Sony BRAVIA KDL46EX710 46-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LED HDTV, Black

I have been looking for the better part of two months to replace my aging LG Plasma, which has served me well for 5 years. I think I read every possible review about the various Sony LCD and LED models, seems like professional and consumer reviews are inconsistent.
If you believe CNet, this TV, and other models such as the ex400 and ex700, suck. Nonsense ! I was originally planning on buying a
50in Samsung Plasma, until I found numerous complaints on line about them breaking down. So I decided to go with Sony, and I’m glad
I did. (BTW I also have a nice 42in Samsung Plasma with what I considered to be a pretty good picture)
This model has almost every conceivable feature you would want, a generous amount of inputs, extensive to the point of more than what the average person needs as far as picture options, a nicely designed remote control, and an absolutely stunning picture.
Yes, there are better sets out there, but for the money I spent, I think I made the right choice.
Since I’m not particularly interested in Internet content or Widgets playing on my TV, I can’t comment on that aspect.
Each and every input on this set can be memorized and contoured to your liking. Another great feature is the energy saving mode,
and an actual on/off switch, wherein no power is being consumed at all.
The only real criticism and negative comment to be made is….. the picture dims immediately on any type of off-angle. Common with
LCD and LED sets, this one in particular seems very prone to this effect. The brightness and contrast are like cut in half as soon
as you move away from the TV. I don’t have mine mounted on a wall, just a common TV stand, so the best viewing angle is directly
in front, which, compared to my Plasma sets, is an anomaly. Guess what ? I don’t care…..
One distinct plus is, the matte screen, which does a good job of negating ambient room light reflections. The LED screen is just
as bright and colorful during daylight hours as it is at night in a darkened room.
All these complaints I read about local dimming, motion flow, 120hz, blah blah blah, this set looked great right out of the box.
You really can’t ask for much more than that…..

I have many doubts to those reviews that critize this 46″ Sony TV, I agree I wished it had built in wireless but for $70.00 you can buy the USB adapter and the issue goes away, Sony Internet system by far is the best as far as streaming content from the interent to this TV. Sony’s 3D systems are still $400.00 more than this system, however the picture is very clear, colors are beautiful and sony’s non glare screens are the best, you can point a flashlight at the screen and the picture barely washes out.

Please read the manual first and it will save you lots of headaches, to many people leave bad reviews because they didn’t read the manual and setup the unit incorrectly from the start. Buying a extended warranty is a must, I will agree if they do need fixed it can get expensive fast. But that is for all LCD Televisions not just Sony’s.

Another issue, these Tv’s need to be cleaned correctly the glass can scratch easily if you clean it incorrectly that can also distort the picture quality. I didn’t buy my Sony here at Amazon because Sony offered 3 years same as cash.

Remember always use HDMI connections when possible, Playing games with your xbox, play station or PC will be a great surprise. If you are looking for a non 3D TV this is a great choice. Again take the time to read the manual, ask questions if you need help.

This system will soon be selling for under a $1000.00 and that will be a great buy. Go to your nearest Sony Authorized dealer and check yourself, and then save yourself some money and buy it here online.

I would evaluate the TV in two parts, the first being the quality of the hardware (picture, sound , aesthetics), and 2nd everything else:

Picture & sound: IMHO Sony still has the best picture quality among major manufacturers, and this TV has the most natural-looking colors & best blacks i’ve seen, at least when I was comparing sets in the store.
One small issue I have is that there’s some brightness in the corners from the edge lighting which is visible when viewing content in 4:3 (when there are vertical black bands on either side) that can sometimes be distracting, and is even worse when viewing off-angle. Sometimes this is the fault of the signal, not the TV, but I’ve seen it enough in varying degrees from different signal sources to think it’s the latter. Not a huge deal, though. Be a snob and try to restrict your viewing to wide-screen content.
Sound quality is pretty good. You might want to connect to a sound system for movies or music, but you won’t suffer if you don’t.
T.V. set looks great, is slim, light, plenty of inputs/outputs, and is apparently eco-friendly (or as much as a 46″ flat panel can be).

Everything else, internet-readiness, content, remote, ergonomics, etc: This is where Sony doesn’t do as well. In the epic battle between content providers and hardware manufacturers for control of your TV, Sony is playing both sides. Yeah, you’ve got your staples like Netflix, Hulu, etc., just enough to deter you from supplementing with a set-top device like Roku or Apple TV. But most of the internet channels they provide either push Sony content exclusively or they’re from third parties that carry Sony content, and a good many of them are junk in my opinion.
Then there’s the remote, which is also not so great. I’m constantly hitting the wrong button, screen response time to commands is s-l-o-w, and to my point about content, they would have provided a QWERTY keypad if they were serious about letting you search internet content (and really, why would they be?). All I know is that it’s a real bummer to have to do a keyword search for YouTube videos with a numeric keypad, especially with the poor on-screen interface provided.
In short, take the the term “internet-ready” with a grain of salt. This T.V. should really be called “Sony content-ready”.

That said, I highly recommend this T.V. if your primary concern is picture quality.

The picture is amazing. I have rabbit ears and still it’s wonderful. Sound is very good. No drop off in color/brightness off center that I can tell. Great internet apps, more than I expected. Netflix, pandora radio require a SW download and some web activiation, but that was very easy. The remote is fine, not perfect but very good. One issue with jumping around from input to input, but I am just getting the hang of the remote. Do yourself a favor and get this. The one I got was from C0ZTKO (you know who), where you get an extra year of warrentee. Model is KDL-46EX711. You get a free wifi adaptor (dongle) thrown in. The apps are great, set is DLNA compliant, however, I don’t think you can get to everywhere on the Web. But you can get to alot of great free content. So it is not an open internet browser, but who cares. You can always try to get a DVD player with an open browser, or perhaps use your WII.

I did not buy this TV from Amazon, but got it as a replacement TV from SONY, as my 6 year old KDF-42WE655 tv started displaying blue hues with the blue slowly taking over the screen. This is part of the optical block failure issue with SONY’s LCD projection TV.

The TV has excellent picture quality, both in HD and SD! I have a well lit room, and I don’t intend to watch it in the dark. We site 10 feet away from the TV. I did not see any flash lighting or off angle viewing problems. Ofcourse if you sit 4 feet away from the TV and try to watch it off angle, you will have a bit of a fade out with all LCD TVs, not just this unit.The software is excellent and the interface very easy to use. You Tube videos stream without hesitation, and Netflix works great. I have the TV directly connected to my DSL router, so I did not need the USB dongle.

I have DISH network, and so probably why my picture quality might be superior as others reviewers might have had Cable. In my experience most Cable feeds are over compressed and have worse quality than Satellite.

On a final note, I have been reading reviews for quite some time about various TVs as I was researching them, I think the negatives have been overblown, this is really a TV you will enjoy. Sound is not great, but no flat panel has good sound these days. That being said, the TV sound does fill up the room, and dialog is crisp and clear when watching shows. If you are watching a music concert or video, that is when you wish this thing had a sub woofer.

I bought mine last black Friday for $999.99 at Sony Style in Costa Mesa and I am just now learning all the features. I bought the set after looking at all other sets and comparing the picture and prices. I also did some spec comparison but mainly it was the picture that convinced me to buy it. I took it home with me and it fit in my Honda Civic and it was light enough for me to carry. Set up was a breeze. I bought the USB dongle so I can connect to my wireless router and I did have initial problems but Sony support was there to fix it. I have heard a lot of negative comments about Sony, but I have to say this, at least it is available! Enough said. The salesman at Sony said if you want a barebones tv without 3d and the bells and whistles, get the KDL 46EX710. I was therefore pleasantly surprised at the features apart from internet connectivity, Netflix, Pandora etc, there is picture and sound adjustments that you can either choose for a particular input or you can specify you selection as common. Heck it even turns it self off!
The sound is a bit weak for my taste, but then again I have it hooked up to my Onkyo, and it does take a while to power on so for this I took off 1 star. All in all for a thousand bucks, you can go wrong with this set.

The picture is beautiful, vivid, and sharp. I primarily bought this model because if fits into my home wall unit, the dimensions on this model are significantly smaller than the previous generations including the EX700. I’m still on the fence on the built-in Internet Video feature. I have experienced numerous network connectivity issues with it, that I hope will be fixed in future firmware upgrades. When the Internet Video services are working they are easy to use and there is plenty of choice among video services, audio services, and local media servers. In the meantime, I’m going back to my Roku box which has no issues on my network and can also work wirelessly (Sony requires an add-on product).

Replaced a Sony 36″ Trinitron we’d had for 10 years with this. For ‘full screen’ old movies, e.g., anything before CinemaScope arrived in the theaters, it’s a perfect correlation replacement. The diagonal is 36″ for a movie like Gregory Peck in Captain Horatio Hornblower.

There are several ‘issues’ that cause it NOT to get a 5-star review.

[1] I don’t care for the in-line owners manual. If I want to read up on a system, I don’t want to have to rely on access to the system in order to understand it. Let alone TROUBLESHOOT it, when it’s non-functional. They need a PDF document.

[2] As reported in other reviews, there IS an issue with light emission from the corners of the screen. Only noticed in dark scenes in a darkened room. But it IS annoying.

[3] Adjustments to screen ‘width/height’. They’ve got a pre-set system that allows for only FOUR configurations. I’m not happy with 3 out of the 4. God and the fools that set this up are the only ones who understand their mad-cap–I like to think of it as ‘idiotsyncratic’–methodology. It would be better if they allowed for the sort of screen-image adjustment that allowed for scaling the size of the image on the screen Something that didn’t allow for overflow. One of the ‘matters-of-discussion’ in the decision process to purchase THIS model over the 60″ model was an inability to adjust the image size as desired. The distaff objected to an image too large for her to ‘appreciate’. If Sony had made the sort of image adjustment desired, we’d have spent the additional $1K to get the 60″ model.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
P.S. I’m confident that there are a LOT of others who feel the same way as WE do about issue #3…..

Too bad for Sony’s shareholders, eh?

I have been researching TVs for the past 2 months and finally decided to get this TV. I’ve had this TV for a week now and I’m very happy with this purchase. The way our living room is configured, I only have 2 options on where to place my TV. Both of those places are near windows. With the matte screen on this bad boy, glare is not an issue. No problem watching TV at in the middle of the day or late at night.

When I took the TV out of the box and plugged it in, the picture was kinda dark. Adjusted the settings to give it a brighter look and its good to go. Sharp picture and accurate colors. I also have a 32″ bravia in the bedroom which I’ve had for a couple of years now. No complaints regarding that TV either.

The only downside I have is with the remote which is minor. I figure that since Sony can make super-slim LCDs, why cant the make a slimmed down remote to go with it? I think the remote is bulky but is responsive. The speakers sound like average TV speakers. Of course they could be better but I haven’t seen a LCD TV that has great sound anyway.

If you buy this TV you wont be disappointed!