Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Ok, I admit it took me several visits to Costco, Best Buy and Circuit City before I decided to part ways with $2-3K for a flat screen HDTV. After viewing a myriad of brands I have never heard of before, I decided that the Sony Bravia and the Sharp Aquos were in the top of the LCDs. Not surprisingly, so were their prices.
Both the Sony Bravia and the Sharp Aquos displayed bright whites and dark blacks better than most other LCDs. They also had sharper pictures and more natural colors compared to their cheaper competitors. The only other brand I was impressed with was Panasonic. But it was a plasma and I wanted an LCD.
After reading some reviews here, I was convinced that buying a large flat screen was better done by going to Costco rather than online.You can see what you are buying before you actually buy it. And, Costco has a liberal return policy. Since prices of LCD flat screen TVs are predicted to continue dropping, you might want to get some of your money back. Within one week of my buying an LCD TV from Costco, the same model dropped by $300 and I got it back from Costco without fighting for it!
I bought this Sony Bravia - S series 40 inch ($1,999) AND the Sharp Aquos 45 inch ($2,499) LCD from Costco. In my opinion, the 40 inch Sony Bravia produces a high contrast and extremely sharp picture. It is very, very good. However, the Sharp Aquos provides a noticeable overall better viewing experience. In a way, the picture looks softer, more natural and lifelike. I think, in the end, what you will find better will be a matter of personal preference.In my opinion, if you like amazing sharpness, get the Sony. If you prefer overall balance, get the Sharp. You will be happy with either, so don't lose sleep about it.
Here are a few more tips:
1.)Don't buy based reading the specs or reviews alone. Go to a store and actually watch the TV. Insist that at a component (Y, Pr, Pb) or HDMI cable from an HD source be connected to the TV before you make a comparison.
2.)Make sure you get an HD cable box from your cable TV provider or else your investment may not be worth much. Ordinary, non-HD channels may actually look worse on HD sets.
3.)You don't have to blow a hundred bucks or more for HD cables. Go to Walmart, and buy your HDMI or DVI to HDMI cable (Philips brand) for about $23. I found that using the DVI-HDMI cable to hook up the cable box to the TV gave better results compared to using component cables.
4.)Fine tune or calibrate your HDTV. You can use the THX Optimizer that is included with Toy Story or The Incredibles with your DVD player.
5.)Finally, once you have experienced High Definition you probably will be unhappy with Standard TV. That means, you'll be replacing your other old TVs. That's how I ended up with both this Sony Bravia and the Sharp Aquos. Unfortunately, I'm not done yet. The rest of will be smaller 37 or 32 inch Sharp Aquos.
6.) The Sony Bravia S series has only one HDMI input. You may want to eventually have 2, one for the cable box and the other for an High Def DVD. This may not be a show stopper given that you will probably buy a home theater system that can take several HDMI inputs. However, the Bravia has a set of component inputs on the side. So, if you mount it on the wall, you can still easily connect video equipment without figuring out how to get to the back.
7.) If you watch more broadcast tv than dvds, don't worry about 720p, 1080i (this TV's capability) versus 1080p. At the moment, I am not aware of any broadcast channel doing 1080p. Also, it's too early to determine if Blue-ray will win over HD DVD so committing to a high def DVD system may not be very smart. Save your money until there is a definite winner.
Enjoy.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Sony Bravia KDL-40S2000 40 Inch Flat Panel LCD HDTV
Product Description:
The sleekly styled, silver 40-inch Sony Bravia KDL40S2000 is packed with the latest high-performance video features, including a wide viewing angle, blazing fast 8ms response time (great for sports and action movies), and a wide color gamut backlight that provides more natural skin tones and highly accurate overall color reproduction. It also offers integrated HDTV capabilities (with an integrated ATSC tuner), digital HDMI video connectivity, and a bottom speaker design that helps save space. The thin profile of this Bravia TV accommodates VESA compliant mounting systems (separately available). The removable pedestal swivels 30 degrees left and right and also tilts forward 3 degrees and backward 8 degrees for additional placement flexibility.
With clean lines and styling, Bravia TVs look great in any room, either on a stand or mounted on the wall. Like other TVs in the Bravia line, the KDL40S2000 uses Sony's Wide Color Cold Compact Fluorescent Light (WCG-CCFL) to display a color gamut almost 30 percent larger than a conventional CCFL display, which results in deeper reds, more vivid greens, and cleaner blues. It also offers a high response time (also referred to as refresh rate) of 8 milliseconds (ms), which is able to clearly portray fast-moving images across the screen with well-defined edges and without ghosting (streaking or shadowing). The set's Light Sensor feature intelligently adjusts the screen brightness to match the ambient light in a room, ensuring a comfortable viewing experience.
BRAVIA televisions' new Super-Patterned Vertical Alignment (S-PVA) panels divide pixels into more segments than was possible with PVA (Pattered Vertically Aligned) technology. These segments have an incredibly fast 8-millisecond response time that increases the television's refresh rate. Dividing the pixel display into more segments also allows a cleaner break between dark and light pixels, improving viewing angles, color, and contrast. It also features the latest in Sony's unique S-PVA (Super Patterned Vertical Alignment) LCD panel technology, which divides each sub-pixel into two segments per color for a more refined consistency in colors, contrast, and brightness at wide viewing angles. This seventh generation Sony LCD panel was specially crafted at Sony's plant and produced from one of the world's biggest mother glass (a huge sheet of glass that can be divided to create multiple LCD panels).
The KDL40S2000 has a 1366 x 768-pixel resolution, 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio, 178-degree viewing angle, and 1300:1 contrast ratio. (The higher the contrast ratio, the greater a TV's ability to display subtle color details and not get washed out by ambient room light.) The Cinemotion 3:2 pulldown cinema video processing detects and compensates film--which is shot at 24 frames per second (fps) compared with video's 30 fps rate--to video for a smooth theaterlike experience at home. The 3D digital comb filter offers 10-bit signal processing that renders superb gradation of grays, resulting in superior picture detail.
Blurred image caused by motion artifacts due to slow panel response time of typical LCDs.
BRAVIA's fast panel response time handles the motion in sports and video games Other convenience features include:
WEGA GATE Easy Operation Guideallows you to easily navigate to the most convenient TV functions: favorite channels, TV channel list, external input list, or settings.
Favorite Channels with the WEGA GATE function, allows you to navigate a list of up to 16 favorite channels without leaving the current channel.
Wide Screen Mode allows you to watch 4:3 normal broadcasts in wide screen mode (16:9 aspect ratio).
Parental Control (V-Chip) helps parents monitor what their children watch on TV by establishing rating limits.
Caption Vision/Info Banner allows closed caption and/or channel programming information to be displayed.
The Freeze Function temporarily freezes the picture in a separate screen while the programming continues to display, which can come in handy when you want to copy a recipe, phone number, etc. that flashes too quickly across your screen.
Composite (RCA audio/video): 3 inputs (1 on the side)
S-Video: 2 inputs (1 on the side)
Component (Y/Pb/Pr): 2 inputs (with left/right audio jacks)
HDMI: 1 input (with L/R RCA audio connections)
PC: 1 D-Sub15 input (with L/R stereo mini plug connection)
RF: 1 input
Total audio inputs: 5 (1 side, 4 rear)
Analog audio output: 1
Digital audio ouput: 1
Headphone: 1
Tech Talk
HDMI is a lossless, uncompressed, all-digital audio/video interface to link any audio/video source (such as a set-top box, DVD player, or AV receiver) with your TV--all over a single cable. HDMI supports standard, enhanced or high definition video, plus multi-channel digital audio on a single cable. It supports all ATSC formats--standard (SDTV), enhanced (EDTV), and high (HDTV).
Component video (also called Y/Pb/Pr) features a three-jack video input, which provides separate connections for luminance (Y), blue color difference (PB) and red color difference (PR). This results in increased bandwidth for color information, resulting in a more accurate picture with clearer color reproduction and less bleeding than you would get with S-Video or composite (RCA yellow video plug) connections. You will need a separate RCA left/right audio cable for sound.
TruSurround XT audio adds three new audio enhancement technologies to produce an amazingly immersive sound experience.
Dialog Clarity brings movie dialog into Focus during the playback of any surround-encoded material to make speech much clearer and crisper.
TruBass creates incredible deep rich bass allowing a person to perceive significantly deeper, richer low bass tones that are far beyond the physical low frequency capabilities of the speaker itself.
The SRS WOW feature widens the soundstage by processing standard two-channel stereo material as well as multi-channel encoded material for a dramatic improvement in the playback of any stereo audio over a two-speaker system.
What's in the Box
40-inch Bravia LCD television, tabletop stand, remote control (with batteries), coaxial cable, HD15-to-HD15 cable, printed operating instructions
Warranty
1 year for parts and labor; in-home diagnostic warranty service for one year (for LCD TVs from the Bravia S-Series measuring over 30 inches)
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