Customer Reviews

Sony KDF-E42A10 42-Inch LCD Rear Projection Television

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Well, after wayyy too much research and hemming and hawing, I finally decided on this 3LCD RPT by Sony. What finally swayed me was the sweet combination of picture quality (PQ) and price. In side by side comparisons I just couldn't detect enough (with my eyes at least) PQ difference between this RPT and the plasma tv's to justify spending twice the money. While standard definition signals are only mediocre, the HD and DVD signals are simply awesome. I use component cables and a Motorola set top box (stb) provided by Adelphia. The side to side viewing angle is greatly improved over previous generations of projection tv's (as is the brightness and crispness), but beware; the vertical viewing angle is quite narrow. My built-in media niche is elevated a bit, which puts the tv above my head when seated on the couch. There is a very slight dimming from this angle. However, it's nothing that I haven't been able to compensate for with some picture adjustments (or a subtle shim ;-)). The remote has a "Wega Gate" feature that works kind of like the "Start" button in MS Windows. I think it's pretty user friendly, but I don't use it much since I mostly just use the remote from the Adelphia stb. As an engineer, I also appreciate the other features this LCD RPT technology offers over plasma. It uses less energy, generates less heat (a factor when building it into a wall unit with tight clearances), it's light enough for one person to move around (the salesperson in the store carried this 42" tv singlehanded!), the plastic screen has less glare than glass, and the single bulb is user serviceable. Best of all; no burn-in issue to worry about! Just plug it in and start watching tv, use it as a computer monitor (I haven't tried this yet), or just run a static image all week. Who cares! Sony offers this tv in a 50" version, but because our viewing distance is 8'-10', I didn't want to go any bigger. If you get too close to these screens you will see some screen door effect. After having this tv for several weeks now, I can honestly say that I am very pleased with my purchase.

So, the price was great; much cheaper than the local brick and mortar electronic stores at the time I was originally making the purchase.. TV is wonderful. Seeing this TV side by side the Samsung DLP's in the stores convinced me I made the better choice. The picture is fantastic, great features. I only wish it had PIP, but I'll survive. I work from home, and I also have set up my laptop to use the TV as a monitor... It is working out really well..

Now to Amazon, and some of the chaos I endured in taking shipment... Please don't make the same mistakes I made; this experience tainted my view of Amazon, and below I note some things that may prevent you from going through the same hell..

The delivery guys showed up on time on delivery day.. Upon climbing out of the truck, I was handed the paperwork and was asked to sign before they even pulled it out of the truck (<--Mistake 1). After the TV was brought up into my apartment, the delivery guys left. I immediately opened the TV to find it completely destroyed. I stopped the driver before he left, and told him to take the TV back; he told me to call Amazon and he'd pickup the TV when he came to deliver me a new one, which Amazon would replace; they then drove off (<--Mistake 2). Upon calling Amazon, I was ultimately told that the TV is mine if I signed for it and if I didn't get it back on the delivery truck for return, because there is a 'no-return' policy on large merchandise, which I understood. Regardless, AMAZON HAD NO INTEREST IN HELPING ME, THE CONSUMER, OUT. Reading through the shipping and no-return policy; I noted that the shipper was supposed to unpack the TV, let me inspect it, and then remove the packing material. Since they did none of the above, and noted this to Amazon, I felt as if they should have supported me. Instead, they took in my report, threw it to a team who never cared to personally call me, and then wrote me an email saying the case was closed, because they had information stating that I asked for the shippers to NOT unpack the TV. Which was a lie. Nobody from Amazon was willing to negotiate the issue in my behalf with the shipping company. There is no direct number to call Amazon, they call you from an 'unknown' number so you can't call back. Amazon ran away from me.

I made a last ditch effort to call the shipping company, Eagle, who was EXTREMELY polite, understanding, and they negotiated with Amazon the pickup and replacement of my TV. Now THAT is a classy and moral corporation; only if those guys would go into business selling the products :D. After they accepted the blame, Amazon came through with an email apoloziging for the inconveniences I was caused, for simply not believing me. In the end, one month after ordering the TV, I finally took shipment of a working set, which was properly delivered. Take note, prices at the local stores in this timeframe dropped to a level where I could have bought it locally for only a few dollars more, with the security of a return policy, and someone you can interact with if the transaction doesn't go smoothly.

Seriously, would you think I'm ordering anything ever again from such a fair-weathered company? May I suggest you think twice as well?

I had spent some time researching what kind of TV it was I wanted to blow my money on. You can't just buy any old TV anymore, you need to research so you can best suit your own needs. I personally watch a lot of DVD's and play a lot of video games. So, I needed something that was going to handle games well, and most of all make DVD's look stunning!

The television's design is sleek and stunning. It only weights about 60-65 pounds so you can move it yourself with ease.

The display is very bright and vibrant. The TV when you recieve it, has its settings set to contrast and other settings that would make the TV look absolutely magnificent for store displays but will in the long run burn out your bulb faster, and fortunately, those settings aren't the true correct settings you want anyway. Set the 'vibrant' picture settings to 'standard', you may want to add your tint a few notches over to the right a little bit to get a more true red color, reduce your color a little bit, but in the end it's all just minor adjustments you are going to need to make.

If you watch a lot of DVD's like I do, if you sit far back enough, they look magnificent watching them with progressive scan and component cables. But if you sit a little closer than you're supposed to like I do, you'll notice all the imperfections that you would see due to the fact that DVD's are not as high in definition as a high definition TV, because DVD's were made to look perfect on standard TV's. You could see some boxes in some high movement, artifacts here and there, but this TV offers numerous ways to adjust the picture to your liking. There's DVD players now that 'upconvert' with technology a DVD that's got a 480i resolution, to 720p by adding lines and throwing out some of the noise on a DVD. But with this TV it's not necessary with the 'Digital Reality Creation' feature (DRC). This helps to upconvert the image to be somewhat closer to HD standards, by adding 4x the lines (twice as many horizontally and then twice as many vertically). This isn't going to give you a high definition image mind you, but you can use this function to adjust the clarity and 'reality' of the image to smooth out imperfections and artifacts that are created by a lot of movement. There's even a function on the TV that lets you adjust just how much 'noise' you want filtered from a picture.

Now, all this could be a pain if you were to have to continually make these kinds of adjustments between different inputs on your set and your digital/HD cable, but this TV will save your presets for each input. It may take you some time to get the best possible picture that you want from each component, but the time is worth it because you only need to do it once for each function and it saves them forever.

Great set for a great price. Worth the cash.

Over the past few months I have been trying different types of HDTV's with the hope of replacing my old JVC 27 inch tv. I tried a 32" Westinghouse LCD, a 32" Samsung LCD and a 30" Sony widescreen CRT. The LCD's were sharp but blurred too often when playing DVDs... the CRT was very colorful and beautiful but the image was curved at the edges. I decided to try a Rear Projection TV and have found the best of both worlds. My Sony KDFE42A10 has the sharp undistorted picture of an LCD screen and the vibrant, but easy on the eyes, color of a HD CRT.

I find my rear projection tv to be a better value because it came with an HDTV off-air tuner and it is much larger than the other tv's I have tried. I paid the same price for this tv as I did the Samsung 32" LCD screen.

I am using an upscaling Sony DVD player with HDMI hookup and the picture is superb. Though this projection tv uses LCD technology it does not blur like your standard LCD tv's. Colors are bright and vivid and blacks are varied and do not wash out.

I use my PS2 with this tv and I must say that it plays standard definition video games in much better quality than any of the other tv's I've tried. I have run Gran Turismo 4 on the TV in 1080i and I am very pleased with the picture. The only problem is that it shows in great detail the weakness of the PS2. PS3 is going to be awesome though. I love the LCD technology because it does not distort the picture with curves and bends. That's something that drove me nuts about CRT TVs. Menus are perfectly represented with this tv... no bent lines!

I just recently purchased a Terk HDTVi antenna to give off-air HDTV programming a try. I must say that I am very impressed with the local channels I can tune in and I am now considering the cancellation of my cable. It's hard to go back to standard definition once you've seen Monday Night Football in HD.

Other pluses for the tv are it's light weight, 61 pounds, and it's 24 watt speakers. The speakers are hidden, which yeilds a sleek look to the monitor, and provide full robust sound.

The only negative I can think of thus far is the fact that I'll one day have to replace the projector bulb. I have looked this up online and it costs much less than I have been told by others... $190.

I had considered the Samsung 4667 46" DLP HDTV and was all set to buy it when the Sony 42A10 showed up. I was at the store and I had a chance to compare the picture quality of both. I am one of the population who is susceptible to the rainbow effect of DLP's as I found out when looking at the Samsung. The 42A10 is part of the newest generation of LCD rear projection tv's from Sony and the picture quality shows it...the colors are bright and crisp. The improvement in picture quality is noticeable in comparison even to last year's Sony models. I bought the Sin City DVD specifically to flex the 42A10's muscles with my progressive scan dvd player...I was not disappointed and my friend who borrowed the dvd to play in his Sony 50A10 concurred with such adjectives as 'amazing.'

The only downside is sometimes during rapid image movement there is noticeable pixelation (artifacts) but I am confident this is due to the Adelphia HDTV Motorola set top cable box which is something I am stuck with rather than chosen. I also wish there were 2 HDMI i/o slots (having only 1 slot is not unique just to the Sony models) instead of one as I am using the sole port for an HDMI-to-DVI cable to my HD cablebox which prevents me from using an HDMI-to-HDMI tv to dvd player connection. LG will supposedly be introducing 2 HDMI slots in their next gen models and LG uses a newer generation of Texas Instruments' DLP technology over Samsung from what I have learned. Stay with HDMI or component cables...the composite, s-video and coaxial cables result in a noticeable reduction in picture quality. On a separate note, the footlong remote control not only looks ungainly but is really useless for cable viewing unless you use the CableCard technology...probably a sly way of convincing people to pay $300 for the glitzy bells and whistles Sony universal remote.

Regardless, in my visit to the store to do some direct in-person comparisons I could honestly not find a brighter clearer picture among rear projection HDTV's than the new Sony's. The Sony's are second only to true LCD and Plasma tv's which have their price and screen burn-in issues but the quality of the Sony's have closed the gap.

I haven't watched so much PBS (which is broadcast separately in a 24hr HD channel) since my childhood watching Sesame Street. I have a hard time going back to watch regular digital cable channels because now they just look like garbage especially in the normal 4:3 aspect ratio. I love my tv...when driving home from work, I wonder what's going to be on for me to gaze at while I kick my heels up...when was the last time you felt that on your way home from a long day at work? Get a Sony LCD rear projection and find out what you're missing in HDTV.

I just recently bought this TV and had a similar experience to the reviewer that said they had "Strange clicking noise and blank screen". For me, my digital/HD channels no longer came in when this happened. After doing a "reset to factory settings" as described in the manual, the TV went back to normal. My guess is that TV's software/firmware has got a bug. I did an online chat with the tech support from Sony but that had no clue. I can only hope that our complants will get them to find a fix for the problem. I've got a call into the local Sony repair folks, maybe that can fix it as I'm happy the reset cleared the problem but I don't want to be going this on a regular basis. On a lighter note, other than this problem I do really like the TV and am happy with it.

This is a great TV! Provides great HD quality but at a price well below flat panel LCD or Plasma screens. The quality of picture, in HD or regular, is great, even in a room with lots of light. The whole unit is not very deep (see specs) so doesn't have to sit way out. The side bezel is amazingly small so no space wasted on each side by plastic filler or speakers. Check out the weight... it is light and can be moved MUCH easier than the traditional CRT TVs of past. It also will likely sit on your old TV stand since not much wider than the screen itself. Speakers are at bottom and, for TV speakers, are just fine. Unit is very clean looking so doesn't overpower the room yet looks up-to-date. It includes over-the-air tuner for traditional signals AND for high def signals. (Prior models did not have built-in HDTV tuner, an expensive option). If you put up an antenna you can get HD signals over the air at NO charge and picture is perfect (assuming antenna can reach station)...we have canceled cable and just use over-the-air HD broadcasts! Includes diagnostic signal meter for signal strenth. Sony also includes CableCard option for those with cable and unit includes all types of inputs & outputs so plenty of options. The prices on these keep dropping so watch. Only con I can think of is there is not a true picture-in-picture (two active stations at once)...at least I can't find it; and most TV stands are wider than this unit as they were designed before Sony made these so compact. And did I mention the picture quality? It is superb. We've had unit some six months and are very pleased.

Purchased this for our large bedroom, as this is where watch most of our TV. I originally wanted the 50", but it would have been too big for our situation. We are about 9 - 10 ft. from the TV when watching it, and it seems to be the perfect distance.

I've had the TV for two weeks, and currently have it on basic analog cable and am thrilled with the picture quality. I'm expecting it to get even better when I upgrade to digital cable and HDTV in a couple of weeks. DVD's look awesome (Finding Nemo was absolutely incredible!), and the tv is super easy to use. I basically got it home, hooked it up to the cable and DVD player, let it run through it's automatic station set up, and haven't done a thing since. CC provides a DVD to help adjust all the settings, but I have not used it yet. I have not had to make an adjustment and it looks great. I did buy the 4-year extended warranty that covers the replacement of the light - the light costs $200, and CC will give you at least one, even of the old one does not burn out in the warranty period. So far, couldn't be happier.

Update: 3/01/2006
I purchased the Terk Indoor HDTV Antenna (#TRK HDTVI) just for kicks to see if it could pick up any HD while I wait for another week for the cable company. I plugged it in, and ran the set up program on the tv for the antenna. Much to my shock, it picked up a bunch of stations in HD and looks fantastic. I live around 30 miles north of Chicago, and NBC, ABC, PBS, FOX, WGN all have fantastic over-ari HD reception. I am going to cancel the cable company visit and save the money!

Breathtaking to say the very least! After reading tons of reviews we took the plunge. Frankly I was a bit intimidated by some of what I read regarding color calibration. My concerns dissipated quickly.

I suppose one can always find something negative to say about a product. We are so thrilled by the positive facets of this HDTV that we are blinded by anything negative. We just love it.

The picture quality is breathtaking. I realize I am repeating myself but my enthusiasm provokes it. The manual was not very difficult to follow. It was suggested by a friend that we use the THX option on a DVD to do a video calibration. Of which we did and it just seemed to all fall right in to place, not to say their were any radical changes from the default. Just some minor tweaking for our tastes and eyes.

We put on the new Star Wars DVD Revenge of the Seth. We feel that a movie theater will never do for us again. It was like we were there. As if one could stick out their hand and feel the shape on a cruiser flying by and the field depth was just astounding.

This was a investment that we know will bring our family endless hours of enjoyment, but also to a new peak of entrainment that was way beyond our comprehension. We are just so happy about this purchase!

We just purchased the Sony KDFE42A10 42" LCD Rear Projection Television two weeks ago and are glued to it! We almost purchased the Panasonic Plasma which costs more, but because of issues with burn-in on Plasma sets we decided to go with this set, especially since we are planning to plug in a video ipod to display album art while listening to music.

We have been extremely pleased with the picture in HD. The remote and settings are very easy to use.

The only negative, is the 3rd component video input which is placed on the left side of the television, meaning that hooking up a device to it permanently results in seeing thick component cables coming out of the side of the set.

I would highly recommend this unit. It's awesome for the price!