Sony BRAVIA V-Series KDL-40V5100 40-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV Reviews

Review by Victor for Sony BRAVIA V-Series KDL-40V5100 40-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV
Rating:
I chose this TV after spending about an hour in each of two different Best Buy stores, comparing the image quality on different TV sets with different in-store HDTV feed. It is my firm opinion that this TV is best-in-class among non-LED unit; I am particularly impressed with the contrast and color balance.

The only competitor is Samsung series-5 or series-6 HDTV. However, after comparing the Samsung and Sony for two hours, I found that both are very close in terms of contrast (and very impressive), but there is one important point where Sony was ahead: I found the skin tones to look much more natural on the Sony. If you watch a lot of movies like I do, this makes a big difference. Samsung series-6 had terribly over-saturated colors in store, worse than series-5. Now, of course this could be due to poor setting on the Samsung TVs, but I did go to two different stores, and results were the same. Also, the Samsung had severe motion artifacts on high-contrast material. To be fair though, some W-series Bravia had monstrous motion artifacts on low-res feed, but this V-series model seemed to be the best (better than the more expensive Sony models).

The contrast is so good the objects look almost 3D (same with the Samsung, which is excellent as well). The menu system on the Sony is great, easy to navigate. Can’t compare other features, since I don’t own a Samsung set.

There are a couple weaknesses, which may or may not be attributable to the set itself:

1) Switching between HD and non-HD TV channels sometimes takes a couple seconds; sometimes the switch does not occur, requiring to turn either the cable box or TV off and back on

2) If I route the sound from the DVD players into the TV via HDMI, and back from TV to the amp via RCA interconnect, audio disappears sometimes, I have to pause the movie off and back on. This could be the fault of the DVD player – I have no clue.

3) With completely black screen input to the TV, the lack of complete low-luminance uniformity across the screen becomes noticeable. Then again, why would I care?

Summary:

Pros: impeccable contrast, color balance and image quality. None of the more expensive units had better balanced color. Perfect on-screen menu navigation.

Cons: strange channel switching problems between HD and non-HD channels – could be the cable box problem. DVD audio occasionally disappears if piped through the TV set via HDMI (could be the DVD player issue, but it appeared with two different Panasonic DVD players).

Review by Robert Kaplinsky for Sony BRAVIA V-Series KDL-40V5100 40-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV
Rating:
Update: You can now download the firmware update for this TV at the link below. It will fix the auto-dimming problem. I would now give it 5 stars: […]

With this fix being made, I would now say that the TV deserves five stars.

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I have owned this TV for about two weeks now and think it is great. The picture is very sharp. The colors are great. The blacks and whites look fabulous. The stand it comes with is very sturdy and there are more than enough inputs for my needs. The TV itself also looks very elegant.

I was going to buy this 2009 TV or the 2008 Sony KDL-40Z4100 (a higher end model from the previous year), whichever came down in price first. The two TVs are very comparable in features. The main difference for me was price but also important were the contrast ratios. This TV has a contrast ratio of 50:000 to 1 while the KDL-40Z4100 has a contrast ratio of 30:000 to 1. As a further comparison, the 2008 version of this TV, the KDL-40V4100, has a 25:000 to 1 contrast ratio. That big jump in contrast ratio pushed me towards this TV over last year’s Z series.

I have read the reviews describing the auto-dimming but honestly I don’t think it is that big of a deal. We watch mostly TV (Lost, 24, The Office, sports, etc.) as opposed to movies and after two weeks of use, today was the very first day I noticed the auto-dimming. It happened for about 2 seconds and was a strange dimming. My wife still has not noticed it even though we have both been on the lookout for it to see how bad it is.

While I agree that I cannot see how this is a feature Sony would want to include without being able to turn off, to me, it was pretty minor and I would still happily buy the same TV again. I suppose that there are shows or movies where this happens more frequently but after two weeks, I still don’t see it often. I took off a half star for this.

The other half star taken off comes from what seems like a long time for the TV to start. Once you turn it on it seems like it takes around 20 seconds to get started and display a picture. It isn’t a huge deal and once the TV is on it doesn’t affect anything. However, compared to my old CRT which turned on in a couple of seconds it seems long.

My hope is that Sony comes out with some sort of firmware update that allows you to turn this auto-dimming “feature” off as many customers are unhappy with it. That is pure speculation though as I haven’t heard any hints of this happening.