Design
The BD35 measures 430mm wide, by 242mm deep and has a staggering height of just 49mm, making it one of the slimmest players on the block. It is the same width as my older Toshiba HD-E1 player but a lot smaller in depth and height as well as weight. The BD35 weighs in at just 2.6kg.
As for aesthetics, the BD35 is an average looking player featuring a steel body, with a piano black fascia. Towards the upper top left and right of the player you will find the On/Off power button as well as the Open/Close eject button for the disc tray, which is located in the centre-front of the player. An SD-Card slot sits behind a flimsy panel situated in the lower right of the player. This accepted my 8GB SDHC card without issues, and is required for BD Live functionality. It can also read photos from cards.
The rear of the BD35 sports a silent 40mm cooling fan and two ventilation slots sit on either side of the player.
I know very little about Panasonic’s reputation for remote controls, but have to state that the bundled remote is a top bit of kit. It sports nice chunky buttons that are very clearly labelled and laid out.
Sadly the remote isn’t backlit, which is really handy in a darkened room. However given that the buttons are chunky, you will eventually learn their positions by touch alone. 2xAA batteries power the remote, even though it came with a pack of 2xAAA’s!
A nice additional touch to the remote is that it can control your TV and your Amp/Receiver unit by inputting special codes unique to each TV/Amp manufacturer. The codes allowed me to setup the remote to use my Samsung R87 HDTV as well as my Onkyo A-9155 amp without any problem.
A built in Ethernet port at the rear of the unit allows access to firmware upgrades as well as BD Live functionality, to access interactive web content. This is pretty much crucial as the unit I have had firmware 1.1 by default, when the latest was 1.3. Updating took approximately 8minutes.
General Usage
The BD35 boasts a start-up time of approximately 12 seconds. The player is extremely fast in every area. Menu transitions are nice and quick once you’ve figured them out and it just doesn’t feel as sluggish as my older Toshiba HD-E1.
The BD35 boasts a UniPhier processor from Panasonic. It is an image and audio processor that is meant to give us better colour reproduction amongst a heap of other things. Suffice to say that the player has received rave reviews thanks to this bit of hardware – and it works!
Upon watching The Dark Knight and i Robot, you’ll be blown away by rich colours and extremely good looking blacks. I have to admit that I’ve been more impressed by the performance of this player, than I had been when I was introduced to HD visuals with my Toshiba HD-E1.
The unit can fully output 1080p pictures from it’s HDMI port at 24 frames per second and it looks and sounds just great. For your information I use a Samsung LE32R87BDX HDTV, along with a stereo speaker set-up courtesy of a pair of KEF C2′s running off an Onkyo amplifier. Even with such a set-up audio and visuals are breathtaking.
You just won’t be disappointed with it’s blu-ray performance in any regard – the BD35 lives up to it’s reputation from many top online reviews as a superb all-round player.
Watching DVD’s is something I do less and less of now, as once you go HD it is quite hard to return to an inferior looking and sounding format. Nonetheless the BD35 makes a ‘good’ upscaling effort on DVD playback. The Lord of the Rings trilogy looked good – but not as sharp as my older Toshiba HD-E1, that now sits in our living room. There was some distinct fuzziness to Gandalf’s hair as he rode through Hobbiton. It still looked good though.
The BD35 doesn’t just play Blu-ray discs. It plays pre-recorded DVDs and CDs, alongside the typical range of confusing recordable formats – BD-RE, BD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW/-R, DVD-R DL, DVD+RW/+R, DVD+R DL, CD-R and CD-RW. DivX and MP3 files are also supported.
Conclusion
For just under £200 you get a top quality Blu-Ray player that excels in almost every area. Panasonic have nailed it with that UniPhier processor, which produces stunning visuals in almost every film I have so far watched.
As for size, you’re looking at possibly the second slimmest player on the market. The first being the new Samsung BD-P4600 .
Start-up times are barely noticeable unlike the far older Toshiba HD-E1, that took around 30 seconds to start up!
One small quirk is that to get BD Live functionality, you will be required to insert an SD Card as it requires one for storing downloaded data. Even though high capacity SD Cards are cheap anyway, it wouldn’t have hurt to have some onboard built-in storage to perform the very same task.
All in all, a superb player and one that I’d highly recommend.
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