Customer Reviews

Sony Bravia XBR KDL-32XBR4 32" LCD HDTV

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(27)

 

 

The XBR4 has blown my socks off. On display at the electronic store it actually looked worse than my other LCD Samsung LN-3241D. After fine tuning and adjusting the picture, whether it was recent non-HD DVD's or HD content, with the 120Hz Motionflow, Pixar's Toy Story looked 3 dimensional, and the colors were nothing I had seen before from this DVD. I am so happy with this purchase and the higher price tag is well worth it. I also watched a streamed Netflix movie (Amadeus), using the PC input, and the movie quality was ok. With the Samsung the streamed quality is noticeably not as rich in color and a bit grainier. I Recommend this LCD TV. Sony is definitely the leader in high end TV's. P.S. I am not a Sony fan boy, I am still angry about the root kit found on their CD's.

I ordered the 32" LCD Sony Bravia XBR KDL-32XBR4 32" LCD HDTV from Amazon as it was about $200 less than Cir**** C***, B*** B**, etc. because I had seen other SONY XBRs and the picture just had the best color picture of any brand I saw. The unenhanced contrast ratio is tops (if you study all the spec stuff, this means BEFORE they use the electronic make-it-look-better circuitry) and it really shows with a good signal. Sony makes cheaper 32" models, and this is their flagship model. It cost a bit over $1100.

It took 3 days to get it out of the warehouse and get me a tracking number and an email that said it would be here in 8-10 days. The freight company called me 2 days later and delivered the next day. The freight driver helped me get it out of the box and told me to keep the box until I was sure it was A-OK as he said another shipping retailer (Crut*******) wouldn't accept a return without the original box. The set was in perfect condition, all the little stuff (cords, remote, cable gizmos, etc.) was there, manuals in english and spanish (maybe french too, it's a world economy now, eh?), etc. etc. No evidence it was other than a grade A straight from the factory brand new "first" (Tig** Di**** sometimes sells refurbs, seconds, etc.).

Took me a while to get it set up and figure it all out - I called Sony customer support 4 times getting all the home theater sound, DVD, VCR, HD satellite dual DVR stuff going. I am pretty techie but these things involve new connection types and the manual gives you the simple dumbed-down diagram that shows a picture of the set connector bay with cords going to various pics labelled DVD, VCR and a one sentence explanation. Sony support spoke good english and when questions ran off script they put me on hold and went and asked someone who knew more to find me an answer. Wikipedia helps too <grin> Sony support were more than willing to stay on the line with me and take me step-by-step through the hookup and trouble-shooting. Didn't think I'd need that, but these things are way more complicated than the old stuff from 10 years ago.

I really liked the fact you could set up the TV on-screen input selector with labels that actually indicate what each input IS from (DVD, Satellite, cable, VCR, game, computer, etc.) and set the selector to NOT display (skip) unused inputs as you scroll through the inputs. My wife will probably be able to learn to actually run this setup by herself after a while. Hooray!

I had a 24" TV before this, and it is nice to be able to see a movie again without my picture being shrunk down with top and bottom bars to a 16"-set-size picture. The HD is really clear, but even my plain vanilla DVD player (non-blueray) with the red-blue-green discrete video outputs make movies look really awesome. The Sony has a special converter to change the frame rate from the TV rate (30 per second) to the Motion picture rate (24 per second) which makes everything CRYSTAL CLEAR!!!

I was a bit uneasy about ordering a big ticket TV from Amazon, but I'd do it again in a second.

I am a big fan of Sony video products. I just replaced my 15 year old 27" Sony in the bedroom with this TV. The picture is crisp with the vivid colors typical of Sony TV's. The setup is easy with a multitude of audio and picture options to satisfy different viewing tastes. There are ample inputs for accommodating whatever equipment you might want to add.I purchased mine through Amazon. One word of caution. The delivery is not going to come quickly or necessarily on time. Considering I saved over $300 compared to buying it locally and paying tax and delivery charges I can't complain, but if you want it in a hurry keep that in mind.

Just got done watching opening weekend of the NFL on this set and it was amazing. I decided to splurge on this TV after considering lesser options and even older Sony 32" models and I'm glad I did. The 120hz refresh rate combined with the Bravia engine gives amazingly smooth motion for sports and action movies. The color reproduction is great - I'm a stickler against bad skin-tone reproduction (just visit your nearest big box store to see loads of large screen junk with orange people).

I am a big fan of smaller screens, by the way - in today's HD world I think that 32" - 40" at most is the current sweet spot. Stretching available pixels any father dilutes the quality in my mind. So if you don't have a McMansion and you can handle a smaller screen consider this TV - it is so vivid that it betrays it 32" size by the way; you would swear it's a 40 incher.

This TV works great I love the picture its very clear and has a large viewing angle
The MotionFlow has 2 settings but I can't tell the difference
This TV is very bright it has 3 presets Vivid, Standard, Cinema. Cinema being the darkest.
In Vivid mode I was watching a movie and it had a lot of light flashes after a while I thought my eyes were going to pop out of my head. I then set it to cinema mode and made it dimmer for the room and that was much better. I connected my cable box using a HDMI cable that I found on-line at Firefold for less than $5.00 and it works perfect.
It was easy to setup and install as it has 3 HDMI inputs, 2 component, 3 composite and 1 computer input. I very happy with this TV

I waited and waited until all the bugs contrast ratio,fuzzy analog pictures, etc. were worked out on lcd televisions before i jumped in and bought this one.In my opinion the xbr- 4 picture blows the competition away so far as picture sharpness and it looks like all the bugs have been worked out.There are plenty of adjustments you can make to cover just about any problem that might come up.It took me awhile to tweak the picture to get it right on the standard setting.I like it fairly bright and sharp.The factory settings in the vived mode will burn your eyeballs out and the cinema mode is way too faded and fuzzy and dark.Those settings remind me of the early days of television and i was there in 1948 when those horrible pictures were transmitted for the first time.I have it hooked to the very latest cable box aviliable,the Scientific Atlanta explorer 8300 hd dvr with an hdmi output.The cable box converts all the channels analog and hd.to 720P before it sends the signal to the set.The old rule garbage out garbage in rule applies here as far as the picture quality im getting will depend on the connections you make and nothing less than a component connection is highly recommended if you have cable or sattelite and you want to push the envelope on this set.Also i contacted The Sony Style web site and purchased a 5 year warranty for $150.00 plus tax.

I spent several months researching an LCD HDTV and finally decided to purchase the Sony 32XBR4 after viewing it in a popular electronics store. I wanted to use the TV as my PC monitor as well so I was interested in knowing about how different brands handled the hookup. Most of the sales folks knew almost nothing about PC compatibility but I finally found a geek who could help me. I was going to buy the Sharp Aquos until my wife saw the Sony right next to it and she thought the picture was much better. It also appeared that hookup to my PC would be easier with the Sony (the Sharp Aquos had no PC input and would require a conversion cable). Anyway, it was the picture quality that sold us on the Sony.

I finally ended up getting the display model which was $300 cheaper than an out of the box set. I also bought an extended warranty.

Hookup to my PC was easy using the standard SVGA 15 pin cable which comes with the TV. For hookup to the cable box, you must use component-in or HDMI. The cable guy used a component-in cable (only thing he had with him). But later I purchased an HDMI cable from an Amazon supplier and now use the component-in cable for my DVD player. The picture quality with HD programs using the HDMI cable seems only slightly better than component-in. With non-HD programs, there is no difference at all.

I am very impressed with this TV. The colors are absolutely vibrant--I've never seen anything better.

In retrospect, I might have bought the 40" model instead (which is 1080P) but I had to compromise due to the size of my room and the fact that I am using it as a PC monitor as well. But I do recommend that you get the largest screen size you can handle and afford.

As another reviewer commented, being able to label inputs makes things really simple when choosing between your various components. Of course, if you hook it up to a complete entertainment system, this feature diminishes in importance since you could choose your input with the receiver remote or, even better, a universal remote.

The PIP is not really useful for me at this point since I am relying entirely on the cable box for my TV signal. With this TV, you cannot choose PC as the large picture and have an HDTV signal running in a small window unless the signal is from an antenna.

Bottom line from all this is that if you want and can afford the best HDTV, this model is at the top of the list.

I had this TV for 1 year and 10 months with no problems until a few days ago. My 32 inch XBR4 now is unviewable with colored vertical lines across the entire screen. I only used this TV about 4 to 5 hours a week at the most. I've done some research online and found that this is a fairly common problem with the Sony lcd sets sold in the latter half of 2007, however Sony will not acknowledge the issue. Most people experienced this problem just as their sets were reaching 2 years old. I've contacted Sony about the problem but was basically told that there was nothing they could do for me other than to refer me to a repair shop. The repair shop quoted me $800 to repair my $[...] TV. They said I needed a new panel assembly. I could buy a brand new XBR9 for less than $100 more! I guess my next LCD TV will be a Samsung.

This is my first HD, been window-shopping for about a year, however. After a fair amount of looking, narrowed down mostly to Sony and Samsung, with the occasional look at a Sharp.

Decided on the 32" as it's in a small den, where the viewing distance is around 7', and I didn't want to be scared of the set ;-) The size works well, and I don't see anything that makes me regret not having a 1080P set.

Setup was very, very easy, and the menuing system is clear and nice to work with. We have pretty complex setup w/a Panasonic DVD/VCR combo, Tivo, Comcast HD DVR, Wii, and XBox 360; all were able to be setup quickly.

I replaced the component cable on the Comcast DVR with an very inexpensive HDMI 1.3 cable from Firefold, which looks much better. I'm now in the "Monster Cables are a ripoff" club.

Other quick impressions: Game mode works well, Motionflow/120hz does look good. Don't have HD-DVD or Blu-Ray (yet) so can't comment. For me, Vivid is too vivid, standard a bit too toned down, so will play with it, but the settings are easy. SonyStyle offers a 5 year service plan for $150. No pixed defects or clouding. Sound is good, but not "Bose" good.

High points on quality, picture and ease of use. Would have preferred the glass bezel offered on similar models. 1080p would have completely capped this for me, but I really don't think I'm missing it. A solid "A".

Got mine a bit over 6 months ago
Still totally impressed
The only reason I did not give it 5 stars is because of the non hd display
When viewing off air std def, the picture is not very good at all
Far more smeary picture than my Sony 27" tube regular tv
I usually watch the non hd locals thru Dish as the composite input from that box looks better
Still lower quality than I wanted (as good as my old std def tube)

The HD display is fabulous
Audio is better than adequate

If I had it to do over I would

It arrived before the estimated time
Don't go by the tracking site
When they called to deliver, tracking said it was still in Ohio or Indiana - somewhere along ways away
Shippers get 5 stars

Go for it, you will like it once the pain of the price has worn off.