Customer Reviews

Sony Bravia V-Series KDL-42V4100 42-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

We've had one now for about two weeks and the shakedown period is close to over with it and we've been very happy with this choice. It took quite a while to finally make a decision to dump our 27" Sony Trinitron for a new fangled LCD TV as the thing still sounds and looks good after 17 years!

But that was two weeks ago and now that I'm use to seeing everything (especially good is text) on 42 inches of LCD, I'd never go back. The term "Wow" is an understatement. Yeah, I've seen big LCD TV's in bars and restaurants but until you've got one in the quiet of your own home, you just don't know the difference.

Here's the Pro's and Con's of this 42" Sony V-series TV:

Pros:
* Exterior design is very attractive. I like the piano black frame and front part of the stand. Very classy. The gray sound bar on the front and the gray on the back part of the stand are nice accents but don't detract from the main color.
* Setup was very easy. I pulled the TV out of the box (we bought ours from a Big Box Store) and put the stand on the TV cabinet. My wife and I picked up the TV and set it into the neck of the stand. 4 phillips screws attach the TV to the stand. Just have your electric screwdriver charged and ready for duty.
* The flat, no-gloss LCD screen is the way to go. I looked at some TV's that had a very pretty glossy screens but it doesn't take much additional light to grab reflections.
* Sony's TV menu system is really good. I find it very easy to navigate to the feature I want to change. If you're use to the Sony PS3 or PSP, it's the same thing. Also, Sony gives you a free connection to an interactive TV Guide station. Very nice to navigate and read but it's only available if you watch the TV through cable without the company's cable box attached.
* Really good remote. It's long and slim and feels very good in your hand. Nice button distinctions. I'm sad that I don't use it more because my cable company has it's own huge, gray monster that I must use in order to navigate their cable box.
* The various external connections are plentiful and easy to reach. With 4 HDMI connections, you won't be needing more anytime soon. I've got a cable box, VCR player, DVD player, Stereo receiver, and a game system plugged into the TV and still, I've got many more connections.
* HDTV cable programs in 1080i looks great on this set (BTW, you can't get 1080p through the cable company). I haven't fiddled with the custom color settings because the standard one is perfect for viewing TV. A press on the remote "picture" button offers you "cinema" and "Vivid" (great for game machines) settings as well as a custom setting option. The standard 480i picture is acceptable on this TV. I have the TV set to wide-zoom any 480i picture which fills the 16:9 screen but cuts off a little on the top and bottom of the picture. You can set the TV to put it into the 4:3 shape if you must but my wife said "we paid for 42 inches and I want to see everything in 42 inches." Wife wins.
* The sound is very good on this TV. It was one of the top (3) reasons we bought this TV. We don't have any fancy Dolby 5.1 or 7.1 setup. And we watch plenty of "regular" TV that really doesn't need the additional speakers. The sound is crisp and clear coming from the small front facing speakers. Other TV's (won't mention brands) have back mounted speakers that either fire backwards or downwards. You can't get quality sound that way no matter what the manufacturer tells you.

Cons:
* We wish it had an earphone jack. Like me, you can optionally port the sound (either digital optical or RCA jacks) to a receiver and use the receiver's headphone jack when needed.

And that's it. I honestly can't think of another con for this TV. I won't count it being a 60 instead of 120hz TV because that's not what I bought and I don't think it matters that much and I do watch plenty of sports.

It's early in the life of this TV but I'm impressed so far. I did buy an additional 4 year warranty so I'm covered. This technology is too new and complicated not to get an additional warranty unless you're a penny-foolish gambler or wealthy.

A great set for the living room, well worth the money. The Sony "V" series of LCD sets have all the same features as the more expensive "W" series sets, with the exception that the "V" series sets don't have the 120hz motion enhancer feature or the logo illumination feature. I think the average viewer won't notice the difference.

Pros:
Sony reliability (ignore angry reviewer)
No reflections on screen
4 HDMI ports
Nice looking package, neat see through glass
Excellant picture from any HDMI source
Great menu's

Cons:
No 120Hz
Stand is difficult to get perfectly straight
No Surround pass-thru over optical in/out

Comments:
Don't worry about the 120Hz/24p stuff for blu-ray, they look great without it. I would consider the 120Hz if you happen do read a lot of scrolling text. Buy a blu-ray player, and buy all your cables online at a tenth the price.

If you're buying your first HDTV or are moving up from an existing 720p/i HDTV to a 1080p, definitely look at the Sony V series and up. Sony simply destroys the competition.

1. Spent 3 hours at a retail store looking at all TVs from 720p to 1080p. Sony was easily better than all other brands - Samsung, Toshiba, LG and others. The sharpness and delineation in landscape with both darks and lights - as in cliffs by the ocean or a snowy area - are crisper on the Sonys.
2. My budget was $1000. Ordered the Bravia 42V4100 for $1042 from Amazon (minus $75 coupons) for what I would have paid for a 40" at the store, on Saturday Dec 20.
3. ETA was Dec 30. Arrived ahead of time through CEVA. I tracked the package online and as soon as it arrived in L.A. on Dec 24, I called CEVA. The polite lady scheduled delivery for Friday 26th. The CEVA driver called at 11 am and said he was arriving at my house. He did a white glove delivery - arrived on schedule, was courteous, carried the TV carton on his shoulder to my bedroom, and installed the TV on its stand with a philips screwdriver.
4. I hooked the TV to my Time Warner HDTV cable box via component cables.
5. The picture blew me away. Make sure 'Picture' is set to Vivid. I cycled through all of TimeWarner's 40 available HD channels and saved them to a favorites folder so I wouldn't have to look at non HD channels.
6. The picture is vibrant, bright, crystal clear sharp. Skin and hair are outstanding in texture. Text is simply breathtaking. You will not want to look at non HD channels at all since they appear archaic and pixelated. The TV itself is sexy - excellent quality of material and looks. The factory presets are very good. HD broadcasts will automatically play in the 'Full' wide setting.
7. Best channels to evaluate the clarity and sharpness are HD Theater and Food Network HD, owing to closeups, and ESPNHD and DiscoveryHD for motion.
8. The sound is surprisingly good on it's own, though I hooked the TV to my 650W mini component sterero system. (If like me you don't have a home theater audio system, it's really simple to play your TV through your stereo. Use an RCA audio cable - 2 pins on either end - and connect the TV's Audio Out L and R terminals to your stereo's Aux/CDR IN L and R terminals. Then power on your stereo with the Aux button on the stereo remote. This setup totally enhances the listening experience and you catch nuances which you would otherwise miss).
9. My HDMI cables arrived the next day and I connected the HDMI Out on the cable box to the HDMI In on the Bravia. I left the component cables connected to compare with the HDMI quality. Both are exactly identical in picture quality to the naked eye, though sound may be just a little better through the HDMI connection. You can cycle between Component and HDMI using the Input button on the TV's remote.
10. DVDs look great on this TV even though they are usually 4:3 and 480p recordings. For such DVDs set the Wide setting on the TV to Wide Zoom. 16:9 DVDs should be seen in the Wide Zoom or Full setting.
11. There are plenty of input and output terminals at the back and side, so all your other gadgets including a computer will easily connect to this TV without having to switch one out for the other.

What Bravia series should you buy?
This TV has a 60Hz refresh rate as compared to 120 Hz on the W, Z and XBR series and 240 Hz on the just released ones. If you are very particular about absolute motion clarity, you may notice some blurring on camera pans or in fast motion in sports and wildlife on this TV. I'm a videographer and editor, so I notice these things. Most people won't, or won't care. If money is no bar, get the 120 Hz or 240 Hz Bravias.

What size should you buy?
My bedroom is 15X15 and the 42" is just right. If you're buying for a larger bedroom or a living room, go with 46" and up. Again if money is no bar, get the biggest you can.

If money is a constraint, remember this:
- You may pay a little bit more for a Sony or for a 52"/46"/42" vs a 37"/32"/27", but this is a longish term investment.
- Do not buy a 720p/i since cable and sat transmissions are in 1080i. Buy a 1080p and the largest size you can get, and cut back on food, coffee, and gasoline for a few weeks.
- If in a quandry, go this route: You're way better off buying a smaller 1080p TV than a large 720p TV. 1080p is a must. The rest is up to you.
- Technology is changing very fast and prices keep falling. You might be better off saving on size and Hz but getting a 1080p. If like me you get a 42" 1080p 60Hz TV for a grand, you'll feel less guilty upgrading in the future than if you had spent $2000 or more on a 55" 1080p 120Hz TV. Very soon 120Hz TVs will pale in comparison to newer faster TVs.

So, for this TV: The theater like experience is hypnotic, especially when watching stuff like Planet Earth. Feels like one's in the Serengeti or inside an aquarium. Sports, cars, concerts, and beautiful women (people) are great to watch. I never used to watch the Food Network, but on this TV food looks exquisite. My DVDs also look great on this TV. My DVD player is a Sony as well (DVP-NC800H) and it upconverts 420p DVDs to 1080p.

Good luck!

I'll keep this short.
What I like:
Great pictures quality. I have a 32" HD Samsung in the bedroom and this television is far far superior.Albeit the Samsung is about 5 years old and is a 1080i.
Sleek contemporary design. The menu controls are thin and are located on the top of the TV instead of the front so they aren't noticeable at first glance.
Even without the 120Hz MotionFlow feature, I caught some baseball and football games and didn't notice too much of the "pixeling" that occurs when there's a lot of motion on the screen. I've seen the Motionflow feature in action on an XBR4 and it's definitely better than this TV. But if spending an extra few hundred bucks is out of the question for you, then I would highly recommend this model.

Great price for a Sony and you're not sacrificing quality.

What I don't like:
Only thing I noticed that kinda annoys me is the delay in the response when you're changing input sources. I have a DVD player, Cable Receiver, and Direct TV receiver connected to this TV. When switching between these video sources, the screen goes to Sony's default background for a couple of seconds before actually displaying the video. It's not a big issue, but I'm pretty impatient when it comes to these kinds of things.

Finally,

I'd like to comment on the Amazon delivery service. I hesitated quite a bit before purchasing this TV from Amazon. It just felt safer for me to simply go out and buy it from the local Best Buy. Since this was such a big purchas (literally), I thought it might be safer to buy it from the store. But after careful consideration, and weighing my options. I decided to purchase from Amazon and the transaction went completely smoothly. I saved over $600 by purchasing it from Amazon. (Best Buy had the same model for $500 and my sales tax here is 10%!)
Amazon offers white glove delivery for the televisions and the service was spectacular. They delivered and setup the TV to show that it worked. There were no dead pixels and no scratches or dents.

It's been a month now and the TV still works great. Highly recommended.

I'd have said I loved it. Excellent sound (without additional speakers); awesome color and sharpness with DVD and HD cable. Lots of little "extras" like variable sleep timer (up to 2 hours), timer settings (I've been known to use this as an alarm clock), dimmer options, ambient room lighting automatic adjustment option, many device inputs, and more.

HOWEVER. There's always a "however," isn't there? Mine is just 5 days old. I thought it was by far the best TV for the price (and I got mine very inexpensively indeed, thanks to my extended warranty on my old television). Then, today, it went white. The entire screen (even the black "bars" set around a 4:3 picture - I don't like to distort the image, so I leave bars) is a purplish-whitish-grey and it doesn't matter which input setting I use. Other televisions hooked up to the same inputs are fine - I checked. I wasted hours trying to get Customer Service or Technical Support at Sony. Finally, I contacted my vendor for a replacement, which they agreed to provide.

If it had lasted years, I'd have said nothing. If I had done something to the television, like dropped it, spilled something on it, or pushed some bizarre button sequence on the remote, it would have been my own fault. But I just got this thing five days ago, and the screen went white in the middle of my viewing a DVD. FIVE DAYS? That's a new low. And NO customer support from Sony - which just added insult to injury.

Since I have no way of knowing what actually went wrong with the screen, or how likely it is that I'll have this problem with the replacement, I will give this two stars (instead of one). But be careful if you choose to buy this item - and make sure you get a warranty!

Received the TV it was packaged for shipping very well.
Took it to my computer room and connected it up and it worked very well from 8:30 pm to 10:30 pm. Suddenly it would not display the the upper HD Channels. I came to the conclusion that the new TV was not the problem. Somehow it had to be my newly installed COX HDMI receiver for the new TV. Contacted COX the next day they came out and located a filter that had been previously installed by COX in the line serving the modem for my computer and now the new Sony TV. After the COX one way filter was removed from the cable line I have enjoyed watching the HD channels very much on the new Sony HD LCD TV. Excellent clear 1080 pixcel pictures. Can't wait to watch the Olympic games this month on the newly received TV.

We couldn't be happier with our Sony Bravia 42 inch TV. It arrived quickly and the packaging was excellent. We took it out of the box, plugged it in and never even had to make an adjustment. The factory settings were perfect. We have been buying Sony products for a while now and will continue doing so. Also, the price was better than anything we could find locally. I would reccomend this TV to anyone in the market for this size. You can't go wrong.

This is my first LCD TV so definitely NOT an expert. I checked variety of sources and SONY BRAVIA series and SAMSUNG stood out. I checked the prices and picked this TV as this TV has the best price-spec ratio for me among SONY and SAMSUNG TVs. I think Amazon offered better, if not the best, price of SONY TVs compared with other on-line retailers. Another reason I purchased from Amazon is that a friend of mine told me that the delivering/shipping agent for TVs purchased from Amazon (CEVA?) has a very good reputation (I will complain a bit about them below).

In general, I am quite happy and recommend this TV unconditionally. Pros and Cons are...

Pros:
(a) Good picture quality (Some say "No 120Hz" is a problem but I did not notice the difference)
(b) Good sound without external speakers (as another reviewer mentioned)
(c) Good looking
(d) Decently priced (Not as cheap as Visio or Westinghouse other cheap manufacturers but you get what you pay)
Intuitive menu/remote control
(e) Tons of connectors

Cons:
(a) Is Sony OK in TV business? What happens to guarantee?
(b) Shipping company did not do a fabulous job (Two different persons from two different offices called me to set up and appointment for delivery. I think the TV set came with very small dents in the center speaker. Maybe it is not the shipper's fault though...)
(c) I want a button to toggle between TV channels and external sources (Probably there is. Somebody help me!)
(d) The TV with the stand is not completely straight; bending forward a bit which scares a me a bit.
(e) Maybe it is common for all modern TVs but it takes a bit too long for my taste to boot up, or change channel/source.

Overall I recommend it. As long as picture quality / sound / style are good, others pros/cons are minor at most.

Sony Bravia V-Series KDL-42V4100 42-Inch 1080p LCD HDTVGreat TV with great picture even with windows behind me. Great Sound. Very easy to set up right out of the box as advertised.

However, beware Amazon "White Glove Delivery". This is promoted as delivery at your convenience but in reality, it is delivery at the convenience of the delivery company. They only came to my area once a week, so delivery had to be day/time of their choice. No evening/weekend hours for deliveries. Until then, they have your purchase and you can't get it. I would opt for normal ground delivery the next time.