The battered and bruised 4K Blu-ray disc industry has been given a lifeline of sorts, with Sony announcing its first new piece of hardware in six long years, which somewhat curiously comes just weeks after it said it’s about to stop making recordable Blu-ray discs.
The company has just unveiled a new 4K Blu-ray player, called the UBP-X700/K. It’s not entirely new, to be sure, but rather a refreshed and “streamlined” remake of the UBP-X700 Blu-ray player that hit the market way back in 2018. That device, which was the second-to-last Blu-ray player Sony ever released, followed only by the UBP-X800M2 in 2019, earned some pretty good reviews at the time.
The Sony UBP-X700/K doesn’t offer much more than what the original piece of hardware had. In fact, it offers a lot less, as Japanese media reports that it has lost virtually all of its network functions, with the exception of an Ethernet connection that’s probably there just to receive firmware updates.
For instance, the device doesn’t appear to support video streaming services anymore, and it has also lost basic WiFi connectivity, Spotify Connect and screen mirroring. That’s according to the Japanese language website Monohika, whose report was first spotted by FlatPanels HD.
On the other hand, the Sony UBP-X700/K is still a Blu-ray player, and it has an almost identical look to the original device. It supports both the Dolby Vision and HDR10+ high dynamic range formats, and it features Dolby Atmos and DTS:X surround sound functionality. The remote control looks identical too, and there are two HDMI 2.1 ports on the back. It’s capable of playing 4K UHD Blu-ray discs as well as standard Blu-rays and DVDs.
The loss of networking features may seem like a backwards step, but then again it also reflects the reality of TVs today. Back when the original UBP-X700 was launched, a lot of people didn’t have smart TVs and still relied on external devices to get access to video streaming applications. These days, the situation is rather different. Most people have smart TVs with built-in streaming, and those that don’t can access the likes of Netflix et al via streaming devices such as Roku players, Google’s Streamer or Chromecast devices, and Amazon’s Fire sticks, and various other options.
As such, it’s likely that very few people continue to rely on their Blu-ray players to connect to streaming apps, as evidenced by the fact that the likes of Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video rarely seem to update their Blu-ray player-based applications these days. So the loss of networking and Wi-Fi is by no means a deal-breaker.
On the other hand, the fact that Sony has decided to refresh its Blu-ray hardware product lineup after such a long time will help to reassure fans of the physical disc format that it still has a future. In recent years, sales of Blu-rays and DVDs have declined to such an extent that many big-name electronics brands have opted to exit the market.
Samsung quit making Blu-ray players in 2019 and it was quickly followed by Panasonic, with LG Electronics becoming the latest major name to exit, in December of last year. As mentioned, Sony looked as if it were on the verge of giving up too.
On the other hand, we’ve seen the emergence of more specialist companies like Magnetar, Reavon and Pannde step up to assume the mantle instead, targeting Blu-ray disc enthusiasts with some much higher-end Blu-ray players.
Sony has now re-entered the picture too, and it will be interesting to see how it competes against those newer players. The company has notably hiked the price of the new UBP-X700/K, which retails in Japan for a 25% markup on the cost of the original model. That said, it’s still a lot cheaper than Magnetar’s UDP800, which sells for over 2,000 euros.
