Customer Reviews

Sony Bravia XBR-Series KDL-40XBR2 40-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV

5 star:		(73)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

This television replaced a Sony KDL-40S2000 I had purchased. During my 30-day return policy I realized if I were to invest (ha!) in a LCD television I should get one with a full 1080 resolution. I returned the KDL-40S2000 and got this model.

Out of the box the television is gorgeous, however, a bit wider and thicker than my previous Bravia. Not a problem for me, but check the measurements before you buy.

Picture quality is phenomenal; previous to this set I've always been a tube/CRT guy due to their better picture quality when compared to plasmas and LCDs. I think the technology has finally caught up with CRT quality with this TV. Great (but not perfect) black levels and more detail than you really need in a 40" television. I will say there is a difference between a 720p panel and 1080p panel in my tests. Motion on high definition sources is also very good. The picture quality on standard definition sources could be better, but I am watching less and less standard definition every day.

I was surprised by the amount of tweaks and features present on this television. A few notable features include: A full pixel mode which takes your high definition source and displays it pixel for pixel on your set, something I've never seen on a HDTV before. This feature does wonders for sources outputting a 1080 signal, including my modded Xbox which outputs the interface and DVD signals in 1080i. You can literally walk up to the TV and see the pixels 1:1 just like a computer monitor. This full pixel mode does have a caveat, some HD broadcasts have some extra pixels on the side or top of the frame that appear in this mode, but it's a fine trade off for the 1:1 resolution. The extra pixels are the result of the broadcaster and not the TV.

The other valuable feature is the ability to adjust the wide viewing mode when viewing any sort of signal including high definition. My previous HDTV was locked into "Wide/Full" mode when watching 1080i content. The KDL-40XBR2 lets you choose which viewing mode when watching high-definition content. I use this feature when I watch inside the NFL on HBO-HD. They broadcast the program using a 1080i signal, but the show is actually standard definition displayed in a 4:3 frame (when is HBO gonna start shooting this show in HD?). The zoom mode allows me to zoom the picture and watch the program using the whole screen. I wouldn't have had this option with my previous HD sets.

Because I don't like artificial sharpness or edge creation I always turn the sharpness down very low or off on my televisions. Most TVs look ideal when the sharpness is set low so no artificial edges are created. Don't do this on the KDL-40XBR2 because Sony has added some additional control with the sharpness adjustment. When I set the sharpness very low (Min - 10) I noticed the picture became very blurry, especially with text. At first I thought I had gotten a lemon, but later realized this is a feature. When the sharpness is low the TV seems to reverse the sharpness effect causing the picture to soften. Once I bumped the sharpness up to 35 the picture looked amazing with no artificial edges or blurriness. This functionality is different than most sets, but a perfect example of the level of adjustment the KDL-40XBR2 offers.

Great looks, picture quality and enough tweaks to occupy hours fine-tuning the picture. This isn't a great set for someone who wants to take it out of the box and expect a great picture, but instead someone who is used to tweaking their A/V equipment to their preferences. Highly recommended if you've got the cash.

Sony's XBR line of LCD displays are near or at the top of the most amazing on the market in terms of picture quality, but anyone considering a purchase of an XBR2/3 model display should be aware that there is a significant manufacturing defect with displays produced post-August of 2006 that results in extremely splotchy or "cloudy" backlighting. During playback of dark content, clouds of bright spots can be seen across the display. Sony has yet to officially acknowledge this latest stumble in their production quality control, but do a search for "XBR clouding" and you will find plenty of discussion about this very real problem.

I have personally owned this display and the defect was significant enough to warrant a return. I opted not to get a replacement knowing that so many of these displays in the channel are affected. When (hopefully not "if") Sony is able to remedy the production problem and get non-defective sets to retail, I would easily rate it a five-star product and re-purchase one for my home theater.

I have owned a 46xbr3 for over a month now. I would 1st like to say that the image of this TV is awesome. The menu options you have to tweak the look of the image is very very detailed. It helps if you run component and HDMI signals and need to have different tweaked settings to optimize look and reduce pixelization. 1080p with your playstation 3, blu ray or hd dvd players. The tv does not run 1080p component, only hdmi and vga, so your xbox 360 will have to run in 1080i (still looks great). The xbox 360 does run 1080p through vga input on this tv but xbox360 makes the screen look washed out.

Clouding Issue:
There is however a manufacturing defect that is not officially published by sony and no recall is yet in effect. The Sony LCD flatpanels XBR2/XBR3 40"/46"/52" screens have a greater then 50% chance to have a defect nicknamed "clouding". I am one of those unlucky buyers. What "clouding" basically is, is white puffy looking background lighting, when screen is black. This is not to be confused with non uniform lighting often seen in PC lcd panels; This is much worse and much brighter and heavily blotchy. For most people with this problem (including myself) you can only see this clouding during times when the screen goes black. (credits at the end of the movies, transitions between commercials to tv shows, dark parts scenes in movies and shows.) During these dark scenes they stand out like a sore thumb and make viewing distracting; due to the fact they are very bright and whitish. My experience is the longer the TV stays turned on the brighter these clouds get. When you 1st turn on the Tv they are very faint. They also have an odd habit of shifting around the panel very slowly over the course of weeks. (as strange as this may sound) I have found the clouding does not discolor or overbrighten the screen when the TV has full colorful images on it. This is why this problem is tolerable and I did not demand my money back, its still not acceptable though. I have read a few users say their clouding is so bad it effects the colors and makes them washed out. Thankfully I have not seen that.

Please do not take my word for any of this I encourage you to be a critical thinker and go out on google and seek this "sony lcd clouding" issue. I am doing my part for the small community of us who are stuck with this sad problem overshadowing what is otherwise an absolutely great HDTV.

In closing this TV is beautiful looking but when you spend this much money you don't want things like this bringing down your morale over the product. If you buy this TV you could be one of the lucky buyers and get an untainted screen and most stores give you a 30 day return policy. I have also heard (not confirmed) that the newest manufactured models have fixed this issue. I gave the product 5 stars despite the flaw, because even with this flaw I love this TV.

Best of luck with your HDTV purchases. Hope this helps.

After comparing this television to other HD LCD TV's in this size range, I've found that it does have an excellent picture quality (comparable even to higher-end plasmas and without the burn-in problems associated with plasma technology). The design of the enclosure is unbeatable, in my opinion. With that said, the response time on the display is 8ms, which is much better than many other cheaper models, but still not the best out there. I would recommend researching the response time to see how important it is to you with how you'll be using the TV -- many people would not notice the difference between 5ms and 8ms. For some unknown reason, Sony also doesn't include such common features as picture-in-picture or picture-by-picture. Surprisingly, it also lacks a Sony Memory Stick slot for easily viewing a slideshow of pictures. Why Sony has cut such an inexpensive feature is beyond me, but they must have been having some problem with it to stop putting them in their TV's. It also lacks USB expansion ports, another inexpensive addition considering that you're already paying several thousand dollars anyway. Finally, why Sony went with an out-dated VGA connection instead of a DVI one to connect your computer to the TV doesn't make sense to me, but an adapter (sold separately) will easily solve that problem. Those drawbacks aside, I still think it's the best HD LCD TV in that size range, but it certainly could be improved to include features that many other HD LCD TV's already offer.

I have to be careful here. I don't want to come across as someone who is griping about something that was hammered into his head from the beginning of this process: these TV's all look great in HD but SD is another story. It was and we understood the potential pitfalls in advance. So I'll be clear--I'm not faulting anyone for this issue. This is not a knock against Sony as it is a lament on the pitiful amount of HD programming. And I'm looking for comments here. Perhaps we're doing something wrong.

Most of the reviews and comments all center around this set's beautiful HD picture. And in HD it's very impressive. Every place we looked at this TV, the programming it was playing was in HD (usually a video). The guy at best buy claimed he couldn't take the TV off of the store's "loop" and show us what a non-HD picture looked like. But in SD the picture is really hard to look at for a long time. It feels like I'm looking at an incredibly low resolution picture, as if someone emailed me a 50K file instead of a 50 meg file. The ancient--and I mean ancient--27" TV in our bedroom beats it by a mile. Do you guys find the same thing? Maybe we're doing something wrong but I find it hurts my eyes to watch such a fuzzy picture for long periods of time. It was so difficult to deal with that we returned the 46" version of this model for the slightly smaller 40".

Perhaps this wouldn't be an issue if we were talking about a few remaining SD channels and a million HD ones. But the opposite is true. The fact remains that most--by an overwhelming figure--of television programming is not HD. Of the 700 channels on our cable system there are about a dozen channels broadcast in HD. And let's be even more accurate: NBC, say, has an HD channel. So it's great watching The Today Show in HD, at least for the couple of minutes each broadcast that you get HD. When Al and Matt are bantering in the studio, it's HD. But the minute the show does a report from Iraq (where the video wasn't shot in HD) or an interview with someone sitting in an affiliate studio or simply cuts to our local weatherman to see what's happening in our neck of the woods, it's back to SD. It can get a little nerve-wracking, the screen expanding and contracting in and out of HD every three seconds.

So for those of us who could care less about XBox 360 or Playstation this becomes a very real problem.

First of all let me state that I bought my 40XBr2 for $[...] out the door and I was also lucky to get an August manufactured date. I was originally going to buy this unit during Thanksgiving from a local store but when I read some reviews about some units having clouding (mura effects) issures, I held off so I could do more research. I'm glad i did because I was able to save several hundreds of dollars and was lucky enough to get a unit that so far doesn't suffer from clouding (knock on wood). The reason I mention the manufatured date above is because I heard that August has [...], which is not the case for [...].

I currently have my XBR2 connected to a DirecTV H20 HD receiver and a Playstation 3 and I am using HDMI cables on both. I do agree that the regular SD (standard definition) channels don't look as good as it would on a regular TV, but I do think that it is not as bad as some would say. I did find the some of the SD channels hard to watch out of the box, but after I made some changes to the video calibration settings, I found the SD channels to be not bad at all. I know that some people would not know how to calibrate their own TV but with the help of the internet, you can find someone who will post the correct or proper settings. I know each person has a different taste, but I did find the settings from the link below made my tv viewing a whole lot better.

All the HD channels on Directv are great and the shows that are on 1080i are amazing on my XBR2. As for the Playstation 3, all I can say is WOW! The details of the games and Blu ray movies are just incredible. I'm probably going to borrow my friends Xbox 360 this weekend just to see how it looks, I'm sure it will be a great experience also.

For the price I paid and the image quality I'm getting, I believe that this is the best LCD TV in the market. Other features that sold me were the design, 1080P, 3hdmi inputs, and pretty good sound. Hoped I helped some people out.

[...]

Cloudy defective backlit panel--sometimes called "mura effect"

I would encourage anyone who is contemplating purchasing the Sony KDL-XBR2, XBR3 in either 40" or 46" to reconsider for the time being. The percentage of consumers who have purchased this HDTV and have reported the above problem ranges now from 69.85 to 90 percent. Perhaps, this may explain why the online and retail price has steadily fallen at a rate of almost $100.00 every 2-3 weeks.

The clouding backlight issue is primarily visible in low-light conditions, e.g. when watching darker scenes.

Sony now acknowledges that they have received some complaints. However, their response has been to send consumers a printed guide with instructions to optimize the picture quality. The fundamental flaw has not been addressed. Some "blue ribbon" technical support and repair service personnel who have made home-visits have characterized the effect as "normal."

I would suggest further that one type in the words "Sony XBR clouds" on Google. The AVS forum has been particularly helfpul.

This was my first purchase of a HDTV and it was well worth it! Yes, the Sony is on the higher end of the price range, but if you can afford the extra cost, it is well worth buying. Before purchasing, I did the research, checking out consumer magazines, internet newsgroups, and even reviewers on different sites. There have been some owners that reported problems, but most of what I found has been about the Bravia 46" sets, not the 40's, but Sony isn't the only manufacturer out there that are having problems.
All the information out there talks about how vivid the colors are and how sharp the resolution is, but that is an understatement! You have to actually watch this TV to fully appreciate what it is capable of showing. Stores like Best B-- and Circuit C--- have the TV's operating when you come in, but the ones I saw in the store, whether it was the Sony or not, did not seem that impressive. Having this set in my house, the picture clarity is so impressive! Now, I don't have cable, so my viewing was off the antenna and satellite dish, and I haven't tweaked it to the optimum settings, and it is still fantastic. I have had no issues of picture clouding that other reviews had mentioned.
I chose my 40" more because of space requirements than desire. I have a limited area in which to place the TV, so the 40" was my choice. If you really want a great upper mid size HDTV, with fantastic 1080 resolution and fantastic color, than I highly recommend you considering purchasing this TV. You will not be disappointed!

I bought it from B*** Buy, I had it about 2wks. Then I saw a Blue Dot in the lower right corner. I told the C.svc at the store. They told me to bring it in for a new replacement. They told me some new HDTV's get a Burn-in with in a few weeks. Starts Blue then turns Red. Therefore, I took it back; they told me it has no longer carried though BXXX Buy. Therefore, they up dated me to the Sony 40" XBR4 for 211.65 more. I hope I get a better one. Alternatively, I might have to try another HDTV company. Besides the Burn-In, I loved it wonderful color, great picture no matter if you are standing or sitting. Just remember if you see any BLUE DOTS, get in touch with SONY or via the store you bought it from & get a replacement. Good Luck...

Purchased this television about a month ago and have been enjoying it. The HD and Blu-Ray pictures are outstanding in clarity and depth. I was concerned about the clouds and lo and behold there they were. Some films that are very dark are difficult to watch such as the "Saw" films. Other's that don't have stellar DVD transfers are very, grainy...close to unwatchable. The Godfather is a good example of this. If you are purchasing this to get the best HD picture, you can't miss. As to regular programing and regular DVD's it can take some getting used to.
Cheers