I recently purchased this television and am overall satisfied with it now that I've got it set up. Below is a copy of
my review from Amazon.com. It doesn't get into all the details that folks here might want to know, so feel free to ask any questions that you might have.
Very nice TV - here are some suggestions for improving the picture
This story has a happy ending and a four-star recommendation, but I want to brace you for some things that you may notice at first (and hate) and then discuss how to possibly fix them to your satisfaction. In a nutshell, I LOVE that this TV is absolutely dead silent when it's on and has a pretty darn good picture overall, but I hated the off-axis viewing and uneven backlighting when I first got it. After messing around with some of the picture adjustments and wiping the screen down (mentioned below), I now find myself really liking it. I went from being almost certain that I was going to return it to now knowing that I'm keeping it.
Some background - I went straight from CRT televisions to a Panasonic plasma TV, specifically because I wanted excellent off-axis viewing. Plasma delivers on that beautifully. I sucked it up and spent a good chunk of change on a Samsung F8500 plasma in December when they were stopping production, but while the picture was stunning, mine had the infamous loud buzzing of some of their sets (most didn't, but a few had issues). Long story short, I returned that Samsung to Amazon and bought this Sony after reading a bunch of positive reviews.
It was no surprise to me that the off-axis viewing on this LCD set wasn't as good as on a plasma. I was, however, surprised at just how much worse it was at small angles and the magnitude of washed out colors when I was about 30-40 degrees off axis. Colors were beautiful if I was directly perpendicular to the screen, but even standing up caused it to start looking washed out. Also, the plastic screen reflects a lot of ambient light, but it diffuses it. So, it doesn't look like a mirror with blatant reflections, but instead has a haze of light across large portions of the screen that sort of washes out the image.
I bought the
Disney WOW: World of Wonder [Blu-ray] calibration disc (I couldn't find my old ones) to try and improve things. I thought maybe the color settings were off and that maybe it would get better off-axis once I corrected them. As it turns out, the Sony was already pretty close out of the box to the optimal settings for contrast, brightness, color, hue (tint), and sharpness. While that didn't help me, I give Sony a lot of credit for having these pretty well calibrated (at least, mine was).
Alright, so colors looked washed out off-axis, and there was uneven backlighting. Because you might (well, I expect you will) experience those same things, here are some suggestions of how to hopefully improve things a bit if you don't like the picture right out of the box:
(*) If you notice light patches on the screen when the screen is dark, trying rubbing the screen with a microfiber cloth or other material recommended for LCD screens. I had a few large white blobs scattered around the screen, and I read a review (maybe even here on Amazon) where the person mentioned "massaging" the screen to clear those up. Sounded odd, but I tried it, and it really did even it out and get rid of what once were blatantly obvious white blobs across my screen. So, just wipe it down like you are cleaning it - don't push hard. Light pressure should do the trick. My theory is that the screen had been deformed a bit when the delivery guys set the face of it down on my ottoman in order to get the base stand installed, and wiping it down helped to smooth it out. Who knows...whatever it was, wiping it down worked for me
(*) Try out the "Black Corrector" setting in the Advanced menu for picture adjustments. I normally leave all such adjustments off, but oh my - what a difference! I had pretty much made up my mind to ship this set back because of the washed out blacks that always looked grey...and then I turned on that setting. Simply amazing. Blacks actually look black now. Maybe I screwed up some other aspect of the image, but I can't see anything wrong. I find myself wondering why they don't have that turned on by default. I have it set to "high" and love how it helps the picture
(*) When sitting off to the side, I found that reducing the brightness from 50-55 to around 40 really helped bring the blacks back and made the image overall much better. It truly turned sitting off to the side from a "everything looks so washed out - I hate it!" experience to one of "wow, that looks really good." A bit of a hassle to have two different picture settings for when I move to a different seat, but I'm very happy that it can be corrected at all
(*) I also turned on the "Live Color" option in the Advanced picture settings and found it to really help colors look good off to the side
(*) If you don't like the "soap opera" effect, you can easily turn that off with the motion control options in the picture settings menu
Pros:
(*) A lot of available adjustments to let you tweak the picture. That's a con if you hate messing with that stuff
, but it's great to be able to do it if you want to. There are a number of options for reducing digital noise (can be nice for compressed video coming from sources like Netflix). They even let you adjust white balance settings, which isn't all that common on TVs
(*) I was able to get really pretty decent blacks on this after adjusting the Black Corrector mentioned above
(*) Dead silent when on. You might all expect that, but after using plasma for years, it was an incredibly welcome experience
(*) Turns on quickly (but some menus take a few seconds before you can access them)
(*) WiFi capability, as well as an Ethernet jack in back
(*) The smart functions can be pretty handy. I like being able to watch Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu Plus directly on the TV without needing to turn on my blu-ray player or other streaming device. Not a necessity at all, but I find them convenient
(*) I love the TV guide for OTA broadcasts. The Samsung guide was a bit more polished, but this one works just fine
(*) USB ports and the ability to play some types of video files (more on that below)
(*) Pretty nice remote. Feels good in the hand and works well. My only nit is that the channel up/down button in on the bottom of the remote, and I'd like it more in the middle where it's easier for me to reach
Cons:
(*) The base stand is under designed, IMO, and the TV wobbles easily if you touch it anywhere (such as cleaning the screen or plugging things in). Luckily, their is a cautionary notice about unsteady TVs in the box, but I'd rather they actually made it steady to begin with.
(*) The processor is a little slow. Bringing up menus, the TV guide, apps...everything is slower that I had expected. It's not agonizing, mind you, but my 2009 Sony blu-ray player is faster
(*) Light-colored patches on dark scenes due to backlight bleed (at least on my set) as delivered, but wiping over the screen with light pressure solved that
(*) Decent but not great handling of ambient light. The screen diffuses it and creates a sort of haze over the picture if your room is bright at all. I've honestly gotten used to it after just a week, so it's not a deal breaker for me, but I wanted to mention it
Other:
(*) Unless I'm missing something, it can't play as many types of files from an attached USB drive (or WiFi media streamer) as can my 2009 Sony blu-ray player. While it can play MKV files, so far I can only get stereo sound from it versus full DTS or Dolby Digital on the blu-ray player. Also, this Sony doesn't seem to be able to recognize folders, so all of the files have to be in the top directory
(*) If you have young kids or energetic pets, give some serious thought to securing it because the included stand doesn't keep it very steady if it gets knocked
In summary, I think this TV is definitely worth considering. It's not the best picture out there, but it's pretty darn good once you get it adjusted, and the set has a number of other positive aspects (like being completely silent and having decent "smart" features).
