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255 of 259 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Let me clear up some misconceptions..., May 5, 2009
This review is from: Sony BRAVIA XBR KDL-32XBR9 32-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV (Electronics)
This is a great HDTV. Hands down is one of the most beautiful displays in this size. You can buy a fancier ultra-thin 32" TV from Samsung right now but it's almost twice the price!
Pros: The blacks are black! When you start it up, the Bravia logo appears on a black background and it's as black as when the TV is off! People say that edge LED lighting will make the blacks truer with less backlight bleeding but this TV is already great in this aspect. The colors and settings are very good out of the box for a few of the styles but need adjustment like any TV. The nice thing is that when you change your input, the TV remembers all the settings for that input! So it's like you never have to re-adjust your settings unless you plug your stuff in differently.
The motionflow frame interpolation technology is astounding! 120HZ with the motionflow is worth every penny for bluray and other high-def sources. That's why I waited for this over the XBR6. I however prefer the lifelike "soap-opera" look, but that's me (I have to say PE or the Pirates movies look stunning with it on!). You can turn it off or have this appear more more subtle (the default). The motionflow is basically a side-effect of the necessity to combat blurriness and the staggering "judder" effect inherent to LCDs. It adds one or more frames in between each frame of your source by interpolating entirely NEW frames that were never there by the TV's processor. technology is amazing, isn't it? You have to see it in person to get exactly what this looks like. Other companies are following suit but I find others like the 32 TOC Samsung have more motion artifacts (basically errors ie grabbing parts of the audience behind a fast-moving player in a sports event and dragging them along for the ride). Sony's Bravia processor is second to none. For upconverted sources not originally in 1080 and compressed 1080 cable, the motion technology is less noticeable. So the overall effectiveness depends on how clear the material is.
This is important--with the game mode on, which turns off most processing, there is almost NO LAG. I am one of those demanding gamers who is very sensitive and complains about miniscule things like how much play there is in a joystick. So I can tell you that there is still a little lag but the game mode makes fast games like Smash Bros and shooters play like my CRT. So losing the motionflow in the game mode might seem bad, but it's only a small difference especially on something like the 480p Wii. And Wii games with anti-aliasing like Metroid Prime 3 still look AWESOME in contrast to what most say. The PS3 does look AMAZING either with or without motionflow anyway!
Cons: Not many but the sound is tinny. What do you expect from such small speakers? If you spent this much on a 32 TV and don't have speakers then you should not complain.
There is no headphone jack. I use a mixer with a control-room out to get around this and it works fine.
The autodim is annoying but mainly happens for me when the room is VERY dark. In normal light I do not see it. And you cannot turn it off but with as many people as are complaining about it, all Sony has to do is release a firmware update to allow the switching on and off of it (Sony, are you reading this?)...
CLARIFICATIONS-----
Here are some points that I thought were incorrect in some other reviews so I felt compelled to make this clear to potential buyers.
Okay some people just don't do their research in TVs. Sony's top line of HDTVs is the XBR line. The XBRs are split into the standard and then two higher end levels. Last year we had the XBR6s (standard XBR), XBR7s (larger fancier models) and XBR8 (larger still fancier models). This XBR9 IS NOT A REPLACEMENT FOR XBR8!! It replaces the XBR6 and the XBR8 was WAY more money and there was not even a 32" one available! The reviewer who complained about there being no LED backlighting is wrong in getting upset because the XBR6 never had LED lighting and the XBR8 is a higher end unit which is different that the XBR9s. Sony will undoubtedly release an XBR10 and XBR11 or something to replace those two higher lines. Maybe in the next few years Sony will add edge LED lighting to the standard XBR line unless something like OLED takes off...
Next the TV takes about as long to start up as my over 10-year-old Sony Trinitron 32" XBR CRT does. Some models take longer some don't but it certainly is not 30 seconds! That reviewer must have gotten a problem unit or need a firmware update or something. Also, to change input, all you have to do is push "Input" then push that arrows up or down and that's it. Wow if that is too much for you, then technology is not your thing. Maybe you should hire someone to push the buttons for you so you don't have to. Come on.
The thing has many inputs and, yes, some are on the side. On bigger TVs this would probably get covered up so on this one you can see some cabling if you have a thick cable that cannot bend easily. If you are clever you can use the cord-management strap to clean this up but my thick Monstercable does not bend that easily so I do see it. Oh well. So with thinner types of cables that bend back easily you should be fine. It's common knowledge that you get the same quality in a $5 HDMI cable as a $200 one because it is digital; getting a cheap thin one should solve the side cable-view problem. I wanted a more durable cable though.
This is a relatively high-end HDTV that means it's designed to be used primarily to view HD content over a HDMI cables. That's why over half it's inputs are HDMI. So if you have a ton of stuff in composite or component, sorry, but Sony is trying to cater to the people who utilize the TV primarily for what it was designed for. Get a splitter/switcher or upgrade your cables to HDMI because, again, no matter how crappy your HDMI cables are, there is NO signal loss. There's an advantage to update anyway.
Also contrary to popular belief numbers across different manufacturers ARE NOT EQUIVALENT. So comparing Lg to Sony to Samsung is not at all accurate. Think of comparing HP numbers in cars--measuring at the flywheel or tire gets you VERY different results and this often misleads consumers. Trust your eyes on a calibrated set with the same source. I can tell you this TV has more than enough contrast and is improved over last years model.
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So far I have not had any problems with the TV and it looks amazing. I would recommend this to anyone and if you are internet savvy and find a good company to work with, you can find it for only slightly more than the closeout or last-year's KDL32XBR6 model--about $850 (or less, as in my case) :D
EDIT: Thanks to other posters for mentioning this--Sony has released a firmware update that apparently makes the menus easier to navigate (faster?) and FIXES THE AUTODIM PROBLEM! I am trying to figure out how to install it now...
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150 of 155 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great TV, but a Few Issues, April 4, 2009
This review is from: Sony BRAVIA XBR KDL-32XBR9 32-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV (Electronics)
First, let me say this TV excels on many levels. Picture quality is great, pre-set picture settings are almost spot on, but plenty of flexibility to adjust, decent off-angel viewing, matte screen deals well w/ bright lighting (we have a lamp directly across from the TV and only notice a reflection in truly dark scenes), and of course the long history of Sony quality standing behind it. However, unless the 120hz is a must for you, see if you can get your hands on a XBR6 on clearance. The XBR9 doesn't add much more, and you do lose some features, like the on-screen tv guide, PAP/PIP, and the proprietary input for things like the ipod dock, etc.
Minor Issues: Sound quality is decent for a TV of this size, but audiophiles will want to add an external speaker system. The bezel is highly reflective, which can be distracting depending on the lighting in the room. Another thing to note is that the input menu has to be navigated with the arrow keys on the remote - can't just keep hitting the input button to scroll through - so depending on your satellite or cable remote, like us (we have DirectTV), you may not be able to use it to change inputs, and will have to use the Sony remote to switch b/t the SD box and HD antenna.
Major Issue: The biggest drawback on this set, for me, is the function that automatically adjusts the backlight based on screen brightness, and, so far, we cannot find any way to shut this off. (Note, this is NOT the same as the light sensor, which you can, and I think should disable, as I think it produces kind of a muddy picture in all but optimal room light conditions.) For average viewing, this is not a problem, and we did not discover the issue until watching The Prestige on TV a few weeks ago - the movie has many dark, candle/lamp lit scenes, and the dark-bright-dark-bright adjustments made the movie almost unwatchable at times. It wouldn't be so bad if the adjustment was smoother, but generally a couple of seconds after the screen brightness changes there is a abrupt and significant darkening or brightening of the screen. So if your main interest is gaming or watching movies that tend to have a lot of dark scenes, then this might not be the TV for you. Even though we use this TV mainly to watch TV and the occasional DVD from NetFlix, and so will probably have to deal w/ this only occasionally, it's distracting enough when it does happen that, if we'd known about this issue in advance, we probably would not have purchased the TV.
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47 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sony has fix for backlighting problem in the advanced contrast section., May 27, 2009
This review is from: Sony BRAVIA XBR KDL-32XBR9 32-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV (Electronics)
We were unhappy with this TV and then found that Sony has fixed the back light issue so you can adjust it or turn it off and this has fixed the screen changing from dark to light with different scenes. It was easy to down load this onto a usb memory stick and the TV automatically did the update. The channels seem to change faster also. Here is the web site for downloading it from Sony - just make sure you follow all of the steps and read the info first. They will mail you the update on stick also.
[...]
Darlene
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