ray Disc Remote
  Rating:
  If you want to pause your movie, you hit “Pause”. If you want to start your movie again, you hit “Play”. But between the “Pause” and “Play” buttons is “Stop”. Here Be Dragons.

  “Stop” means it. “Stop” doesn’t just stop the video from playing, it quits out of the Blu-Ray player and returns you all the way to the root PS3 menu. To start watching your disk again you need to select the Blu-Ray disk again, wait for it to boot up, wade through whatever previews and coming attractions are on the disk, re-enable the correct subtitles and menu settings, wait for the various FBI and MPAA warnings, locate the place where it stopped playing, and then resume watching. Hitting “Stop” whether you wanted to or not means you’re going to spend at least the next five minutes not watching your movie.

  The “Stop” button is so big and so centrally located that I can’t count the number of times I’ve hit it in error, either by poking at “Pause” or “Play” in my darkened living room or by sitting on the controller. It’s gone from being an occasionally frustrating surprise, to being an infuriatingly common blunder, all the way around to being some sort of perverse comic relief. “What happened? Why did the movie just stop? Did you hit the STOP button by accident again? You did? THE REMOTE GOT US AGAIN. WE HATE YOU, REMOTE.”

  There are three ways that Sony could solve this problem.

  - They could re-label the button “Ruin My Evening”, and replace the pushbutton with one of those covered safety switches that are used in military cockpits to arm weapons. A button with consequences this significant needs to be clearly marked with a protective cover that you have to move aside, so that there’s no way you’ll end up pushing it by accident without understanding what it’s going to actually do.

  - They could just remove the “Stop” button entirely. Nobody would miss it. There’s already a “Pause” button if you need to take a break. There’s a “Top Menu” button to return you to the top menu. There’s a “PS3″ button to pop up the media bar (with an option to quit the player), and an “Eject” button that also quits the player while ejecting the disk. There is nothing that the “Stop” button should do that another button isn’t already doing.

  - They could make the “Stop” button just return the user to the top level Blu Ray menu, and not quit out of the entire player. They could also make “Play” the opposite of “Stop”, where “Play” returns you to playing what “Stop” stopped you from playing.

  Apart from the “Stop” button this would be a completely fine remote with a four or five star review. It’s well built, it runs for weeks or months without batteries, and because it’s Bluetooth (not IR) it doesn’t need to be pointed at the player with line-of-sight to work. It’s like a well-built Mercedes, with an extra pedal between the gas and brake that makes all four wheels fall off. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT.

  Update: It’s actually pretty easy to remove the stop button yourself. Undo the screw on the underside at the bottom of the remote and carefully pry the upper and lower halves apart. Under the rubber buttons there’s a layer of conducting pads, a plastic spacer layer, and the circuit board. You can either use a hobby knife to cut out the conducting pad that triggers the stop, or you can put tape over the circuit board contact to render the stop button mercifully unusable.
• Lisa Shea
  July 22nd, 2010 on 3:44 am

  Review by Lisa Shea for Sony PlayStation 3 Blu-ray Disc Remote
  Rating:
  Most PS3 owners enjoy not only the gaming abilities of their system, but also the built in Blu-Ray DVD player. The Sony remote control accessory lets you play those movies with great ease.

  The remote combines the regular buttons of our other DVD players with the funky look of the PS3. You have a red, green, blue and yellow button – labelled with their color names! You also get a circle, X, square and triangle to do a few things like brinigng up the options and back choices.

  The main buttons – play, stop, forward, back – are laid out reasonably nicely at the bottom of the remote with large buttons. There are small buttons up on top for the number keys, and a very tiny eject button.

  Missing completely is a power button!! You have to hit the PS button in the center and go through the regular PS3 menus to get the power to turn off. In fact, while I was writing this review, I accidentally hit a button on the remote and the PS3 turned on. We were watching regular TV, so now I have to wait until our show is over, switch over to the PS3 and use the buttons to turn the system back off again. That doesn’t make much sense at all to me.

  Also, on our Oppo DVD remote, the buttons glow which makes it REALLY nice to use in the dark or dim light that most people watch movies in. This unit is completely black with black buttons. This makes it pretty much useless in low light conditions until you memorize all of the button locations. You would think by now that remote control makers would have their buttons backlit or at least glow-in-the-dark to handle this.

  The unit takes two AA batteries which makes it a bit heavy, but certainly within the normal range of remotes.

  It’s easy enough to sync up the remote with the PS3. It’s bluetooth powered, so you go into the PS3 menu and use the options there to indicate you have a new remote. Note that the base level PS3 will not handle this – you have to have a connection to the internet from your PS3 and run an update routine. If you don’t have an internet connection for your PS3, you have to create an update CD on your PC to do this update.

  Well recommended – but it really could be much better to be great.
• Ron Sullivan
  July 22nd, 2010 on 4:05 am

  Review by Ron Sullivan for Sony PlayStation 3 Blu-ray Disc Remote
  Rating:
  I’d bought my PS3 about four or five months ago. I have a pretty nice HDTV and really wanted a Blu-Ray player to compliment it. It also didn’t hurt that I had a bunch of PS2 games I still wanted to play.

  After everything was all set up and I started watching a couple of movies, it became apparent extremely quickly that I was going to need a remote for the Blu-Ray features. Using the controller was just overly complex to make it a real option.

  When I finally grabbed a remote, there were a few things I noticed immediately. Namely, the simple fact that it was a Bluetooth device meant that there was no chance that I was going to be able to use this with any of my other devices like my TV or my surround-sound receiver. Some people don’t really care, but I hate having a thousand remotes lying around. I’d rather just have one and forget about it.

  Considering that the PS3 is the only device that the remote is able to control, I fail to see why it’s covered with buttons. Outside the obvious ‘Play/ Pause/ Stop’ buttons, I don’t understand the decision to make this look so much more complex then it has to be. I would have tried to make the button layout as simple as possible. If it’s not going to be able to be used for another device, it (at least) could be easy to use. I would say that two-thirds of the remote’s face, you’ll never use.

  Another reviewer mentioned it, but it bears repeating. If you touch any button on the device, it’ll automatically cue-up your system. The PS3 is a wonderful piece of equiptment and I like it a lot, but man that sucker kicks out a TON of heat. Having said that, I do try to make a deliberate effort not to keep it on longer then I have to. When I’m sitting and watching TV, however, I tend to have both my remotes next to me. I can’t even tell you the number of times I’ve accidentally leaned a little too much to one side and booted-up the system. This is complicated by the fact that there’s not just a ‘power’ button anywhere. I actually have to toss my receiver over to the PS3 device and manually shut the system off. It sounds like a small deal, but it’s REALLY annoying after you do it a few times.

  I’m sure this was mentioned several times before, but I sincerely wish that the device was back-lit. I, like many others, usually watch TV in low-light. Between the (unnecessarily) complex button configuration and the simple fact that you can’t read the thing, it makes simply watching a movie more of a chore then it needs to be.

  Not an outright “bad” piece and certainly a better option then the controller. It’s also better then any of the third-party devices that I was able to find. All that having been said, however, I’d still say that Sony’s remote wasn’t very well thought out either. There’s a lot of issues that the smallest amount of consideration should have been able to change.
  
• whiterabbit
  July 22nd, 2010 on 4:29 am

  Review by whiterabbit for Sony PlayStation 3 Blu-ray Disc Remote
  Rating:
  A must-have accessory for your PS3 Blu-ray DVD viewing pleasure! I love that it works without having to point it at anything, thanks to being Bluetooth… you don’t even have to be in the same room! (not that there is much application for the latter, but thought it worth mentioning). Anyway, it works perfectly and helps add to your PS3 experience. We have a nice universal remote also, but the “Bluetooth factor” makes this Playstation remote our family’s favorite so far. I hope all remotes go that way eventually… much better than IR!