 MY WIFE HATES IT, BUT I LOVE IT: ITS JUST THE BEGINNING. |
| Review Date: March 7, 2010 |
| Reviewer: KC, NYC, NY USA |
I just got my KDL40-VE5 Sony Bravia, I kicks %#@#$... The picture is so clear it almost looks 3-D. Sound is perfect in the bedroom, in Dynamic setting is as good as the surround sound system in stereo setting(Yes you have to turn it up half way, but anything after that the house shakes not the speakers[Sony must have fixed the problem]). 100, 000:1 contrast means your old " View Master Viewer" is now in 40".
My 2years old genius daughter Has been trying to obtain products and items from the T.V. I'm happy my wall mount got here so I could get my 120 hz off the level of my little princess. I have a cable hd connection, and ps3 250g. Everything on HDMI connections. This may be what makes the difference???
My Wife however, does not like my Bravia. Mainly because my old westinghouse 47" 1080P, 60 hz, which only had 8000:1 contract. Just looks like a dinosaur now. The westinghouse does have a feature they called 1080Pure which give it a very good picture. I never thought someone else lcd looked better. In fact a few friends bought the same tv after seeing mine. Sorry guys... HA, HA.
The Eco Bravia has brought the future to my house. Now I'm shooting for 240hz, 1440p, 1,000,000:1.... don't look back guys, the future is waiting. |
Huge power consumption savings, great picture quality, great value.
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| Review Date: January 21, 2010 |
| Reviewer: H. Babcock, N. California, USA |
I've had this TV for over three months now. Previous to purchasing this set I waited and shopped for over a year looking for the right TV at the right price. I run my place off solar power, with every watt I use of power making a difference, so I had been looking forward to this model since it was announced early in 2009 due to it's low power consumption. In this regard, it has not disappointed. For all LCD TV's, power consumption varies highly depending on how high you turn up the backlight. I use it almost solely for movies, which look great with the backlight at the lowest setting or up only 1 or 2 clicks ("Cinema" setting is nice). At lowest backlighting this TV uses only about 80watts of power (measured with my handy Kill-A-Watt meter). Upping the backlight to 2 increases it to about 90watts. (For those interested, if I turn it all the way up it goes up to about 145watts. But I never want it anywhere near this bright.) The TV running together with my Sony Bluray player uses a total of 96 watts when playing a Bluray movie. This is fantastic. By comparison, my previous TV, a couple year old high quality _32"_ Sharp model (also 1080p, and one of the more energy efficient models of its time), used nearly as much power as this 40" model. A new standard (non-"Eco") Sony 40" or a Samsung or other brand uses at least 125watts with the backlight turned down. With the backlight up other normal models use well over 200watts. So this model has a real world 40% power consumption savings compared to a typical 40" set. This is fantastic, and every bit as good as I had hoped.
Also if you're considering a bigger 46 or 52" set, the power consumption of this EV model in those bigger sizes actually scales better relative to normal LCD's (not to mention plasmas) also. Meaning as you go up in size, you actually get a higher percentage increase in power consumption savings. So for example, the 46" EV uses only about 20 watts more power than this 40", compared to an increase of about 60 or more watts in a standard V-series or other brand LCD for the same increase in size.
Power consumption: 5/5 stars.
As to the picture quality, it is every bit as good as I expected for an LCD set. Even the blacks on this set are a huge improvement over my previous 2 year old Sharp 32" LCD. They even seem slightly better (darker) than my brother's one year old 52" Sony V-series (52V4100). Of course the black levels aren't going to be as perfect as my friend's new 50" plasma, due to the inherent flaws in LCD technology, but they are as good as any LCD I've seen, and I'm happy with that. I am sourcing almost solely Bluray, so the quality is top notch. I can not comment on how SD television looks as I've never used it, and don't really understand why anyone would want to buy an expensive HDTV like this primarily for SD content. DVD's through the Bluray player upscaling, look surprisingly good. Though nowhere near as stunning as Bluray, definitely better than standard DVD quality.
In every other way the picture quality is fantastic, with one exception: There is a very slight "bleed in" of light on the upper left and right corners. I guess this might be that notorious problem I've heard about with Sony's. As someone who is meticulous on details, I did notice it right away when I first turned on the set. However, it is only noticeable when the background is black, for example during movie end credits, and as I said, it is very slight. If it were more than very slight, I definitely would have returned or exchanged the set immediately, but it's a tiny negative to an otherwise outstanding LCD picture quality.
Picture quality: 4/5 stars.
Sound quality, despite all the bad reviews I see here, is above average for built in sound on a flat panel. In fact, it's far and away above most other HDTV's I tested, particularly Samsung models, which seem to almost intentionally have unusable built in sound. It is also much better than my previous Sharp model, which incidentally still had much better sound than than the Samsung models I tested. I carefully tested the sound on some higher end Sony models as well (last year's Z and XBR) and found the sound quality on this to be comparable. The real test however, is will the built in sound be acceptable, "good enough", when actually watching a movie. It passes this test. It seems to depend a lot on the source or the actual specific disc, as sometimes having the sound at under half volume is fine, while another movie will require it to be nearly all the way up, but overall I find the built in speakers surprisingly usable.
As to the vibration noise issue reported by many here, I do notice some vibration noise when the bass is loud and the volume is turned up high, on occasion, but not so much as to be a glaring problem. Maybe others here got defective speakers. In conclusion, the sound is as good as any flat panel set I've used yet (better than 50" Panasonic Plasma, better than most other LCD's, about equal to high end LCD's). Especially if you're using the TV mainly for sports and TV, the built in sound is good. That said, as would be the case with any HDTV today, I will probably be adding a good quality sound bar or surround system in the future, to get more of a theater-like movie experience.
Sound quality: 4/5 stars.
Overall I'm very satisfied with this set. I felt compelled to put in my two cents after reading the several negative reviews here. Many of the negatives seem to either be due to bad speakers, or some unrealistic expectation with regard to SD (Standard Definition) picture quality, etc. I'm glad I bought it before reading all the bad speakers reviews, as those reviews might have stopped me from buying it. Few people seem interested in this TV's main draw which makes it worth the slight premium over Sony's regular V-series set: Low power consumption. In this regard it is so far and away above the rest that I'm tempted to give the set 5 stars overall. The only reason I'm not is because of the very slight light bleed in at the top corners, for which I refuse to give Sony the "perfect" 5 stars.
Lastly, when you consider that the price of this has come down so much now as we head into 2010 with new models on the horizon, I think right now is the sweet spot in terms of the value you get with this set, if you're looking for a good quality TV with low power consumption.
Overall: 4/5 stars.
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This is a terrible model, upgrade your choice to z series or XBR
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| Review Date: January 21, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Truthinadvertising, Rochester, NY |
We purchased this model from Sears. In less than 12 hours we decided to return the unit. First problem was the sound. The left speaker vibrates before you even put the volume up to half. Second problem was the constant color changing and image tracking. It was like the TV was stuck in a loop trying to find the correct resolution and color contrast. Colors were constantly changing during a news cast on the same person. Very unstable. We were VERY disappointed.
We returned the unit and the people at Sears told us that over 90% of the lesser models of Sony LCD's are returned and that the store is deciding whether or not to continue carrying the lesser models.
The good news is that we purchased the Z5100 40 inch from Amazon. The price was great! The TV seems to have been made by a different group within Sony. The picture is fantastic, the sound is awesome. The progressive scanning works well and the contrast and colors are dynamic. And as always, Amazon is a great company to deal with. Ordered on a Sunday afternoon and it was delivered on Wednesday at noon. The delivery company was great and even warned us that we should let it sit for at least an hour as it had been in temps below 50. Important when dealing with LCD's.
We are so happy with the new TV. The 240Hz makes a world of difference, as does the 10 bit processing. The overall size and sleeker design of the case is also much, much better. The image tracking is superb, color is awesome.
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Great picture - Lousy sound
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| Review Date: January 8, 2010 |
| Reviewer: G. Salter, |
| I purchased the Bravia KDL-40VE5 yesterday (Jan 6, 2010). It was very easy to set up. The picture is very good but, the sound is really bad. And, there's buzzing/vibrating in the right speaker. It sounds worse than my bedside clock-radio. Nonetheless, I thought adding auxilary speakers would fix the audio. Well, this didn't work very well either... the only audio output is 'fixed', therefore, the auxillary speakers will not respond to mute or volume control. Otherwise, the additional(computer) speakers ($30) made the TV come alive. Well, anyway, this won't work! Hard to believe believe that a $1000 TV sounds this lousy and will not support a couple of additional speakers. Really disappointed... think I'll take it back. |
Big Audio Problems
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| Review Date: December 30, 2009 |
| Reviewer: S. Gill, |
After purchasing this TV for Christmas we were very excited about its clean lines and excellent picture...until we turned the volume up. This TV didn't just have bad sound, it has a design problem. The left side speaker casing vibrates even at very low audio levels. The vibration is as loud and sometimes louder than the TV volume. If you place pressure with your finger hard against the speaker grill, it stops.
We, unfortunately, assumed this was an isolated problem and exchanged the TV for another of the same model. Exact same problem. The store says the TV has been "discontinued" which may be Sony's way of handling the problem. The Sony help line acted as if they had never heard of the problem and suggested turning the unit off, then back on (insulting). They continue to sell the unit both in stores and on their Sony Style website (where there are many reviews posted with this same audio issue).
If you have any desire to ever turn up the TV's volume, DO NOT BUY THIS MODEL. If you are always going to use external speakers...I'll bet there will be some great buys as these flood the return shelves! Excellent picture for what it is worth. |
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