Sony Bravia KDL-40V5500 40in LCD TV Review

No brand embodies the phrase “hit and miss” more than Sony right now. Recent Sony televisions have ranged wildly from insanely good to disturbingly flawed. So when we receive the new KDL-40V5500, we really have no idea what to expect. We can only hope that Sony has solved the various problems that have let some of its recent TVs down and that the 40V5500 will therefore sit at the ‘insanely good’ end of the Sony TV spectrum.

The 40-inch set gets off to a solid if uninspiring start thanks to its design. Because while the basic styling isn’t exactly innovative, the bezel is at least slim and glossy enough to be appealing. The set also has the nifty transparent stripe at the bottom that is now a Sony trademark.

However, where the 40V5500 really gets interesting is in its connections. First off, there are four HDMIs, although previous Sony experiences would have led us to expect only three. Another highlight is a USB port that lets you play MP3, JPEG, and even movie files. But what’s really intriguing is the discovery of an Ethernet port.

We’ve seen such sockets on previous Sony devices to stream files from a connected PC. But crucially, the 40V5500’s DLNA Ethernet socket goes a crucial step further by allowing you to bring the TV online.

Exploring the features available through this online system – dubbed the Applicast – it’s immediately clear that Sony has opted for a “purpose-bound” approach to online functionality. In other words, instead of giving you unlimited access to the delights of the World Wide Web, the TV ‘only’ lets you access material prepared specifically for presentation on a TV, not a PC, via a Sony portal.

This approach to online access is by far the most widespread in the TV world to date, with only Philips so far announcing its intention to give you access to the internet as a whole. But I have to say that Sony’s desire to control your online experience seems particularly extreme. Because while other manufacturers tend to partner with other third-party content providers like Yahoo, YouTube, Flickr, etc., Sony is providing all the content itself, at least for now.

So it’s not particularly surprising to find that the scope of the service is fairly limited. The highlight is probably an RSS newsfeed “widget” that lets you subscribe to newsletters from your favorite sites. Also of note is Photo Frame online, which provides a selection of downloadable photos and artwork for use as screensavers. Only a handful of images were available in the Nature, Architecture, and Art categories during our review, but I suspect/hope that number will increase significantly over time.

Beyond that, however, you’re limited to a world clock, an on-screen calculator and, well, that’s it really. Everything works well and is beautifully presented, but it’s really hard to ignore the amount of extra stuff that other online TV brands – notably Samsung – can currently offer.

You may also have noticed that I haven’t mentioned the wireless functionality of the 40V5500. The reason is simply that the set doesn’t support it! There’s no wireless receiver/transmitter built into the TV, and unlike Samsung’s Online TVs, you can’t add wireless functionality via an optional dongle that plugs into the USB port.

Having to hardwire the TV to your broadband connection — not always an easy task, depending on the location of your router/phone line — is a potential aggravation that, frankly, in today’s Wi-Fi age, is hard to digest and quite a bit “unfinished” feel of the 40V5500’s internet functionality.

Moving on to other key features of the 40V5500, I quickly found a couple of interesting “eco” tricks: a two-stage power saving system that dials back the power of the backlight, and the ability to actually turn off the picture when you’re “watching” something. where the only thing that really matters is the audio track.

A more common Eco element of the 40V5500 is a light sensor that can automatically adjust image brightness based on the ambient light in your room.

In terms of picture quality, I was intrigued that the 40V5500 features Sony’s latest generation of Bravia Engine video processing, cleverly dubbed Bravia Engine 3. And while we weren’t provided with full details of all of its improvements and refinements, we were reassured that Bravia Engine 3 isn’t just a minor upgrade. In fact, the chipset that powers it has been more or less redesigned from the ground up.

Not that Bravia Engine 3 is the only processing trick worth mentioning. An expanded image adjustment submenu also gives you control over a variety of other processing tweaks, such as: B. Sony’s vivid live color system and a black correction tool. Blu-ray fans will be pleased to know that the 40V5500 features Sony’s 24p True Cinema mode for enhanced 1080p/24 playback.

All in all, while you won’t find 100Hz processing (you’ll need to step up to Sony’s new W5500 range for that), there’s enough going on behind the scenes of the 40V5500’s pictures to give real hope as to how good they might be. And for a while at least, it seems like the 40V5500’s picture performance will more than live up to our expectations.

Take his colors for example. They are amazingly good, look sensationally full and bright, but above all they are strikingly natural and believable, especially in high-definition tariffs.

Such definitive color performance can only be achieved when a TV has a credible black level response and this is certainly true of the 40V5500. Dark scenes suffer from less telltale gray than the vast majority of competing LCD TVs, producing the deepest black levels Sony has yet achieved outside of its 55X4500 LED TV.

Concerns I had about the 40V5500’s lack of 100Hz processing also turn out to be largely unfounded. Because it actually handles movement very well, for example football players rushing around the screen, without losing huge amounts of detail and clarity. Pan shots can look a little stuttered and fuzzy when they’re really fast, but given the 40V5500’s affordable price point, there’s mostly nothing to complain about here.

The KDL-40V5500’s solid clarity in motion also helps it superbly reproduce the gorgeous sharpness and texture of HD sources. The unit’s Full HD resolution also undoubtedly plays a role, but the 40V5500’s HD pictures are so exceptionally clean and sharp that the new Bravia Engine 3 circuitry must also be heavily involved, which bodes well for the others to come Sony TVs for this year.

In fact, the new Bravia Engine update does a great job even with standard definition, making it look sharper but also cleaner than previous Sony LCD TVs.

As you can probably imagine from all this positive talk, the 40V5500 is capable of producing some truly outstanding images. In fact, it does so for the vast majority of its runtime. But you’ll surely have noticed that it still only scores an 8 for images.

There’s really only one reason for this, and it couldn’t be more frustrating: backlight inconsistency. In other words, in very dark scenes, there can be light clustering, making some areas of the image appear brighter than others. This is clearly distracting and made all the more annoying by the fact that I’ve had cause to moan about the same issue on some previous Sony TVs I’ve tested.

However, to put this in perspective, I should stress that the problem is much, much less pronounced than, say, on Sony’s W4500 TVs. You won’t see it at all except in very evenly dark scenes, and provided you’ve got the backlight, brightness and contrast settings sensibly curbed, the effect is very subtle.

But while it’s possible to calibrate away the problem almost entirely, the resulting image won’t be as bright as many people would like, especially if their living room is regularly filled with ambient light. And since many other brands of TVs exist without the sort of backlight inconsistencies discovered on this Sony, I really don’t see why an inherent panel flaw should force anyone to impose their picture settings on themselves.

The 40V5500’s excellent but flawed pictures are complemented by fairly satisfactory audio. Vocals sound believable and clear even under pressure, and there’s an amazing amount of harshness-free high-frequency detail to hear, too. I was also impressed with how well the midrange extends during action scenes, although my only complaint is that there isn’t as much bass as I’d like to hear.

“‘Verdict”‘

In many ways the 40V5500 really is a great TV. After all, for most of the time you sit there and look at it, the images could have your jaw dropping open in admiration. It’s just a real shame that all that quality should be wiped out by the return of Sony’s inconsistent backlighting issue.

To be fair, the subtlety of the problem here is such that it very rarely bothers your display, so it’s possible that some, maybe even many, people who take a 40V5500 for a test run will end up buying one anyway. But such a lack of my money makes it impossible to give this set an unqualified recommendation.

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Used as the main TV during the period

Tested over a week

Tested with industry calibrated tools, discs and real world use

Tested with broadcast content (HD/SD), video streams and demo discs

points in detail

• functions 8

• value 8

• picture quality 8

• design 7

• sound quality 8

characteristics

Physical Specifications