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Sony Playstation3 80GB

Price: $399.99 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping.

Rating: (191 customer reviews)

Includes PlayStation 3 80GB system, Dualshock 3 wireless controller, free PlayStation Network membership, internet ready Wi-Fi, and 80GB of hard disk storage for all your games, music, videos, and photos. Every PS3 comes with a built-in Blu-ray player to give you the best high-definition viewing experience and pristine picture quality. Plus, the PS3 can play your entire catalog of CDs and DVDs.

Product Features

* Includes PlayStation 3 80 GB system, Dualshock 3 wireless controller, and free PlayStaion Network membership
* Internet ready Wi-Fi
* 80 GB of hard disk storage for all your games, music, videos, and photos
* Built-in Blu-ray player to give you the best high-definition viewing experience and pristine picture quality
* Play your entire catalog of CDs and DVDs

Customer Reviews:

Why PS3 was by far the best value for us, and arguably the best choice now available, November 9, 2008
By Larry Diamond (Austin, TX USA)
I had sat on the sidelines of the next gen video games up until a couple of weeks ago. I had tried Wii almost as soon as it came out and was captivated by the motion sensors but the limited availability and sameness to the games as well as limited graphics was frustrating.

Xbox 360 the $50 a year subscription and more importantly it lost the Blu-ray/HD battle were big no points for me. I enjoy games, my wife does not. She does enjoy movies and the internet. When I pointed out that PS3 was a Blu-ray player (with excellent reviews) and could let us surf the internet, she was all for it.

I have an ‘old’ HDTV (3 years old). It has a maximum resolution of 1080i and a DVI input but no HDMI. I did some research before buying this so I bought an HDMI to DVI cable at the same time. I was worried about hooking it up and getting it to look right and also getting sound. I should not have been. It took literally a few minutes. Plugged the HDMI end into the PS3 and the DVI end into the HDTV. Received a picture (great picture) right away. It detected that 1080i was the highest resolution and I choose that.

Sound I simply choose the option to put sound out correctly and received gorgeous sound. I only use the speakers that came with the HDTV but it sounds fantastic on Blu-Ray. I can only imagine what people with surround sound systems will get.

The Blu-Ray discs are stunning. Even with ‘just’ 1080i. Truly beautiful. And it also up-converts very well. My favorite movies are the LOTR expanded editions. I have seen LOTR on TNT HD broadcasts. With the PS3 they look almost as good perhaps even better than the HD broadcasts. Also one of the coolest things and I have no idea if this for all Blu-Rays are just PS3 is that it remembers where you were on discs (Blu-ray and DVD discs)even if the disc was last played 8 discs ago. So say for instance you a third of the way through Fellowship. You then put a few game discs in, some other movie discs, then go back to Fellowship. It actually remembers where you left off that disc. Love it.

The internet browsing has been very cool. At first it was ok but it did not fill up the screen and the lettering was too small. But then I discovered zoom in and zoom out. And now it is really fun to browse. As an aside when I started browsing if someone was on our lap-top we would get a connection conflict and would not be able to surf on the lap-top. I called Linksys and they were able to change a bunch of settings on the router and it works just fine now, no problems on using both at the same time.

As for games I have Assassin’s Creed and Oblivion now. Both look amazing. I have also downloaded demos for Mirror’s Edge (stunning) and Motorstorm (fun and also amazing graphics). Even as a gamer truly I only really have time for a half dozen games every year or two or even three. A lot of these games last a long time. So in reality the 360s edge on variety is for all intents moot. I am planning to get Little Big Planet and maybe the new Spidey game when it comes down in price. That will more than hold me over to God of War and which ever other few games I will get in 2009. Having a handful of great games, to me, is more important than 50 titles coming out a year.

Bottomline is if you have an HDTV (particularly if you have a home theater set up) and no Blu-ray and enjoy gaming the PS3 is truly awesome. You get a great Blu-ray player, an 80gig hard drive, incredible gaming capabilities (just downloading the demos would be cool), internet browsing and video watching on your TV. You can also download the LIFE utility that has an incredibly cool visual globe where you can get live weather and news headlines around the world. And you can help cure diseases by linking to a Stanford project that looks at how proteins work and fold. If you allow it your processor can be added to the processing power being used for the Stanford project (when you are not gamin and such).

Sony has succeeded in making a truly great heart of your home media experience. This is so much more than Wii it isn’t even close. And with Blu-ray and free Sony playstation network, it really is a much better value than any of the 360 choices you have. Right now heading into the 2008 holiday season, PS3 stands alone as clearly the best system and the best value. Not only for gamers but for the entire family.

Great Configuration, Great Console, August 21, 2008
By Bradford Schmidt (Bone In The Fan dot com)
A lot of people have written about the pros and cons of the PS3 vs. XBOX 360 vs. Wii. I’m not bothering with that, and assume you can find that information at elsewhere. I’m also assuming you can read all about why the PS3 would or would not fit your needs.

Instead, I’d like this review to explain what exactly this configuration is (there’s a lot of confusion about that,) and why I think it hits the sweet spot. Basically, there are currently 2 versions of the PS3 on the market now. Ignoring the size of the drive for a second (because you can always swap the drive anyway, and it has no real bearing on the rest of the specs) think of them as Version A (currently available - or not as the case may be - in the PlayStation 3 80 GB Metal Gear Solid 4 Pack) and Version B (this one.)

The first thing that you need to understand is that there are three relevant differences between these two versions besides the included bundle and the price (the MGS one is $499 from amazon, more from third parties.)

Difference #1: Version A (MGS pack) is backward compatible with PS2 games while this one is NOT (they are both backward compatible with PS1 games however.)

Difference #2: Version A has 4 USB ports as well as memory card slots, while this version has only 2 USB ports and NO memory card slots.

Difference #3: AND THIS FOR ME IS BIG: Version A has the older and larger 90nm Cell processor, while this one has the smaller (and some say more reliable) 65nm Cell processor. Power consumption on this unit is lower as well, dropping from 200 Watts to 135 watts. The end result is a machine that runs cooler and, according to all reports as well as my personal experience, much quieter. An extremely relevant factor if you watch movies with it.

For those that have been looking for a while, this is basically the 40GB machine that was offered recently, with a larger hard drive and an upgraded controller - they replaced the basic sixaxis controller with the Dualshock 3 controller (which means it has rumble.)

Now Version A is packaged with Metal Gear Solid. It has an 80GB drive like this one, and the same controller. The big differences are listed above. Until this configuration was released, the larger hard drive and Dualshock controller were 2 of the 4 reasons many people felt the MGS pack was worth the additional $100. Those two factors are now eliminated. The remaining differences are the backward compatibility with PS2 games and the MGS game itself, which can of course be bought separately.

So to sum it up, if you NEED PS2 compatibility, you might want to grab the MGS pack if you can get one - that or keep your old PS2. For new buyers though, and for all of the people that are going to just play PS3 games, as well as avid movie watchers, this particular configuration is fantastic. You get the big drive, the good controller, PLUS the cooler running chip, a quieter machine and a system that uses about 33% less power.

And ok - just to satisfy the basic requirements of a review, I’ll list some other nice stuff: It includes a Blu-ray DVD player (one of those runs almost as much as, or more than, this entire box), the online play is FREE, wireless connectivity is built in (you don’t have to buy an additional piece as with some others), reliability has been quite good (much better than some others), there are some great PS3-only titles, and you can stream media to it from your PC. There’s more, but there are plenty of people outlining it.

As always, do your research and see what’s best for you. Maybe the 360-only titles are must haves for you, or maybe your family fits a Wii. We have a Wii and I love it. But I also love my PS3, and in my opinion this configuration is the one to get (this month anyway.)
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