I'm considering buying a PS3, but more for the blu-ray and multimedia aspects than the gaming. I'm wondering, how does the web browser perform?

Can I watch online videos from youtube or network websites with the browser?

How about things like streaming music from pandora?

Finally, can the netflix "watch now" feature be used on the PS3?

Thanks in advance for any input,

MM

The web browser, in my opinion, is pretty clunky. It is slow and I have not been able to watch any streaming videos. I haven't tried YouTube nor pandora, so I can't comment on those sites.

The Netflix feature, I have heard, is in the discovery stage. Netflix is considering teaming up with PS3 and Xbox to utilize these consoles for the "watch now" feature (I heard this on the HT Guys podcast).

PS3 is great, but don't have too high expectations of the browser...

Youtube works but overrall the browser is crap. It is slow. No tabbed browsing. You'll get real tired of saying "yes" to running the "plug-in" every 30 seconds.

Yes the browser is very slow, particularly considering all the power on tap. Text entry is a pain, although that can be solved with a bluetooth keyboard. I've also had it hang on me a few times.

You can watch YouTube videos, but video at any other sites never seem to work.

Read this thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=979773)... There are a number of detailed opinion/reviews of the PS3 browser in there.

Here's mine: :)


It is not the best web browser ever, but you may be getting a bit worse of an impression of it based on this thread. It is definitely capable.The negatives are that it is slightly slower than a typical PC browser and not all plug-ins for every website are/can be supported. It does handle flash, but not all flash... you can watch videos, a lot actually... but not all videos. You can save a few specific types of files to your HDD from the browser, but not all types of files.

I can't remember for sure now, but I don't think there is a copy/paste feature. You can have multiple windows going and navigate them quite easily. There are some good shortcuts to switch to and from windows and close and open them... The browser looks great on my 50" HDTV and the zoom in/out option and fit page to screen settings work really well.

But in the end, I wouldn't term it a "fully functional" browser. For that, you need to do as suggested previously and partition the PS3 for Linux... Then you pretty much have a computer hooked up to your HDTV and can use a full-featured web browser.

It's very similar to the PSP one.. and that one sucks. So this one sucks too. I used it once or twice, but it ran out of memory after like 3 websites and the pop ups just kept coming.

I know it's not high on their list of priorities but they really should consider getting someone to work on that piece of junk. Or just get Opera to port their browser to Cell and be done with it. I heard the Wii browser works pretty well and that system has less memory.

I'm considering buying a PS3, but more for the blu-ray and multimedia aspects than the gaming. I'm wondering, how does the web browser perform?

Can I watch online videos from youtube or network websites with the browser?

How about things like streaming music from pandora?

Finally, can the netflix "watch now" feature be used on the PS3?

Thanks in advance for any input,

MM

It's quite bad and useless.

It's a Web browser designed for a PC monitor running on a device connected to a TV set.

The scaling is off, the DPI is off, readability is poor.

One of these days someone is going to understand you can't port a Web browser and expect it to work well on a TV set.

I have no real need to browse the web on my tv (have laptop by the couch), but I did give it a whirl. I really wanted to see if I could bring up some quicktime trailers or something, but it ran out of memory loading the page before I could even select anything.

I think I tried a couple other pages, some of them loaded just fine, but some of them also ran out of memory before finishing the load. It seems that if the page contains alot of stuff, it just craps out before the load finishes.

Overall, if a "real" computer browser is a 10, I give the PS3 a 3. It can load *some* stuff, not all, and even the stuff it does load is OK at best.

If you have no basis for comparison, you might like it, but I'm so used to everything working first try, displaying perfectly, etc when using a regular computer that I just don't have the patience. Couple that with the controller for text/mouse entry (if you aren't using the k&m) and forget it.

If one of the requirments was to be able to read (not post, just read) the various posts in the threads here on AVS, You'd be S.O.L.

One of these days someone is going to understand you can't port a Web browser and expect it to work well on a TV set.

Umm... no. For one thing, this might be true on an SDTV at a muddy 480i but a modern HDTV running @ 720p or 1080p can handle web content with flying colors. Those are quite common resolutions on a PC, after all.

Thanks for the input. If Linux is installed on the PS3 can games still be played with out any trouble?

It's as lame as the PSP browser, and you can see how they haven't given a crap about the PSP browser in the almost three years it's been out, so don't hold your breath for any changes.

It's a web browser just to say they have one.

What AVS is to much for it even in mobile mode? If so that's crap. As AVS isn't that bad. I only Have dial up at the momment even so AVS takes maybe 40 seconds on the first page and 10 on following as all the same stuff loads right away.

What AVS is to much for it even in mobile mode? If so that's crap. As AVS isn't that bad. I only Have dial up at the momment even so AVS takes maybe 40 seconds on the first page and 10 on following as all the same stuff loads right away.

I heart AVS Mobile..... on my PDA phone haha

I still have never found a good web browser that was built into a console. Don't worry the Wii is the same way. Granted I usually always have a laptop near me so I don't have to rely on the PS3