Sharp BD-HP20H

The basics

Sharp BD-HP20H is the first Blu-ray player designed and manufactured by Sharp. It is a hi-definition player that has a gloss black top section and mirrored fascia. The connection lines present include HDMI 1.3 output plus 7.1 channel audio bit streams. There is a set of analogue audio outputs that provide users with high-resolution Dolby True HD.

The good

The BDHP20H is Sharp's first Blu-ray deck, and it's not half bad. 1080p at 24fps delivers hugely detailed, noise-free pictures, judder-free motion and quite honestly, at this price (just scraping under £200), you can't ask for more than that. A decent range of audio options are included too. We hooked up an amp and speakers via the 5.1 analogue outputs so we could experience lossless Dolby TrueHD surround sound that was teeth-shatteringly good.

The bad

Unfortunately, it does suffer from sloth-like startup times, but Sharp has helpfully included a "Quick Start" mode that gets it up and running from standby a little faster. Sadly, this basically entails putting the player into an energy-sapping sub-standby mode, which might speed up usage but won't do your carbon footprint any favours.

The bottom line

As good an entry-level Blu-ray player there is, but besides the picture quality, there's not much else to make it stand out from the crowd. Apart from the price.