Customer Reviews

Sony Bravia EX700 Series 60-Inch LCD with LED back-lighting HDTV (KDL-60EX700)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I got my 60ex700 yesterday and I am really happy with it. It is a great TV. There was a little flashlighting and uniformity is not perfect but it seems you can tune it quite a bit. There are an amazing amount of settings and I have it set to be more than acceptable for me. Great price on a great TV. Contrast is great with deep blacks and white whites. The motionflow is great also.

Furthermore, the sound is acceptable for normal viewing and much better than I expected due to all the people dissing it. I have a nice theater 5.1 setup but I don't want to use that for everything and the sony sound is just fine.

Netflix and internet stuff is great, the remote is fine. This technology is getting so good we are really picking nits at this point. I just hope it is engineered to be reliable and long lasting because I intend on having this in my living room for the next 6-10 years.

I am sure you can spend a lot more and buy a better TV with better picture quality but for this price... killer TV.

The only downside is the TV is so damn thin and light that I feel nervous holding the bezel when I have to put in the inputs. It is solidly built but it just looks so fragile.

I've had this giant Sony for about a week and for the most part am quite pleased with it. The picture is super sharp with astonishing color. For a 60" screen, it's very light weight and really thin. The setup and picture preferences are really easy to use and to find. There's lots of hdmi connections on the back so you can get rid of all your composite and S cables, use hdmi cables and make all your components look the greatest they can be. I replaced a 60" DLP tv with this so for me there is a huge drop in temperature in my TV room..this LED runs with no heat-love it.There are some really neat features, 1 is a 'presence' monitor. If you don't come back soon enough to the TV, it knows it and will shut the picture off but leave the sound on. A nice feature with internet radio. I like the internet network possibilities. Pandora and Slacker and Utube are available to me from the TV and it's remote control-nice. BUT take notice, to make the internet happen on the Sony you need either to hook up an ethernet cable from the back of your router to the back of the TV OR you need to buy, extra, the Wireless LAN Adapter and already have a wireless access point as part of your computer system.The picture is wonderful and I'm keeping it but there are some rough edges that bother me.

The onboard sound is adequate at best. There is just no room for decent speakers on such a skinny tv. Fortunately, to hook up a surround sound system to the TV is really easy. Sony also make 5.1 sound system that is wireless that is pretty good.
While, I like the internet possibilities, and particularly, being able to access Netflex for direct movie downloads, I was disappointed with Netflex and Amazon VOD services. I have a medium speed DSL and you cannot cache a video download..you have to stream it. So my DSL couldn't keep up with the movie stream-constantly stopping and waiting for information to download. In the case of Netflex, they scan your system and check the speed and then only send the information that can be process by your system. That was a crappy picture. I can of course upgrade my DSL speed but for the addition $10-$15 a month, that sort of defeats the purpose of downloads. It's cheaper to stay with 'snail-mail' movies. Plus the downloaded sound was not surround sound and rather poor. Also I found the selection of available movies and programs to be a rather slim selection and that was disappointing.This is not a fault of the TV,connecting to the internet was very easy. But ,for me, the HD video services are not prime time yet. I found the radio services and Utube real nice to have and they sound great thru surround sound.
The roughest edge for me is the narrow 'viewing angle of the screen. The viewing angle is like a wedge of fruit, coming out from the front of the TV. It can be really limiting and annoying on this set.Right in the middle of the screen-great picture..step to the side and the picture quality quickly disintegrates. My other TV is a plasma and I can virtually look at it from the edge of the screen and see a nice picture. On the Sony, if you are watching 8'-10'back, you have to watch the picture with the screen directly in front of you or else the picture color and detail will just fade out. Just like a screen on a laptop..if you tilt the lid up and down, the picture gets good then fades and then back to good. When your up close you have to be right in the sweet spot or the quality is not happening. In the store when I checked others, the further back you get, obviously the viewing angle gets wider and that color fade out for edge viewing is not so pronounced. But at my house we like the drive-in movie look so I'm maybe alittle more sensitive on this issue.

To draw this up in a sentence, great picture..stay in the sweet spot..and enjoy.

Purchased this Sony HDTV almost a month ago to replace the 42" LCD in the Man Cave...so far, so good. I actually purchased the KDL60EX701 model...from what I can tell, there are no differences between this model and the KDL60EX700. So, here are my observations...

Setup - Easy. I have a single HDMI cable coming from the A/V receiver that plugs into the back of the HDTV, so it doesn't get any simpler than that. When you turn on the HDTV for the first time, you will be prompted to enter some basic settings...it's pretty straightforward and only takes a few minutes to complete. The menu setup is easy to navigate through...those of you who have PS3s & PSPs will find it really easy, as the menu system is identical to the ones found on those devices.

Performance - Excellent. Watching anything in HD on this TV is incredible. Everything comes at you in crisp and vivid detail. There are numerous settings you can go through to get the "perfect" picture...fortunately, I didn't have to change too many of the default settings to get the picture I wanted. I've watched Avatar a few times already and spotted something new I didn't notice from before! Sporting events show up great with very little or no blurring, which is always a good thing for a sports nut like me. SD broadcasts and DVDs aren't quite as crisp-looking as their HD and Blu-Ray counterparts, but that's to be expected of 480i/p. The only issue I have is that the colors tend to fade when viewing from a severe angle. However, the screen is so freakin' large...chances are you won't be watching TV from a severe angle on this thing.

Sound - Good. HDTVs like this are meant for home theaters, not stand-alone setups! However, I did play a couple of MP3 files from a USB drive just to hear the audio quality from the built-in speakers, and it was decent.

Extras - Excellent. The USB port is convenient for showing pictures and playing music from a flash drive. I have yet to use any of the Internet streaming features (Netflix, Amazon VOD,...) as I have been too lazy to connect it to my home network. It does come with a separate wireless adapter and a built-in LAN port for your convenience.

Overall - Excellent. The picture quality is just as good if not better than most of the other HDTVs currently available. I considered getting the 240Hz version of this HDTV, but there is no discernible difference in picture quality when watching sports or action movies (at least not for me). Bottom line...if you're not in any hurry to get a 3-D HDTV, or if you aren't finicky enough to want a full back-lit LED LCD, then I recommend getting this HDTV.

I purchased the KDL 60ex700 from Amazon in July of 2010. It was delievered via CEVA and their "white glove" installation of the TV and BDI Deploy Max 9649 stand exceeded my expectations. The CEVA folks actually built the stand in my home and indicated that was included in the "white glove" delivery. There is an abundance of material written about the picture/sound of this TV, so I will focus upon something else, the Internet capability. It took me a couple of days to secure a five-bar signal strength from my home router (90 feet away through four interior walls)to the SONY UWA-BR100 network adapter. I discovered that four or five bars are required to ensure continuous video operation for most internet applications. To get such a strong signal so far from the router I installed an Apple AirPort Express to boost the transmissions from an AirPort Extreme router. This setup works quite well and I recommend a signal booster, unless your router is within 30 feet of the TV.

I was pleased by the initial Internet offerings which include You Tube and many other content-based sites along with Sony's Michael Jackson catalog. The Internet videos load quickly and the quality can easily rival cable content. It seems evident that Internet access for television will soon bring real competition to cable and satellite providers. By combining Internet TV with more traditional delivery systems (cable/satellite), access to content is a bit more complex, but Sony's remote make the transitions quick and easy. However, entering text for searches is a bit like using a 60" cell phone. Sony would have done well to copy what Apple has incorporated into the iPad for such searching.

The TV also includes some unexpected features, like the ability to automatically power-down whe viewers leave the room and a nice "picture frame" set of photographs which permit the TV to appear like a work of art for hours at a time.

It took me a while to buy a 60" flat screen. Four TV's made it to my final list:

1. Sony 60EX700 - Won due to viewing angle and Sony name.
2. Samsung UN60C6300- lost due to viewing angle and glossy screen.
3. Panasonic TC-P65S2- lost due to my fear of plasmas.
4. Sharp LC-60LE810UN- lost because of yellow tint issues (anecdotes) and viewing angle.

I looked at all of these TV's and the Sony appeared to have the best viewing angle to me. Consumer Reports seems to confirm my impressions and rates the viewing angle of the EX700 as good. It has the best VA of the three LCD's listed above.

I like a Vivid picture, my settings (for Sports) are a little different then some I have seen online:

Calibration Settings
Picture Mode Vivid
Backlight Max
Picture Max
Brightness 55
Color 57
Hue R8
Color Temp Cool
Sharpness 5
MotionFlow High
Cinemotion Auto 2

If you choose "Vivid" the number of settings is less. My bluray settings are similar except the hue is set at R13.

It has taken me time to tweak the settings and I am not done yet but it is a great TV.

The best deal on this TV is AMAZON. I LOVE THIS TV. The one and only thing that I am disappointed about is the sound, not sufficient enough if it is not connected to surround sound. Everything else is EXCEPTIONAL.

I love this TV. It is huge,I have only seen 55 inch TV's before,the extra 5 inches makes a bigger difference than I would have thought. It was very easy to mount on my Z-line TV stand. The screws and washers you need for the brackets are already on the back of the TV. Setting up the TV takes only 5 or 10 minutes,and most of that is automatic. It works great with my computer. All you to have do is use a HDMI cable from your computer to HDMI port #4,then get the remote,hit input and go to HDMI 4. At first,your computer input will not fill up the whole screen,find the wide button on your remote,go to zoom. Movies and tv shows look very good on this tv. BUY THIS TV!!!






















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It seems that the Amazon price increased since I purchased my TV. I paid 2,384.91 on 07/29/2010 but not through Amazon. I decided to go to my local Best Buy store versus doing an online purchase. Best Buy was able to come down over $300 and meet the Amazon price, but they had to order the TV and it took a week to get it in. I also purchased the extended warranty with Geek Squad support which is a percentage of the TV's cost. Thus, I paid less for the warranty by having Best Buy meet the Amazon price.

I sit 14 feet away from the TV. The 60 inch screen seems to be a good size and I wouldn't want anything smaller. My former TV was a 65 inch 9 1/2 year old Sony rear projection behemoth, but it never required any maintenance. However, the picture quality on this new 60 inch LCD/LED is much better... it's really great. I watched the noon news today and was amazed at the poor makeup job of one of the news anchors. Recently, on a trip, I was able to watch about 5 hours of programs on a new 110 inch Epson HD projection TV. The Epson was really nice, however (IMO), the picture quality of this Sony 60 inch LCD/LED is Slightly better. I was also able to watch a golf game and some other sports on three new Samsung 37 inch LCD/LED TVs. All three of the 37" Samsung TVs had perfect pictures (really amazing), and I will have to admit that the picture quality seemed Sharper on these 37" Samsungs than my new 60 inch Sony. Then again, I would think that a 37" LCD/LED would be better than any 55" or 60" LCD/LED and, especially, better than any 110 or 120" HD projection TV.

The speakers on this 60" Sony sound fine but I have to crank up the volume on them... they're a little weak, but what can you expect on a TV that is so thin and weights only 60 pounds. However, I hooked up my old Bose Lifestyle 50 System to the TV and it sounds great. BTW- I bought a new PS3 blu ray to replace my old DVD player as well.

Delivery was within the time frame. Two gents brought it in. opened the box, plugged it in, fired it up & the Sony experience began. I graduated from an eight-month, five days a week TV repair course @ Mass Trades Shops school in 1950. Believe me when I say that we've come a long way since then. No doubt there is a long road ahead for improvements in TV land but this is the best TV on the market today. 3D TV is available but I'll wait 'til it is viewable to the bare eye. I'm sure that it not going to reach that landmark for the foreseeable future so I'm going to be seated in my recliner, ingesting ice-cream & enjoying the programs in HTDV on this truly-awesome 2D TV for more than a few years.

Quite possibly one of the best TV's that money can buy. The black levels, non-dynamic contrast ratios, picture quality are all the best I've ever seen - and I edit video for a living. The added bonus features of being able to directly-access Netflix, YouTube, and Pandora right from within the TV's menu's is a HUGE bonus for me -- completes negates the media center PC I used to have running next to my TV in my living room. It's ability to pass-through 5.1 DTS HD audio via an optical audio out-port is also a major plus when using those aforementioned features.

I would recommend though (and you likely already know this) -- don't buy this, such an awesome/expensive, television unless you indeed to watch ample amounts of Bluray content on it. TV is broadcast only in 720p or 1080i... and you're not getting the most out of this Bravia. I likely watch one or two Blurays a week (on top of HD cable/downloaded movies)... so for me, it was a worthwhile investment.

If you watch Blurays... buy this set.