Sony's Next Venture Into LCD... Bravia 1080 52" A NO-SPIN REVIEW
Written: Aug 28 '08 (Updated Aug 28 '08)
Product Rating:
Sound:
Ease of Use:
Picture Quality:
Durability:
Pros: Crisp, bright and perfectly sized! 52" of excellent Video priced well and cheapening
Cons: Lacks settings flexiblity to make it look great on ALL sources. Terrible Sound
The Bottom Line: Prices are commoditized and falling - despite the Sets shortcomings, cheaper prices may make it a justifiable purchase. Do your due dilligence, read the review!...
nick1326's Full Review: Sony BRAVIA KDL-52W3000 52 in. LCD TV
I'm going to do my absolute best to keep this review fair and balanced- not be a tyrade by an upset consumer, nor an over-flowery Ra-Ra hype-story... Sony's current Bravia LCD panel is a noticable improvement over prior generations, but still has a ways to go. Regardless, it's an up-to-date 1080p panel (that simply means 1920x1080 native resolution) and is HD ready and capable of displaying the highest resolution images available today, whether by cable, dish, Internet/IP or download and/or disc (DVD, HD-DVD, BluRay). The set retails at 3299, but has a realistic street price of around 2100-2400 or so. This review is about the SET, and NOT about shady retailers or horror stories- so to keep this short and sweet, make sure you buy yours from an authorized retailer -- it's the only way to ensure you get proper warranty service. Throughout the review we'll be looking at set quality, image quality, features/functions and lastly, the integrational-aspects of the TV, and why it may or may not be for you...
Sony's current Bravia model KDL-52W3000 is Sony's latest 1080p 16:9 format LCD panel for the consumer market. There has been a change in nomenclature, so know that where there used to be an entry level KDL, and an upgrade S-type KDL, the 52" KDL is now inclusive of the "upgrades" that the older generation KDL series (up to an including 46" KDL) touted as better, and worth the 1,000 dollar premium! In short, this 52" consumes reasonable power (295w) and is a very bright and vivid display - out of the box picture is quite decent (though can be tuned to provide a much better image of course) and is easy to install. The panel uses standard hole layout flat-panel-mounting inserts and can be fixed to your wall-mount or possibly your motorized twist-and-tilt set-top STAND (such as Salamander's awesome new PilotMount solution) if you have one -- Otherwise you can use its own included fixed-stand (no twisting). The panel includes a useful and manageable host of inputs, which we'll go through shortly, and includes a comfortably ergonomic IR (infraRed) handheld remote. The panel touts Sony's 10-bit processing engine. Perhaps the most notable significance of this engine is the ability to handle both 30 fps and 24 fps material digitally. (FPS refers to frames-per-second - while standard film is shot in 24 fps, the video standard is 30 fps, and this makes for some interesting calculations to be able to proces and display both... (fyi, this is the same root issue that made "Progressive Scan" such an important feature for 480/480p DVD players). In short however, Sony's 52 KDL set WILL accept 1080p and 1080p 24 formats - depending on if you have a BluRay player capable of outputting such a resolution - it will handle ANY resolution and not give you any problems. Certain "1080p" sets are actually not full 1080p, meaning in some cases 1080p material shot in 24 fps will not 'work' causing a blank screen or some other error message. Fotunately the KDL52 will get you around this, and it works with any source material available today, including the 24 fps 1080p stuff.
Feature Set: The Sony is a feature packed set- while it may not quite have all the "it" to make it the first choice of a custom installer or integrator, this set is just about right for the vast majority of consumers. General Product Type 52 in LCD TV Series BRAVIA Digital Television Certification HDTV Video Interface HDMI, S-Video, Composite PC Interface VGA (HD-15) Dimensions With stand Width 50.4 in Depth 15.1 in Height 34.4 in Weight 94.8 lbs Enclosure Color Piano black Display Diagonal Size 52 in - Widescreen Technology TFT active matrix Resolution 1920 x 1080 Display Format 1080p (FullHD) Image Aspect Ratio 16:9 120Hz Yes LCD Backlight Technology Wide Color Gamut-CCFL Image Contrast Ratio 2000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio 16000:1 Progressive Scan Progressive scanning (line doubling) Widescreen Modes Zoom, Wide Zoom, Normal, Full Viewing Angle 178 degrees Viewing Angle (Vertical) 178 degrees Comb Filter 3D digital V-Chip Control Yes Color Temperature Control Yes Picture Adjustment Vivid/Standard/Custom Additional Features MotionFlow, Game mode, Clock, Sleep timer Digital TV Tuner Digital TV Tuner QAM, ATSC Video Features HDTV Ready Yes Analog Video Input Signals NTSC Input Video Formats 1080p Freeze Memo Yes Parental Channel Lock Yes Remote Control Remote Control Remote control - Infrared Supported Devices TV Audio System Sound Output Mode Stereo Surround Mode Yes Sound Effects S-FORCE Front Surround Sound, Virtual Dolby Digital Audio Controls Treble, Bass, Balance Connections Connector Type 1 x Serial ( 9 pin D-Sub ), 1 x Composite video input ( RCA phono ) - Side, 2 x Component video input ( RCA phono ) - Rear, 1 x VGA input ( 15 pin HD D-Sub (HD-15) ) - Rear, 2 x Composite video input ( RCA phono ) - Rear, 4 x Audio line-in ( RCA phono ) - Rear, 1 x Audio line-out ( RCA phono ) - Rear, 1 x Audio line-in ( RCA phono ) - Side, 1 x HDMI ( 19 pin HDMI Type A ) - Side, 1 x Headphones ( Mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm ) - Side, 2 x HDMI ( 19 pin HDMI Type A ) - Rear, 1 x S-Video input ( 4 pin mini-DIN ) - Rear, 1 x Digital audio output (coaxial) - Rear Stands & Mounts Flat Panel Mount Interface Yes Power Power Device Power supply - Internal Power Consumption Stand by / Sleep 0.4 Watt Power Consumption Operational 295 Watt Battery None Manufacturer Warranty Service & Support 1 year warranty Service & Support Details Limited warranty - Parts and labor - 1 year Dimensions & Weight Details Dimensions & Weight Details Panel without stand - 50.4 in x 4.8 in x 32.8 in The panel as a very wide viewing angle, at just about 180 degrees (178 to be exact). For all intent and purpose, at such extreme angles (greater than say 55/60 degree off axis) you're really talking "half gain" in screen language... Bottom line is YES- the picture will still be bright, but for lots of reasons, if you're planning on watching TV comfortably, don't expect to have nearly as perfect an image from the side as you would from directly in front- this is just common sense and I say it to set the proper expectations!
Out of the Box Image: The sony faired pretty well in out-of-the-box performance. The image was very crisp, had vivid color, but in truth, the color saturation was off and quite pushed to the red for non-hd, and NOT red-pushed for the Digital HD content... In short, a big criticism of this TV is that it CAN be tuned to look good, but this is a big disparity in picture quality for the HD vs. Non-HD content.. YES- this is common sense- obviously HD stuff will look much better by default! However what I'm critiquing is the fact that there is a big difference in everything about the two signals, HD and non-HD... I believe a set of this caliber and this price should let you SAVE SETTINGS for individual INPUTS- rather than a universal video settings feature that covers ALL inputs at the same time... Case in point- if I use my ScientificAtlanta Set Top Box for Cable, and say a Sony BluRay player, I kinda have to set up the TV so that ONE of those source units looks good- BUT, then I forego picture quality on the other source component! In short, this is my biggest complaint about Sony's "wonderful 10 bit" processing- it falls short because it doesn't neccesarily give oyu the flexiblity to optomize each source component's signal to get optimal video quality from ALL your components...
Anyhow- on a brighter note (no pun) once you go through Sony's menu you can tweak your video performance well beyond what you see out of the box. I'm not going to give away what's required to get it right- that's why you attend ISF training certification- but let's just say in short, you can achieve a whole WHOLE lot buy simply tweaking your brightness/contrast of course, your color/tint settings and finallly BACKLIGHT - because this is an LCD, it has a backlight built in which essentially let's you tune up ambient contrast to work with the contrast the panel makes... That said, if it's daytime and you have alot of ambient light, you're going to want to keep your backlight setting brighter- so that the picture doesn't become "washed out" with the presence of hi ambient light. Ambient light by the way, is something LCD panels do a great job of fighting- perhaps ever better than plasma, although my eyes STILL prefer plasma!
A word on Plasma vs. LCD...
The world is changing quickly... since BEFORE the begining of this fight (back when the only flat panel solution was plasma! and they cost 10 grand for a 42!!!) I always favored plasma, because of how natural and bright and punchy the image was. Finally, around 2005 LCD started to become promiment, but for the next 2 years following, LCD's always looked "under water" or like they had a thin film or SOMETHING blurring up the image... Finally, with the lastest version of LCD OEM substrate, from the manufacturing level I can tell you I started seeing things better- and nowadays LCD HAS infact taken up alot of the ground it had lost at one point... Bottom Line: LCDs really DO look good! but also bottom line: In my humble opinion, plasma still looks better- and as it pertains to 1080p plasma, WAY better...
As mentioned and listed earlier, the KDL-52W3000 has an impressive host of imputs including a series of HMDI connnectors, all on the backside, except for one on the side. A total of 3 HDMIs means you should (SHOULD) be able to manage for now- except if you continue adding HDMI sources, you're going to run out quick- so it's probably a good time to think about an AV receiver that handles (and SWITCHES thanks!) HDMI video! Again, this is where there ARE other choices in brand where the price IS higher than Sony, but where you also get your money's worth in the form of a processor box which let's you handle 6 or 8 HDMI inputs etc. You can accomplish this also by adding a switcher, but why add a superfluous layer to the system is my question;? I say consider a display with an external processor which will give you all the HDMI inputs you want AND not add a new layer to control within the system... Again, OR an HDMI switching receiver with enough inputs!
Speakers: Sony markets this set with its great set of "surround" sound speakers... Uh- sorry Sony... it's a stereo set of 2 speakers! Basically as Sony has done is allowed the end user to feed in surround sound via digital input (digital coax) and the mix it down into 2-ch, allowing ALL sounds to be played by the 2 speakers in the tV... basically it's almost like "reverse surround sound" or UN-surround!!! What's funny is Sony tries to sell us on this idea that they've got the holy grail to answer surround sound! Here's the real facts: THIS TV IS REALLY A MONITOR, AND IS INTENDED TO BE USED WITH A DECENT SURROUND SOUND SYSTEM. Sorry folks, that's the truth. I dont care how cheap you are- common sense MUSt prevail here, NO, the little Sony LCD panel will NOT make believeable surround sound! As for how good or bad DOES it actually sound, basically if you're using this as a spare bedroom set or somewhere in the house that is NOT a place for people to watch movies, you should be able to get away with it- just for TV voices etc. However if this set IS being used in a primary viewing zone, PRIMARY bedroom (where you might watch a movie etc) you probably want to again, use this as a monitor and hook up a little surround system of SOME sort, because the panel's own speakers really are pretty el-cheapo, and will not impress much of anybody. Again- real use, real experience- REAL FEEDBACK. this is a no spin review.
Remote: Features and Buttons are clearly laid out and like just about any name-brand remotes these days, is quite decent. It's small and compact, shaped nice, fits comfortably in my hands and has all the buttons any other HD set has: Your regular channel up/down, volume up/dn, input select, power, menu, up-down-left-right etc. Again, in any system where an installer is invovled, probably the first thing they're going to do is prescribe you a control system (whether it's a simply Universal Remote or similar OR an actual control system, like Vantage Controls, for instance) and be rid of the Sony remote- replaced with a handheld of SOME sort, which controls ALL your devices, not just the Sony TV. The remote does have the ability to learn some commands, but my own 2 cents is that it's ALOT easier to just use a little Harmony for 100 bucks... Setup is a snap, and the online setup tool will CERTAINLY have Sony's IR codes in the database, since Sony is about as popular a brand as could be. That said, the remote is fine if you're just looking to keep it simple- there are no features the remote can't access.
Looks: The Bravia 52 is a sharp looking TV no doubt... Regardless, you can bet there is alot of pressure on Sony to make their panels thinner- as thinner is the new buzz word... Bear in mind- thinner doesn't necessarily mean better... in fact I've ironically seen one new-gen "thin" panel who's wire-management was so poor, it actually looked worse then it's predecssor, the "non thin" panel- so just a quick word on those thin panels- don't dive in just yet! They cost ALOT more, and essentially are the same TV guts, just a touch thinner (and nearly double the price) so let the buyer beware. Also bear in mind Sony makes a higher end XBR panel which even allows for bezel swaps! Imagine- you can just buy a bezel of the appropriate color and snap it on! Again, the XBR is considerably more money- so do your homework and really spend some time USING These tv's to see which is worth your money.
SONY Brand & Service: As I mentioned, this is a non-spin review... While it may be very tough in this paragraph, I'm going to try and remain as objective as possible with this section, since it's the service section, and the most apt to draw very subjective comments... Sony is a HUGE company. Many MANY people have criticized it's service accordingly -- they're just quite simple a HUGE company that sells ZILLIONS of units, and it's very hard to make everyone happy. Common sense would indicate that a company that large would seem to have "layers" and it could end up being very frsutrating to a consumer to get service. That said, I go back to my comment at the onset of this review: BUY FROM LEGIT RETAILERS. Remember, the old addage "you get what you pay for" and if you're nervous about an expensive TV set breaking (probably a good concern) you want to look into service contracts AND you want to make sure you go to a legit place of business- Saving a few hundred bucks and buying your TV from some bucket-shop might be a bad move - 1 service call and then couple of hundred bucks is GONZO!
As for breakage, this model is not "new" per se, and there have been plenty fo breakage issues out there (just go read). But in fairness, Sony has made a decent product here and it's priced mostly comparably to the major name brands out there, with the exception of the real high-end and the exception of the el-cheapo stuff. Again, the hardest challenge was getting all the commoditied sets to accept and display 1080p 24 as well as the standard 30fps material. Sony has done that here, stuck a decent 10-bit procesing engine with SOME setup flexibility and made it look good aesthetically. At a street price of just around 2K (expect it to be 1850 or so or LESS considerably as next week the CEDIA show begins, and all the brands show off the hottest stuff!) you can expect to see more price decreases.
Folks- last word- remember, I'm in this industry. A big part of why I wrote this review is because there is ALOT of stock our there on this model and because all the new stuff is coming out, this is going to be going on sale and become a good deal. While I myself would NOT pay 2200 out of my pocket, I WOULD be willing to pay 1500 or so on it, and I think you can expect those sort of prices and maybe even better the longer stock lasts... Again- the Bravia 52 is a very sharp little set for the money, and while it's certainly not the cheapest, it is a very good panel loaded with the right features for the money - prices are coming down, it may just be time to go shopping!
Thanks for reading my review- I hope it has been very helpful and I hope you'll leave me feedback in the comments section and RATE my review. Thanks!
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