Sony Bravia V-Series KDL-46V3000 46-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV Review
March 13th, 2010
Sony Bravia V-Series KDL-46V3000 46-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV Review from DrZ. Great Experience with Amazon, So far I have been very happy with great performance of my new KDL-46V3000.
Pros:
- Great colors and black levels, no clouding
- Very good tuner and reception
- Nice upscaling and line doubling of lower resolution signals
- No noticeable motion blur even without the high end 120 Hz refresh rate
- Great, simple and sophisticated design without the useless cumbersome glass panel of the higher end XBR Sony models
- Low profile stand foot fits perfectly on the TV stand where my previous 42″ TV’s foot was sticking out.
Cons:
- Extremely limited combination of sources for Picture & Picture; No Picture-in-Picture
- Reflective black piano finish frame (not the screen) which can get annoying if you have a light source at a wrong place behind you
Initially I wanted to buy a 120 Hz system, but after a serious long research, I gave up on them for multiple reasons. First I dropped the new Sharp models because instead of the 120 Hz refresh rate they only have frame rate conversion, interpolating and inserting an artificial intermediate frame in between each two of the existing frames. Then after researching the promising Toshiba Regza 120 Hz LX177 models I dropped them from my list because of inaccurate colors. I had an opportunity to choose the top of the line 40″ 120 Hz Sony XBR4 model at a comparable price, but I chose this 46″ 60 Hz set instead, because I owned 37″ and 42″ 1080p models in the past and I had to be quite close to the smaller screen to enjoy the full benefit of the Blu-ray or comparable high resolution source. Then after reading some reviews I decided to drop the other remaining 120 Hz models because of the huge price difference and only a marginal, if any, improvement on motion blur. Instead, I decided to stick with the mature and proven 60 Hz technology and bought its latest generation with no regrets. This TV’s “older brother”, Sony KDL-46V2500, was standing on the next shelf and it was priced a couple hundred dollars less, but I didn’t want to spend this kind of money buying a last year’s model which has older technology and some known minor picture problems.
I love this set’s picture quality, for it can compete not only with other LCDs but also with most plasmas (and this screen, IMHO beats most of them with its anti-glare surface). When I watch this TV in the store next to other higher Samsung and Sharp models, I can see many more subtle details in the shadow and near-black areas of the screen. Other models seem to willingly sacrifice these details in order to improve their blacks and after having noticed this I am sure I picked the best model in this price range.
Video processing is very nice, even on SD TV coming from a weak signal. The TV tuner seems to have better reception than my other tuners on same antenna. In spite of my very limited expectations due to my relatively bad experience with previous tuners, I am now receiving all available digital channels in Chicago using an indoor antenna with minimum interruptions.
Sound quality on the set is good, with a typical lack of lower bass spectrum, but most owners of TVs of this caliber will aim for the full experience and buy a home theater sound system.
Just when I thought this set was close enough to perfection for my current standards, I discovered a major Picture & Picture design flaw. This set’s Picture & Picture feature limits the choice of the two pictures viewable next to each other to the left one coming from HDMI inputs, TV tuner, or Video-in, and the right picture coming only from one of the two component (that’s right, component) inputs. What were Sony designers thinking?! I have only HDMI and PC sources at home, so this feature is absolutely useless to me, because in most cases I want to view TV tuner combined with HDMI, or PC, or the two HDMI inputs next to each other. I was in such a disbelief that I thought I was doing something wrong and I didn’t trust the manual, so I called Sony’s tech support and they confirmed this nonsense. Moreover, the PC input is not available for viewing in Picture & Picture mode.
Although some reviewers find the menu system cumbersome, I got very accustomed to it on my Playstation 3, however, this system is not always totally intuitive and it doesn’t “remember” the last menu you accessed, which would make it much more convenient.
Summary: Bad “Picture & Picture” input combination is the only major flaw I can find and if the picture wasn’t so great, I would have returned it the very next day, but I couldn’t find a better 46″ model at this price, so I kept it. Without this design flaw I’d give this set a perfect score.
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Posted in Sony LCD HDTVs | 
Tags: 42 Tv, Amazon, Comparable Price, Frame Rate Conversion, Glass Panel, Hdtv Review, Hdtv Sony, Hz, Inaccurate Colors, Intermediate Frame, Interpolating, Kdl, Light Source, Motion Blur, Sony Bravia V Series, Sony Xbr4, Sophisticated Design, Toshiba Regza, Tv Stand, Upscaling
