Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Picture and Features, plus it's eco-friendly, July 31, 2009
This review is from: Sony BRAVIA VE5-Series KDL-40VE5 40-Inch 1080p 120Hz Eco-friendly LCD HDTV (Electronics)
This is an excellent TV.
Picture Quality:
The picture quality of this set is superb. In the setup menu, I set the picture to "vivid" mode and the HD quality is simply life-like. The color and contrast are excellent. It also uses something that Sony calls MotionFlow which helps to smooth out the image when you are watching fast-action pictures.
Backlight Technology:
It is an LCD set, but uses a hot cathode fluorescent lamp for its backlighting. This technology allows it to be much more energy efficient and close to par with the energy usage of LED backlit LCD TVs. Most LCDs use cold cathode fluorescent lamps. The 40" model uses a maximum of 140 watts, the 46" uses a max of 160 watts, and the 52" uses a max of 180 watts.
Eco-Friendly:
It has a sensor called a presence sensor that does two things. First it senses the ambient (room) light and if the room gets darker, it will automatically dim the picture of the TV. This works well if you are watching TV in the bedroom at night and you want less light output. The second thing that the sensor does is senses the room for motion and body heat. If you leave the room for a preset amount of time (5 min, 30 min, ...) and the TV doesn't sense anyone around, it will turn off the picture. If you walk back in the room, it senses you and turns the screen back on. The sound stays on for another 30 minutes or so, then the whole set will go into stand-by mode if it does not sense you. Both of these features can be turned off via the setup menu and help to conserve energy.
Features (just a few of them):
The TV is loaded with features. It will automatically sense if you have something connected to an input (for example HDMI2). This is great when you want to hit the input button on the remote because it will not select items that aren't currently sending out a signal. This means you don't have to scroll through 10 items if you only have two components connected to the TV. In the setup menu, you can set each input for always on, always off, or auto. I used the always on setting for the PC input because the cable I used to connect the PC did not send a power signal so the TV did not sense it. By setting it to always on, the PC input will always be available when I scan through the inputs.
It also has a lot of inputs. There are 4 HDMI inputs. If you have a DVI port on your PC, then you can connect it through HDMI port 1 which also has an analog audio input. There is one dedicated composite (with S-video) and one dedicated component input, but there is another switchable composite/component input that you can use if you have two composites and one component, or vice versa. There is a PC input to connect via VGA connection. The audio outputs are one optical digital out and one analog out.
Dislikes:
1. All of the Inputs and Output are on the left side (when looking at the front of the TV) of the TV. This is unfortunate for me since my A/V cabinet is on the right side of the TV. It is a minor inconvenience, but something that I did not think about until I got the set home. I would say about half of the inputs are one the left side and the other half are on the back, next to the side inputs.
2. The presence sensor is right where I have my center audio speaker. I will have to raise up the TV to still have that speaker front and center.
Overall, this is not a cheap TV, but I think this is a case where you get what you pay for. It is a really great set.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you?
 
|
|
|
|
|
|
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not for everyone. But read on., December 12, 2009
This review is from: Sony BRAVIA VE5-Series KDL-40VE5 40-Inch 1080p 120Hz Eco-friendly LCD HDTV (Electronics)
Let me start by saying this might have been an awesome LCD TV. I bought mine from Sears at a fantastic sale price ($850) less a 10% Sears card discount. The more I read about this TV the more I liked it.
The Good: If all you plan to do is watch High Def sources (Blu Ray, HD TV, etc.) then you will love this TV. It has a beautiful HD picture and comes with many great features. With 100,000:1 contrast ratio and 120 HZ refresh it is top shelf. Claims super low power use and appearance is very nice. If you do not plan to watch anything "non" HD then I can recommend this TV. Otherwise, read on to learn more.
The Bad: This issue will not bother everyone but it bothered me enough to return the TV (very reluctantly) to Sears. Major kudos to Sears for their courtesy. This [intermittent] issue is with non-HD sources such as regular cable signal using coax input or standard DVD using composite input. Given a low light scene (i.e. night scene) the brightness level would vary as if in "search mode". Sometimes the picture would fade to almost black and then snap back to normal or anywhere in between as the scene changed. We used our new Sony as the main TV and watched everything on it (old shows, new shows, HD stations, standard DVDs of which we have over a hundred and not likely to be converting them all over to Blu Ray $$$$!!!) and this problem was noticed on multiple channels and DVDs. In addition, std DVDs using the Component video (RGB) input looked pretty bad but that may be somewhat adjustable and up-converting may help. I did not get that far. I tested another identical TV purchased by a friend with the same results. This bothered me more than it did the rest of my family but I refuse to pay that much for anything that does not work properly out-of-the-box.
Please note that I did give Sony support one chance to rectify this issue but never got past the first level inexperienced "receptionist" who asked the usual "no-brainer" questions. I had to explain to him the actual menu path (his "resources" were incorrect) to get to the backlight/light sensor settings only to confirm that the factory defaults were as they should be. I left Sony some feedback on that issue. If it was a known issue then Sony could have told me a fix was in the works and I would have been OK with that. If it is not yet known to them (not likely) then a fix may never happen. Their loss for not escalating my call. Plus now they have a poor review to deal with.
I really hated having to return the TV but I cannot accept IQ problems from a top 3 company like Sony with that kind of investment.
Also, Remote is simple but not great (the most used buttons at bottom rather than middle where they belong) but remotes are a minor issue.
Hope this helps someone with their LCD shopping.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you?
|
|
|
|
|
|
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Picture. TV is finally off in the morning!, September 17, 2009
This review is from: Sony BRAVIA VE5-Series KDL-40VE5 40-Inch 1080p 120Hz Eco-friendly LCD HDTV (Electronics)
Auto-off feature is really nice. I'm not as green as I should be, but this set has solved my teenager falling asleep with the TV on all night. Picture is great, menu/settings are very user friendly, and only ports with an item plugged in are in the "input" rotation on the remote. Highly recommend.
One weird thing about the White Glove delivery from Amazon. They showed up on time, and even phoned ahead...very nice, plus set the TV up and took the garbage. However during the setup the TV searches for channels automatically. When this seemed to be going slow, the delivery guy says "this can take awhile the first time it runs", and my wife let them leave. After performing a "search" for about 30 minutes I discovered that they had used input cables from a DVD player that was not hooked up to the satellite system. I simply plugged an HDMI cable from the dish to the TV...and whammo...200+ channels almost instantly.
Everything else was great. I would make a similar purchase again with Amazon without hesitation.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
Saving...
