Sony Bravia XBR Series KDL-52XBR7 52-Inch 240Hz 1080p LCD HDTV

Review by DrXenos for Sony Bravia XBR Series KDL-52XBR7 52-Inch 240Hz 1080p LCD HDTV
Rating:
I just received my TV today. All I can say is: OH MY GOD! The picture is gorgeous. The sound is incredible. Setup was a breeze. The guys delivering it were nice and courteous. They set it up for me, and even offered to take the packaging away (I kept it in case there were problems).

I’ve read reviews that state there were screen problems, especially with rain or fog. I don’t see it. No artifacts, no blurring, nothing. I think as long as it is setup correctly, the problems don’t occur. There are a lot of settings, but the menus are clean and easy to understand.

I am a little hard of hearing. My old TV was cranked to the max, and I could just hear it. Not my new Sony! Even at 50% it is too loud even for me.

Just a note (in case someone else has this problem): I initially didn’t have sound at first through the HDMI cable (and panicked a little). The problem was I had to configure my cable box audio setting specifically to HDMI. You’d think as an engineer, I would have known…

The picture is awesome with my Oppo up-scaling DVD player (I don’t have a Blu-ray yet).

A nice touch: because of the multitude of connectors on the TV (and the compactness of HDMI’s combined audio/video cables) I was able to get rid of a huge rat’s nest of cables (coaxial, composite, S-video, and various combiner/splitters).

Update:

I’ve had the TV for a few weeks now, and still love it. I bought one of those DVD kits to calibrate the color, et. al., but all I had to do was change the color setting from “vivid” to “standard.” The TV’s settings were already spot on!

I’ve also noticed that the picture is much better if you turn off a lot of the “extra” settings that affect the picture, like the CineMotion. I have a set of PAL DVDs that looked all jerky. I turned this off and now they look great. My NTSC DVDs were OK most of the time, but certain scenes were jerky. They now look great, too. The Motion Enhancer seems to be best at “Standard.”

Review by J. MARSHALL for Sony Bravia XBR Series KDL-52XBR7 52-Inch 240Hz 1080p LCD HDTV
Rating:
I took delivery of my first 52XBR7 a couple of weeks ago. I agree with the other reviewers that the picture is outstanding, with one big exception. After watching it for a couple of hours, I couldn’t help but notice that there were very obvious clouds/blooms of light throughout any dark scenes. I’ve read about this problem, called “mura” by the Japanese, but hadn’t had a problem with it on my 52XBR2. After spending the whole day wall mounting it and selling my XBR2 to a neighbor, I settled in to watch. I tried to ignore the “mura,” but it’s really bad. Last week, Amazon swapped out the TV for me, but the second one has the same problem. It has less “clouding” but has what are referred to as “flashlights,” several lights that point from the edge towards the middle of the screen. These lights are obvious during dark scenes. I have some more serious family issues to deal with at the moment, so I’ll let this go for now and decide later if I want to return the set and try a Samsung. This TV has an excellent picture if the high definition material is brightly lit, but with some shows like “Sarah Conner” or “24,” the backlight bleed really detracts from it. I don’t know if I got unlucky having two sets with this problem, or if others just live with it. Good luck if you choose this TV. Make sure to do your research on the “clouding (mura)” and “flashlights” issues first.

UPDATE: Another reviewer of the 40″ version of this set had this problem and speculated that Sony releases TV’s with problems for online sale only. Amazon assured me that this is not the case and offered me an additional 5% discount if I keep it or a full refund if I want to return it. I’ve decided to keep it because I can’t afford to purchase a set like this for the full retail price, which is what Best Buy is charging, a full $1,000 above Amazon’s price! Throughout this experience, Amazon’s customer service has been excellent. I would give them 5 stars!

Review by J. Rose for Sony Bravia XBR Series KDL-52XBR7 52-Inch 240Hz 1080p LCD HDTV
Rating:
I have been wanting a flat screen TV since the plasmas came out almost 10 years ago and were $40,000. ANd finally, I made the plunge and am very happy. Sony by far is the best and the 240hz motion flow is VERY noticable. I read a review where the guy said he could not tell at all. You can tell a LOT. Dont know what that guy was looking at. Anyway, it is pricey but I am happy with it. If you are sensitive to the LCD motion stutter, get the 240hz model…even if you have to wait a while for the price to come down. The only bad thing is one small software glitch when using one of the presentations methods in the slideshow feature (maze method freezes after about 10 pics, but other methods work fine). All in all this is a great TV and it has dropped over $800 dollars already since i bought it in December! Bad for me, good for you! Oh and for those people that are having trouble committing and research stuff to death… just do it. I killed myself researching plasmas vs. LCD and then the different types of LCDs etc and now that I have it, I am SOOO happy. Black scenes are always going to be a little different on an LCD, however the 240 motion flow far outweighs the occasional funny blacks…OH, and football is out of this world on it.

Review by cmango for Sony Bravia XBR Series KDL-52XBR7 52-Inch 240Hz 1080p LCD HDTV
Rating:
This TV has the best picture we’ve ever seen. It’s absolutely stunning.

Lots of Amazon review comments out there about the refresh rate and stutter on the 120Hz model. That isn’t a problem at all with 240Hz.

An HDTV is only as good as the signal it receives. We had a heck of a time with Time Warner (they gave us the wrong cable box, even with the right box the HD channels didn’t work, they eventually came out and put a signal booster on the box) but once that was straightened out you cannot beat the picture on this TV. We have two other, older Sony TVs in other rooms that we’ll probably sell because no one will want to watch them after seeing the picture on this one.

We have a small living room and were worried the TV would be too large for the space. It isn’t.

We did alot of research before buying and made the right choice. You can’t go wrong with this brand and model.

Review by Nissan Fan for Sony Bravia XBR Series KDL-52XBR7 52-Inch 240Hz 1080p LCD HDTV
Rating:
TV was delivered in perfect condition a few days ago as promised by CEVA/Eagle. The delivery folks were good – they unpacked and set it up on the stand before they left. I did not turn it on immediately because it was cold outside and the unit needed time to acclimatize.

I have now been playing around with it for a few days and still have a ton of settings and options I have yet to explore. I am happy to say I have none of the clouding issues that some others have mentioned here. Some of the cool features I have found so far.

Picture quality – One word describes it – Fantastic! Default picture quality is great. However, I have yet to calibrate the color/brightness settings to tone it down, conserve energy etc.

Favorites – I like how the favorites GUI lets you scroll through all the channels you have surfed.

Networking and USB – Pictures on a USB stick or on my desktop computer look great. Plugged it into my network, went through a few basic setup steps and it was able to find and display all the pics on the computer. Various slide show effects are great too. Not been able to play a video clip off the computer yet. Need to check compatible formats.

TV Guide – The interactive TV Guide is the best I have seen. Better than those provided by the cable and satellite companies.

Web Browsing – Computer looks great on it. As soon as my Logitech Mediaboard bluetooth keyboard arrives I will have my computer hooked up permanently to the TV.

Only thing left to do is to properly calibrate the color/brightness settings yet. Will update later.

Watch the price on Amazon and buy when low.

Review by Redman1953 for Sony Bravia XBR KDL-52XBR6 52-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LCD HDTV
Rating:
I am simply thrilled with this TV! I did a lot of research over a period of many months before making this purchase and it really paid off. I got a great price from Amazon and the product itself is wonderful! Great picture, terrific color, easy to set up and use, great features, very attractive sleek design. It allows you to either go with the standard settings or make all kinds of adjustments to the sound and picture from the easy-to-use menu options. You can customize your settings (and save them) for the various HDMI and other inputs. I ordered it late on a Sunday evening and it was already out for delivery to my home on Wednesday morning. Pilot Air Freight called ahead to make arrangements for whatever delivery time was convenient for me. You choose your own time right down to the half hour, in fact, my deliver person was actually early! They gave me free white gloves delivery with a very friendly, prompt, and careful delivery person. They bring it into the house, unpack it and put it on your TV stand, all in just a few minutes–and in perfect condition! Non-HD over the air broadcasts look fairly decent on it. Ordinary DVDs look excellent–even from an ordinary DVD player. It has a USB port so you can look at your digital photos on the big 52″ screen, and believe me it makes them look fantastic–and huge! It’s at its best when you watch Blu-Ray movies on it. They just look incredibly beautiful and the sound is gorgeous, even with just the onboard speakers. I can’t wait to hear how it sounds with my new receiver and surround speakers! And it can play Master Audio disks. You can’t go wrong with this TV. The price is right and it’s worth every penny and then some. I love it! Thanks again to Amazon for a great product at a great price with super fast high quality free delivery!

Review by Terry94705 for Sony Bravia XBR KDL-52XBR6 52-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LCD HDTV
Rating:
This was a big jump up. The last TV was a 6 year old 20 inch JVC tube, so you might think we would be easy to dazzle. Nevertheless I did a lot of research before springing for this one. Got it to watch DVDs; we don’t have cable or dish, just an indoor antenna. We were really surprised at all the new (digital) channels we got, even without upgrading our antenna –so don’t be hasty in assuming you need to have an outdoor antenna, cable, etc., especially if you are in a metropolitan area.

The old analog stations (say, channel 9) come in pathetically, but usually there are other stations associated with each number. For example, we now get digital 9.1, 9.2 and 9.3 –three different programs where we used to get one. This was all a pleasant surprise. We got digital versions of all the old channels and 7-8 new ones. We even get a San Jose station that we haven’t seen in years.

Everything on the digital channels is gorgeous. When I was shopping I saw big HDTVs where the non-HD picture was stretched and distorted, but you don’t have to set it that way. You can set it so that each program comes in at its optimal picture quality. Some day, hopefully, it will all be HD, but the SD stuff looks pretty good on this set! As for the Bravia XBR6 specifically, great black-blacks, but your detail within shadows is not sacrificed. It came set to “vivid” color setting, but I find the standard setting more natural. REally stunning picture! Haven’t watched any blu-ray disks yet (no player) but the standard DVDs look fabulous!

This was a big purchase but I am very happy with it. And–at least in the SF Bay area– delivery was faster than projected and the CEVA white glove service was fine. They do not connect your components for you but they do put it on a stand and power it up so you can be sure all your pixels, sound, etc, function.

Review by R. Berg for Sony Bravia XBR KDL-52XBR6 52-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LCD HDTV
Rating:
Until the XBR8 is shipping, this is the top-of-the-line Sony LCD television. Consequently, as you might expect, the color, image, and performance are superb. The picture is honestly nothing short of spectacular.

It was a great disappointment, however, to discover that “mura” (also called black clouding), an irregularity in the LCD panel that keeps it from going dark evenly during playback of a very dark scene or during a dip-to-black in the program material, is STILL an issue with the XBR6 family. I found posts about this problem as far back as the XBR2.

Simply said, “mura” (the japanese word for “unevenness”) is a quality control issue. Some sets have it, some don’t. The larger the panel is, the harder it is to build it perfectly, and the nature of LCD backlighting makes it difficult to build a large, LCD screen that renders a pure black screen evenly without clouding. But not impossible. You see many 40″ sets with no mura at all. Other manufacturers’ 52’s that have fewer accolades about their onscreen images don’t seem to have the problem, although, admittedly, their operating images may not look anywhere near as good as images seen on this tv.

Amazon is shipping my 2nd unit even as I write this…so we will see whether my first was just a bad panel, or whether Sony Customer Service’s comment that “some mura is typical of this unit and LCD technology” is accurate.

This is Sony, after all…and it’s their best-of-the-best product in the family (if you don’t count the $7,000 XBR8). You don’t expect “good enough” from Sony; they are the unit against which all others are judged, which means you expect “perfect”.

—-

Thursday, November 27, 2008

I’m happy to report that the second unit supplied by Amazon is considerably more uniform in low light. In a pitch black room, there is still a small amount of black level mura, but it is so much better than the first unit that I can live with it. In a nutshell, if your viewing area is a very dark, movie-theater-like environment, you may see what I’m talking about. But if you have even a small amount of ambient light in your room, you probably won’t.

Review by J. McGee for Sony Bravia XBR KDL-52XBR6 52-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LCD HDTV
Rating:
I bought the Sony 52XBR6 after nine months of research, including reading reviews of various LCD models on Amazon.com. I found the reviews very helpful so that’s why I’m taking the time to write this.

I was considering buying a 52-inch Samsung model because of the many positive reviews, including top ratings in Consumers Reports. However a couple of the reviews mentioned Samsung’s highly reflective screen. That wouldn’t work in my Arizona home. The XBR6 is in my family room, the southern wall of which is all windows so we get lots of sunlight. No problem for the Sony.

When I ordered the XBR6 I also bought a Sony BDP-S350 Blu-ray player and a Sony STR-DG720 audiovisual receiver, all through Amazon. I’ve only had them for a week so still learning about them but they work great. Last night I watched a blu-ray disc about Australia. The picture was so clear I could stand within two feet of the screen without seeing pixels – amazing.

I don’t have a home theater set up yet. For audio I’m alternating between the TV’s speakers and two JBL speakers (Model 4312 Control Monitor) I’ve had for years. The DG720 receiver’s audio settings allowed me designate the JBLs as Front Speakers and combine the 7.1 multi-channels through them without loss. The receiver’s audio settings are so flexible I can later add speakers, such as a front speaker and/or a sub-woofer, and just change the settings to accomodate them. I really like that.

My only complaints so far are the user-unfriendly operating manuals for the blu-ray disc and especially for the receiver. Here’s a couple of paragraphs from the STR-DG720 Operating Instructions:

“Sound may be interrupted when the sampling frequency, the number of channels or the audio format of the audio output signals from the playback component is switched” (page 21)

“IF YOU CONNECT A SUB WOOFER. This receiver will generate a low frequency signal for output to the sub woofer when there is no LFE signal, which is a low-pass sound effect output from a sub woofer to a 2 channel signal. However, the low frequency signal is not generated for ‘NE06 CIN’ or ‘NE06 MUS’ when all speakers are set to ‘LARGE’.” (page 53)

You audiophiles out there might read these and say “of course” but my response was “huh?” Anyway, by comparison the TV’s operating instuctions were a piece of cake.

One final comment. I chose the slower, no cost, delivery option but still received the White Glove service because of the size of the TV. The delivery company’s paperwork including the recommendation that I keep the large carton for a while in case the TV had to be returned. However,the truck driver said he never had to return a Sony.