LED Televisions

Sony is one of the trusted brands in the UK for high quality media products. The Japanese multi-national is the forerunner in the consumer electronics industry. The durability and great quality makes them stand a step ahead their vital competitors in the electronics market. They took the home entertainment to the next level with their top class Bravia range of televisions. Nowadays the 3D technology is the talk of the world and the media entertainment giants are virtually battling each other with their technology to deliver their best to attract buyers. Sony is playing its part fairly with its Bravia LED LCD televisions with 3D picture technology. One of the top selling models in the NX series of LED 3D televisions is Sony KDL-40NX723 LED 3D TV which was introduced in Sony’s 2011 line up. Let’s see what ways this television set from Sony can give a tough fight with its rivals. This is a 40 inch LED Edge backlight LCD television with 3D compatibility. It is equipped with the famous monolithic design. It looks elegant and has all the necessary features that a LED 3D television should have. The NX series is a mid level LED 3D television and a class apart from other televisions in its class.

Design and Looks

Recently, Sony made a revolution in the LED TV design with its monolithic design. This innovative TV design gives an open challenge to other brands in the market. It comes with two kinds of stands; one is the silver finished designer stand which could make the 40 inch LED television to look different from any other LED televisions released so far. It is exclusively designed for Sony’s monolithic designed LED television and it does give better grip to the display than the standard desktop stand. Second is the traditional swivel desktop stand, it can be turned left, right and flexibly tilted up to 0 to 6 degree angle which ensures the better view of the screen when the TV is kept with stand. The depth of the television is 2 cm, which is almost the depth of a photo frame. It will look like a large 40 inch digital photo frame when the TV is wall mounted when still photos are browsed from a digital camera. The display has high quality gorilla glass which is being used in smart phones, iPhone and tablets.

If you purchase Sony’s silver stands for monolithic televisions, it enhances the look as well as a rich look to your living room even when it is kept standing. Usually, a standard LED television looks great when it is wall mounted, but Sony KDL-40NX723 40 inch LED TV with monolithic design adds extra beauty to the place where it is kept when it Is kept standing. Its super slim body is much more attractive when it is wall mounted using a VESA mount. Thanks to the LED backlighting, it reduced the depth of the screen a lot. This 40 inch LED television can be kept standing or wall mounted in a standard living room or a master bedroom and there is no doubt it’s going to add extra beauty to the interiors.

Picture quality and 3D

The LED backlighting works does its job pretty well by producing sharper and crisper black levels. A better black level differentiates the real colours well from the blacks. The colours produced in this KDL-40NX723 40 inch LED television are very vibrant and natural. Thanks to the Full HD resolution which can support up to 1080p resolution. So you don’t have to doubt if you are getting the best out of the full HD any longer, as this NX723 40 inch LED television is capable of the full high definition resolution that you expect. The full HD resolution is totally depends on the input given to the television. With the help of the edge LED backlight, it has mega contrast ratio and the contrast can be enhanced by the advanced contrast enhancer. Surprisingly, NX723 40 Inch LED 3D television has thirteen picture modes. They are Vivid, Standard, Custom, Photo-Vivid, Photo-Standard, Photo-Original, Photo-Custom, Cinema, Game-Standard, Graphics, Game-Original, Sports and Animation. These picture modes can be chosen according to the picture type. The interesting part is that, the picture modes for each and every need are predefined by Sony to give an optimal entertainment experience. However, all these settings can be changed manually according to your convenience. The ambient sensor takes the job of optimising the picture based on the room light and avoids any external light to affect the picture.

The aspect ratio of 16:9 enables the full widescreen mode to make sure everything is being displayed without missing any part of the picture and it can be viewed in 3D quality in widescreen from a 3D source. There are three widescreen mode settings available for PC to choose from, they are Full1, Full2 and Normal. Usually, standard LCD television struggles to display red and green, with the Live Colour technology in Sony Bravia 40NX723, the colours can be produced more vibrant, sharper and natural. If you think stunning action movies can be seen with the original speed and quality only in cinema halls, you will change your mind with Sony’s 24p true cinema technology that produces 24 frames per second in the frequency of 100 Hz to deliver pictures in the original speed without any blur. The Motionflow XR 200 enhances the frames frequency up to 200 Hz makes sure the action movies and action sports are being watched in the way it has to be.

Active 3D technology is the latest 3D technology available these days. Sony KDL40NX723 40 inch widescreen LED television is capable to take real 3D pictures to life. The 3D technology can be experienced to its best when a Full HD 3D picture source is given to the television. The 3D pictures produced in this NX723 40 inch LED 3D TV are very in-depth and detailed. It could make the audience to get immersed into the picture and gives the best home 3D experience in Full HD.

Freeview HD

At the beginning of 2011, the other brands were just releasing LCD televisions with built-in Freeview tuners and there were only few brands took LED LCD televisions with built-in FreeviewHD tuner to the market and Sony is one of them. Sony KDL40NX723 full HD 3D edge LED television has Freeview HD tuner, so Freeview HD channels like BBC HD, BBC One, ITV One HD  and Clirlun can be watched with the help of an TV aerial connected in to it. There is no need to spend money on Freeview or Freeview HD tuner to get Freeview service. Please make sure your favourite channels are available in your region as the channel list may vary as per your location, please visit the Freeview UK website for further details.

Built-in Wifi and Internet features

Built-in wireless capability is not exclusive to computers any longer, as Sony KDL40NX723 40 inch LED 3D Freeview television has built-in wi-fi which could connect the television to an available wireless connection without any help of an additional wireless dongle. This LED television has a pre installed browser, Bravia internet video and Bravia internet widgets, a bundle of applications to ensure the convenience of using internet on TV. Skype video and voice calling can be achieved with the help of an additional compatible webcam connected with this LED television. Keep yourself updated from your living room in social networks and stream online videos. Please note that firmware upgrade may be required to enjoy few of the internet features above.

Other Features

The biggest worry of most of the parents is to keep their children away from the TV screen while they watch TV to make sure their eyes don’t get affected because of watching TV very close to its screen. Sony Bravia KDL-40NX723 widescreen LED TV comes with intelligent presence sensor. It warns whoever sits very close to the screen, saves energy when the TV is not watched by anyone and adjusts the picture as per the position of the viewer. The programmes or movies which are being watched on the television can be stored to an external hard disk. If you have an iphone or an Android phone, it can be used as a media remote control and it may require an additional application. The electronic programme guide (EPG) takes the upcoming TV channel programmes to the television up to seven days.

Audio Quality

The audio quality of this Sony NX723 LED 3D television is extremely good when we compare any televisions of its class from other manufacturers. Surprisingly there are four 10w speakers comes built-in with this 40 inch LED 3D TV, so the maximum audio output is 40w. There are three audio modes available they are Dynamic, Standard and Clear voice. Dolby digital compatibility gives a crisper and clear audio. Additionally the S-force front surround 3D audio system combines with 3D video to give the maximum to home 3D entertainment.

Connectivity

Any kind of HD devices and external media devices can be connected to this LED television to access the media files in the 40 inch widescreen. It has two USB ports to connect up to two USB devices at the same time. There are two HDMI inputs given in the side and two HDMI inputs given in the bottom, totally there are four HDMI inputs to connect up to four HD devices like Playstation 3, Blu-ray player and Hi-fi systems. Headphone output is given in the right side of the TV panel; it suits all the headphones with standard 3.5mm jack. It could be helpful for voice calls with Skype as well for personal hearing. Ethernet port is given in the back side of the television, to give internet connectivity through high speed Ethernet cable or by home plug adapter.

Verdict

Sony KDL-40NX723 40 inch widescreen LED 3D TV has everything to stand with latest LED 3D TV. Extensive connectivity features, stunning picture quality, digital surround audio, in-built Freeview HD, Intelligent presence sensor, built-in Wi-Fi capability and many other promising features makes us to rate this Sony LED TV 4.5 out of 5. There are few downfalls like it doesn’t support embedded internet videos, exclusion of Smartlink SCART and it has no intelligent picture plus to boost up the TV signal. Anyhow, this NX723 series 40 inch edge LED TV can be taken as a complete 3D entertainment kit with its other attractive features and 3D capability with Full HD.

Check other Sony LED TVs and Latest 40″ LED Televisions in this website.

Sony KDL-40NX723 40″ LED TV – Technical Specification Table

Manufacturer	Sony
Model Name	KDL-40NX723
Dimensions (W x H x D) cm	94.9 x 61.8 x 21.0(with desktop stand) 94.9 x 58.7 x 2.7(without desktop stand)
Weight	16.9 (with desktop stand) 13.1(without desktop stand)
Screen Size	40inch (Diagonal)
Design	Monolithic Design
Designer Stand	Yes
Display type	LCD with edge LED backlighting
Full HD	Yes (1920 x 1080p)
HD Ready	Yes
Image aspect Ratio	16:9
Widescreen	Yes
Freeview HD	Yes
3D TV	Yes
3D comb filter	Yes
Advanced Contrast Enhancer	Yes
24p True Cinema	Yes
Speakers	40 watts (4 x 10w)
Speaker type	Invisible with sound elevation
S-Force Front Surround 3D	Yes
DLNA	Yes
Surround mode settings	Yes (Cinema, Sports, Music, Game)
Frames per second	100 Hz
Motion Enhancer	Yes, Motionflow XR 200
Features	Noise reduction Intelligent presence sensor Dolby digital Web Browser Bravia internet widgets X-Reality picture processing engine
Connectivity	4 x HDMI 2 x USB Port 1 x Ethernet port 1 x Optical digital output 1 x Audio output 1 x RF connection input 1 x SCART input 1 x headphone socket
Swivel desktop stand	Yes
3D glass included	No

It has been a mixed bag for Sony this past year with ups and downs in their performance levels, but they did end the 2011 with a big bang by introducing the Bravia kDL-46HX923 together with its 55-inch sibling, the KDL-55HX923. Of course, we were lucky enough to see some top model LCD-based 3D displays from the Japanese manufacturer that was perhaps the one and only to compete with Panasonic’s plasma screens in stealing the show when it came to picture quality and zero crosstalk issues. With the competition increasing by the day, we are only too curious to see how far they go in raising the bar with the 46HX923 and if this does really suffice to keep them ahead in today’s plasma race. Well, it is this 46-inch LCD that steals today’s show and proves to be their flagship model simply because of the fact that it adorns direct LED lighting technology with local dimming as against the conventional CCFL or edge LED lighting. Now with their known history of popularity amongst their existing direct LED TVs, we wouldn’t really be surprised to see that trend continue with the KDL-46HX923 LED TV.  Now, the 46HX923’s charm doesn’t really stop with direct LED lighting alone, but also has a boat-load of attractive features that it carries along, which includes an active 3D playback, solid support for media playback, the all new X-reality picture processing suite and finally not to forget the amazing online service access to Bravia Internet Video.

Now a flagship status would mean a premium price tag ain’t it? Well, you guessed it right. For those of you wanting to own the KDL 46HX923 LED TV, it would cost you roughly about £1650. It features a full HD LCD panel, 4 HDMI inputs, Freeview HD tuner, 3D display and LED local dimming (a sure shot attraction that would flock video enthusiasts) helps contrast performance in outstripping the conventional CCFL-backlit or edge LED LCD televisions. As the HX923 looks to be the priciest among its siblings, Sony has smartly included couple of additional accessories to help soften the financial blow as the HX923 ships with 2 pairs of Sony 3D glasses, a microphone/webcam unit (first of its kind move by any manufacturer) that comes in handy with this internet-friendly, Skype-calling compatible TV. For those of you who find it way out of your league, but are a great fan of Sony’s then you might want to check out the HX823 series that is more affordable and has a similar feature list with the exception that it uses edge LED as against the direct LED lighting. Then again, if you are from the “Money’s not an issue” league, then join us in finding out if it is worth burning your hard-earned funds on the KDL 46HX923.

Key features

• Active 3D playback
• 46-inch direct LCD LED TV
• Local dimming technology
• Bravia Internet Video
• Free 3D glasses and Skype included

In the Box

• Remote Control – RM-ED041
• 2x Type AAA Batteries
• AC power cable
• 2x 3D glasses – TDG-BR250
• Designer Stand

Design and Feel

The Sony KDL-46HX923 46″ LED Television definitely seems easy on the eyes, but we are kind of disappointed as it lacks that stunning effect or the distinctiveness about it when compared to other Sony displays in the past, for instance the iconic V-series or the sophistication associated with the X2000/3000 series back in 2005 making the Black BRAVIA TVs the “happening” thing with silver plastic bezel being considered the “done” thing in the TV market then. Featuring a dark shiny black, thin bezel that surrounds the 46-inch LCD panel, there is a grayish-blue Sony logo that illuminates at the center. The telly has a gorgeous smooth fascia with a seamless one-sheet glass design that has a subtle jet-black bezel. The attractive Sony logo, mentioned above, illuminates (optionally) in the center bottom is what Sony prefers calling Monolithic look, which we are a great fan of.

The tabletop stand has been styled in brushed steel with a fairly simple assembly. With the panel sitting snug on the top of the stand, there are no concerns about the unit’s stability. Getting to the telly’s best selling point (well from an AV enthusiast’s point of view) – direct LED lightning – it is indeed a smart move to have positioned the LED lights on the screen’s rear as against around the edges. This helps the processing power in controlling separately the output of light for each LED cluster thus enhancing the telly’s contrast range way above units that use edge LED lighting. Now isn’t contrast considered the King amongst movie buffs. Also direct LED system means no more boasting of thin chassis, but well it sure does carry the tag of having a monolithic design, as mentioned above, where the black bezel and the screen shares a single plane together with a lavish glint finish. It sure is less glitzy than few of the other designer tellys, but this is only gonna enhance its appeal in a traditional household as against hindering it.

Ports and Connectivity

Do a 360-degree and you get to see more than sufficient bunch of connections at the rear like 4 HDMIs (something that is expected by default from any high-end HDTVs) together with 2 USB ports, a LAN port, a port for D-sub PC VGA input and a built-in Wi-Fi. Again there are Component and SCART interfaces also accommodated through breakout adaptor cables that come in the box. There is also an optical audio output and a socket for LAN for those who do not wish to use the wireless connectivity onboard. Last but not least would be an RF input that comes in handy with feeding the Freeview DVB-T2 HD tuner. We highly appreciate the fact that sony has decided to ditch the additional 3D transmitters with this model that accompanied their first 3D TV and is ready to go 3D right out of the box. Interestingly, there is also a petite camera that is front mounted, which comes in handy with the Distance alert feature (the purpose of it being to detect faces and warn users with kids getting too close to the screen). Also this proves to be fairly handy with the telly’s Skype-calling feature.

Operating the HX923

In terms of menus, Sony KDL-46HX923 3D LED TV is pretty much the same that we witnessed on the lower-end HDTV’s of 2011 that has been passed on to this top-end model with just a single difference – they are fairly rapid to respond. It still feels kind of cluttered. You will have to scroll right or left to choose a main category and up/down to choose the options within. Having selected an option, there is a slight change in the interface wherein the settings appear towards the left of the screen with the same older layout. It is the Display menu that houses most adjustments that are of interest to users. Again, the video controls are housed within the Picture menu with a separate Screen menu taking care of the configuration of Overscan settings together with 4:3 content display.

Getting to the SCENE menu, which is actually the top-level adjustment in the Bravia televisions that is accessed by a dedicated remote control button with various modes on offer here. The idea being users will choose a different mode (obviously with different sound and picture settings) that suits the different genres of film or a programme. Again, the CINEMA mode offers a perfect and intact true-to-spec image right out of the box. Yet another mode of interest would be the GAME mode that ditches some video processing, thus speeding up the responsiveness for PC use/gaming. Beneath this lie the conventional adjustments for Brightness, Contrast, Backlight intensity, Colour, Colour Temperature, Hue (that is active with all signal types) and Sharpness.

Moving on to an interesting adjustment, the Reality Creation that can be best described as an enhancement and sharpening system, which is highly configurable. Then comes the Smooth Gradation, something similar to the Smoothing feature seen on some high-end Blu-ray spinners. It helps with detecting and fixing video image contouring. While other consumer level sources utilize an 8-bit precision, the HX923 operates at a 14-bit level helping such content to be efficiently upsampled. One other vital control would be the Motionflow, the frame interpolation system of Sony’s that helps in reducing LCD motion blur. Finally, getting to the Advanced Settings Menu, the controls are, for the most part, redundant when it comes to user’s quest for accuracy of the picture quality. Then, there are a couple of useful options that would include the LED dynamic control, the Gamma curve adjustment together with the white balance adjustment. This telly is devoid of colour management controls, which doesn’t really prove to be that big an issue provided the colour reproduction is fairly decent and doesn’t require any adjustments.

Features

Multimedia Options galore in the HX923
Recording stuff from the Freeview HD tuner and playing back a collection of media formats is supported via USBs. Again, the 46HX923 can also be paired with a broadband network or a PC to stream multimedia from the latter or access the internet via Sony’s Bravia Internet Video service. The telly’s supports for a wide range of file formats is also fairly robust, nevertheless it is the BIV (Bravia Internet Video Service) that steals the show invariably. Probably one the best online platform until date, to the extent that the variety of video content it delivers aptly suits the kind of internet on TV experience that users would prefer having. Well to name a few – Demand 5 catch up Services, Sony TV archive and Qriocity Movie Database, BBC iPlayer, LoveFilm and an app for Sky News Video Headline. Add to this Facebook, Twitter, Skype, an open web browser together with Qriocity’s music arm and there is an whole load of extra curricular activities that keeps you busy, but there are also few usability issues that tags along this (more on that later).

Getting to the 46HX923’s 3D playback capabilities, the telly features active 3D talents of full HD category with 2 pairs of big and fairly comfy 3D glasses offered free by Sony. Moreover, in contrast to older 3D sets from Sony, the 3D transmitter is in-built in the TV as against being an optional extra. Then there is the video processing that endorses the set to be a flagship model, boasting of both MotionFlow 800Hz and X-Reality Pro, which is a blend of a scanning backlight together with a 200Hz panel and frame interpolation process bringing about a 800Hz effect. The X-Reality’s “Pro” is nothing but an additional processing power that is exclusively designed to enhance the internet video sources.

Just because Sony doesn’t really care for any third-party picture endorsements from authorities like ISF or THX, it doesn’t mean that the HX923 lacks in terms of calibration tools. On the contrary, options galore for those looking at a good tinker, even as few of them look atypical the way they are presented (you guessed it right if you were thinking of the Colour Management System). So getting back, the options vary from allowing you to moderate the strength of the telly’s video processing or deactivating it entirely to a gamma correction, white balance adjustment and colour management system. Obviously, we would urge for caution when it comes to processing elements, particularly the Edge/Detail enhancement and Noise Reduction tools. Also, the MotionFlow tool is worth a shot with fast-moving footage with its Clear and Clear Plus settings. Yet another explicit glitch that can prove troublesome would be the faint clouding that appears around bright objects against dark backgrounds. This is a result of various controllable clusters of LED behind the screen that fails to match (not even close) with the amount of pixels in an image. On the flip side, there is enough flexibility when it comes to picture setting, be it dynamic and punchy or similar to key video standards, whichever way you prefer watching it, there are different setting for different kind of viewing. Finally, one last aspect that we disapprove of would be the telly’s Dynamic control system, wherein despite featuring an “off / low” setting there seems to be a significant drop in contrast together with appearance of bewildering backlight inconsistency when used on anything other than the standard setting. Then again, it is no big deal as you don’t really come across any massive disadvantages in using the Standard setting for the dynamic control.

Sound

With regards to the sound quality of the 46HX923, it puts up a pleasing sound performance with a somewhat open mid-range making it indeed fairly comfy to listen to, at least with some straightforward content, we mean. There is a kind of screech brought about by loud action scenes towards the upper end of the spectrum with a fairly very clear limit to the bass handling capability of the TV. But overall, it definitely sounds way better than the average flat TVs out there.

Picture Performance

Black Level

Thanks to the KDL-46HX923’s locally-dimmed array of LED backlight, it manages to deliver some fabulous contrast performance with just dimming the LED light clusters’ brightness corresponding to the video signal’s brightness. For instance, a sizeable area of entirely black pixels can turn off the lighting entirely behind the appropriate area in the LCD panel, thus producing true blacks. Well, the process wouldn’t seem perfect, but obviously with only limited LED zones to serve the whole 2073600 pixels would only mean that similar to any other LED LCD local-dimming display, the contrast enhancement’s precision is fairly accurate. Per se, there is a slight halo effect seen on white objects with black backdrops that is inevitable in a design as this. So, the minimal on-axis effect looks to be more apparent when viewing the screen from the sides.

Viewing Angle

The off-axis picture quality on the telly beats the other VA-type LCD panels hands down. It is worth mentioning here about an online speculation that questions the panel clocking inside this HDTV, with indication from sources that it is pretty much Sony’s very own. The colour saturation looks to be pretty good and holds up decently well with side viewing and can be compared to any decent IPS panel (but for the grayish-blacks, which IPS are prone to display), even as users are seated on-axis. Well, it is not really perfect, still blacks lack some depth upon being viewed from the side angle with halos, if any, that is a result of local dimming getting more apparent in comparison to complete zero-black areas. Then again, in contrast to older Sony displays featuring sharp UV2A panels, the pixel alignment looks absolutely uniform.

3D Content

3D material in the KDL-46HX923 fare well in many ways – for starters, it is devoid of blatant tracking of Greyscale unevenness giving extra-dimensional images unsolicited colour casts with the colour accuracy being suitably good too. Again, the telly’s performance out-of-the-box is also relatively serviceable. The 3D experience is pretty much similar to 2D with the right eye image carrying a trivial “vertical line” that is visible, nothing troublesome though. In contrast to Panasonic’s Plasma TV’s (2011), the telly manages to resolve all 1080 lines resulting from the 3D source and is devoid of any aliasing or softening and also takes care of the dithering noise in 3D images as it is an LCD-based display. Nevertheless, Sony still has to deal with the crosstalk issues in 3D. It is very unfortunate that while Panasonic and Samsung seemed to have tackled this issue fairly well, Sony has a lot of catching up to do in this regard.

The 3D glasses shipped by Sony have been smartly designed in such a way that it blocks light from the sides of a viewer’s eye. Even as it comes in a thick plastic around the eye area, it still manages to be lightweight and comfy. Well, there is one gripe here though, you need to maintain your eyewear and head completely leveled because of the fact that even a minor tilt of the head brings about a bluish-red tinge to the images.

Running the 3D motion tests in the HX923 brings to your attention the issue with motion stutter. It is very annoying to note that the telly by default introduces an evident motion stutter into the 50Hz 3D content. This gets more apparent with engaging 3D mode on News channels that has a scrolling headline. Luckily, this resolves with disabling the Motionflow feature. Likewise, there is no evident motion judder added by the telly on 24p Blu-ray 3D movies, provided you ensure that the Motionflow is disabled here too.

Standard Definition

While there is absolutely no doubt in the HX923 being a solid performer when it comes to HD material, it should come as no big surprise to note that it continues that same status, if anything even better, in terms of standard def images too. Thanks to the efficient X-Reality Pro engine in adding detail to standard def images along with taking care of the exaggerated noises especially when managing materials from the internet that is often heavily compressed. Again colours don’t really have that naturalness to them as seen on HD, but then it is no big deal and doesn’t really stop you from enjoying standard def images.

High Definition

Similar to the rest of its Bravia siblings, the KDL-46HX923 46-inch Full HD TV fares relatively well upon being fed 24fps Blu-ray film content. The Clear Plus Motionflow setting together with the Auto1 Film Mode helps to reproduce camera pans bringing about near-cinema quality motion that is devoid of any telecine or video judder. But there is some kind of subtle motion processing happening at all times in the HX923, unless you decide to disable the Motionflow entirely. In contrast to Samsung HDTV’s there is no smearing or smudging of grain textures from movies (Blu-ray), meaning all the full-resolution visuals and gritty feel from the films comes unscathed (again provided the Noise Reduction control is disabled).

Colour

When it comes to colour reproduction, the HX923 is absolutely brilliant as it literally pushes colours out of the screen in a rather explosive fashion – thanks to its extreme brightness potential. But for some warm-looking blue tones, the colours of the 46HX923 manage to retain real subtlety, authenticity and credibility, regardless of its aggression.

In terms of HD viewing, the reproduction of colour blends is spotless without any striping or blotching that brings about a HD clarity and purity that gets further enhanced vividly by the TV’s brilliant sharpness and fine detail reproduction. Furthermore, this remarkable clarity is undisturbed even in the face of frenetic action scenes, thanks to both the impressive capabilities of the MotionFlow system together with the minimal response time within the panel, in case you choose to use it.

Again, the telly manages to deliver HD sharpness too and tries not to leave the picture noisy or the edges to seem forced. Aside from the shadowy lines that appear on the screen edges, rarely, the HD images needs to be appreciated for their intense and natural looks making you greatly attached to them. Yet another good news would be that the 46HX923 manages to retain contrast and colour from a remarkably wide viewing angle when compared to other LCDs (although the haloing issue gets more evident with a wider viewing angle) with the standard def images getting nicely upscaled too; at least with regard to the compression noise getting eradicated from the images. On the flip side, the colours lack balance and naturalness with standard def when compared to HD footage, with the suppression of noise resulting in upscaled images lacking sharpness too that can be witnessed on other high-end models. Lastly it is a rip-roaring hit when it comes to 3D content with images getting delivered with impressive depth about them, massive detail to HD content together with exceptional colour richness and brightness by dynamic 3D standards.

Console Gaming

The KDL46HX923BU manages to provide users with a relatively decent gaming experience with an input lag of 31ms in both Graphics and Game mode. Consequently, first-person shooter games like Day of Defeat or Half life might require you to re-adjust to a hefty controls and vaguely tighter-feeling than would have been ideal. Whereas with slower-paced games that doesn’t really require rapid reflexes, like role-playing games, doesn’t really feel out of ordinary even for a slightest bit.

Ease of use

For starters, we are kind of disappointed with the bog-standard remote control that ships with the TV, especially given the fact that this is Sony’s flagship TV. Well, there is actually nothing wrong with the comfy to hold and well laid out remote per se, only that it feels a bit plastic-y and lightweight and doesn’t really match with the lavish build of the TV.

Again, Sony needs to work on the telly’s onscreen menus too particularly on areas like the main menu that is poorly presented, too many small obscure icons to rely on, scrolling through annoyingly long list of submenus and lack of logic in the order of the menu list.

On the flip side, the menus of the Bravia Internet Video have seen a large improvement in comparison to the 2010 models from Sony; nevertheless don’t really measure up to the  efficiency, attractiveness or intuitiveness of Smart TVs from rivals like LG or Samsung. At least they are not cluttered like few other rival sets which are literally swarmed up by some redundant apps.

Now having had enough of negatives, let us get to some positives of the 46HX923, for instance, its ease of use. For starters, the sensible picture preset modes is sure to appeal users, especially those who are not a big fan of endless fine-tuning scenarios. Again, it works harder in helping you to economise, via the presence sensor that manages to turn off the screen automatically upon sensing that there is no one around while the TV runs, thus saving power.

Lastly, it also hosts some smart features like the amazing fun TrackID feature that manages to identify a song automatically from a TV show that you might be watching with astonishing accuracy and the best part of it being you get direct access for the same from the remote without having to bother with fiddly menus.

Warranty

There is a 5-year warranty on parts and labour on this Sony Bravia KDL-46HX923 3D Full hi-Def LED-LCD TV

We Liked the

• Amazing multimedia features
• Lavish design
• Vivid 3D images
• Rewarding 2D picture quality
• Good connectivity
• Alluring free goodies for early birds (free microphone/webcam unit for Skype-calling, £150 cashback offer for claims submitted before Jan 2012, free PS3 console (best of the lot) only until Dec 2011.

We disliked

• Vague seams along the screen edges
• Crosstalk with 3D
• Pricey 46-inch TV
• Interface needs some tweaking

Verdict

For the most part, the Sony KDL-46HX923 looks to be an amazing flagship product and does a real neat job in displaying Sony’s talents. While the design reeks of modest elegance the connectivity looks to be a fab together with an elaborate feature list, including active 3D support, direct LED lightning, advanced video processing system and one of the best online internet video service seen till date. Again, the 2D pictures are nothing short of exceptional with deep blacks, vivid colours, exceptional sharpness, wide range of contrast and neat motion handling. On the flip side, it annoyingly falls short of recommendation owing to its crosstalk issues with 3D content and some weird shadowy lines appearing on the screen edges.

Sony KDL-46HX923 46-inch LED TV – Technical Specification Table

Manufacturer	Sony
Model Name	KDL-46HX923
Display type	LCD w/ LED
Size	46-inch
Dimensions (W x D x H)	108.1 x 66.0 x 3.8 cm (without stand) 108.1 x 69.2 x 25. 8 cm (with stand)
Weight	19.4 kg (without stand) 24.0 kg (with stand)
Design Features	Finish: Black Illuminated Sony Logo Gorilla Glass Dynamic Contrast Ratio: Mega Swivel/Tilt: Yes Swivel range: Left and Right 20°
Display Features	Resolution: 1920 x 1080 pixels Screen Type: LCD Backlight type: intelligent Peak LED Screen size: 46” (117 cm) Panel Type: OptiContrast Aspect ratio: 16:9
Picture Quality	Picture Mode Settings: Vivid / Standard / Custom / Photo-Vivid / Photo-Standard / Photo-Original / Photo-Custom / Cinema / Game-Standard / Game-Original / Graphics / Sports / Animation Auto View Mode Wide Mode Settings Wide Mode PC Settings: Normal / Full 1 and 2 3D picture display Frames per second: 200Hz Motion enhancer: MotionFlow XR800 Picture processor engine: X-Reality Pro Live colour technology Advanced contrast enhancer Scene Select: Game/Cinema/Graphics/Animation/Sports/Music/Photo Noise reduction 3D comb filter 24p TrueCinema CineMotion/Cinema drive/Film Mode
Audio Quality	Speaker Type: Invisible speaker with sound elevation Audio Power output: 30W (10W x 3) S-force Front surround 3D S master Sound Mode settings: Standard/Dynamic/Clear voice Surround Mode settings: Music/Sports/Game/Cinema Stereo system: A2/ NICAM Dolby Digital/Dolby Digital Plus/Dolby Pulse
Connections	1 X AC Power Input (Rear) 1 X RF Connection Input (Bottom) 4 X HDMI Input (2 Side/2 Bottom) 1 X SCART Input (Bottom) HDMI PC Input 2 X USB 2.0 Input (Side) 1 X Ethernet Input (Bottom) 1 X Composite Video Input (Bottom) 1 X Component Video (Y/Pb/Pr) Input (Bottom) 1 X PC In (D-Sub) + Audio In (Stereo Mini) (rear) 1 x PCMCIA input (side) 1 x Optical digital output (rear) 1 x Analog audio input (bottom) 1 x Audio output (side) 1 x Headphone output (side)
Network Features	In-built Wi-Fi Wi-Fi direct BRAVIA internet video BRAVIA internet widgets DLNA Photo Map Web browser iPhone/Android Media remote Skype
Tuners onboard	DVB-T (digital terrestrial) DVB-C (digital cable) DVB-T2 (digital terrestrial) CI+Analog
Sensors & Energy Saving Switches	Energy saving switch Presence sensor with face detection Intelligent presence sensor Backlight off mode Dynamic backlight control
Eco and Energy Saving	Energy Label Rating: A Standby power consumption: 0.25w Annual energy consumption: 117kWh Peak luminance ratio: 67%
Special Features	EPG On-screen clock BRAVIA Sync Auto photo mode Distance alert Parental control USB Photo viewer/ Music player/ Video player USB HDD recording Multiple language display: 27 Favourites Quick Start
Warranty	5 years

Be it a Super Bowl, World Series or the Final Four, there are a couple of sure-shot success ingredients that you might want to cover to make that party of yours a big hit. Ingredients like the most modern Entertainment System, lot of junk food, and entertaining your guests during the recurrent and boring commercials are a couple of them. Talking about entertainment, the LED arena has been keeping manufacturers on their toes for a while now and a couple of them are not really contented with few of their big hits and in no mood to give away that “Celebrity Status” of theirs. Well, one such manufacturer would be Toshiba, who despite launching a series of hit TV sets in April 2011, have managed to squeeze in some TL series towards the end of 2011. After all, the Japanese manufacturer means business when they make up their mind on designing a high-value product. Frankly, we really cannot think of any other brand other than Samsung that competes with Toshiba who maintain their consistency in attaining a relatively good balance in terms of features and performance, not to mention their aggressive pricing of TVs.

That said let us explore into the current TV in discussion, the Toshiba REGZA 46TL868 46″ Smart 3D TV, where the manufacturer claims that this 46-inch unit has been designed from the ground up in an effort to deliver active 3D and a premium design, thus emerging successful yet again in presenting a non-budget telly for a budget price. So, let us waste no more time and get into probing the design and performance of the set right away!

Overview & Design

Toshiba has gotten smart over years when it comes to reading people’s mind in terms of features that they desire in a TV and delivering the same for a much affordable price in comparison to the rest of the leading brands. And the 46TL868B LED Television looks to be no exception to this trend of theirs in offering Edge LED lighting, Active 3D in Full HD lighting, all of these in an amazingly sleek form-factor neatly wrapped around a huge 46-inch screen for an unbelievable £700 or if anything less. An inevitable feature that you will notice in this 46TL868B is its sleekness and the way it sticks out just a tad around the rear. Even better would be the bezel that you can barely notice in budget TVs, meaning it can easily slide into spaces generally reserved for the 42 inches. Also let us not forget the fact that, smaller the bezel, better the image, particularly 3D images. Despite being priced under £700, the images are both 2D and 3D compatible. There is; however, one catch in this (yeah there has to be right with so many positives) that even while the most affordable 3D TVs ships with couple of so-called free glasses (that gets included in the price), you do not get any here with the 46TL868B.

Though you wouldn’t find the Toshiba 46TL868B all that stylish, like the silver clad 40RL858B for instance, it definitely cannot be categorized as unimpressive. Just the fact that there is nothing special about it doesn’t really make it stand away from the crowd. However, it does have the advantage of a slim chassis (say about 24mm thick) and a narrow screen bezel. Again, the graphite finish together with the striking silver flash, running along the bottom is a nice touch as well. While many users wouldn’t be a great fan of the grainy matt finish, a couple of them would still find this attractive owing to the fact that it looks different from the conventional glossy norm.

Getting on with the connections, well there is some unpleasant news here – since majority of them face directly out of the telly’s rear, hanging it on a wall might prove to be a tricky option. But on a positive note, the number of connections on the Toshiba 46TL868B LED 3D TV is something equivalent to telly’s costing three times its price. There are 4 HDMIs on offer for both 3D and HD duties with the 2 USB ports taking care of the multimedia skills such as playing videos (that includes HD and DivX), music files and photos. Akin to most popular 46-inch brands, 3 of the HDMI ports can be found at the rear with one that provides support for audio return channel, while the 4th one can be found towards the side for better access. Along with housing the 2 USB ports and the HDMI port, the side is also home to the headphone jack and the CI slot. Additionally, the USB ports allow for inclusion of an optional USB dongle, if you are looking at making your TV Wi-Fi capable. Of note, the full HD screen of the 46TL868B uses Edge LED lighting as against the normal CCFL lighting that is generally used on such budget TVs. Another element of surprise would be the 100Hz processor that supposedly enhances the richness, stability and motion clarity of the images.

Then again, there is a LAN port that supports the Freeview HD tuner of the set (something that you don’t really get on a TV of this price) and impressively enough it can also be used to hook up to a PC that is DLNA-capable for streaming of photos, videos or music. Better yet, you can take the TV online via the ‘Places’ service (more on that later) of Toshiba. Also on-board are the RF/Satellite LNB inputs, though the satellite feed doesn’t have a Freesat backing, mostly users will be left with the RF tuner.
So moving on to On-screen menus, the surprise element continue to be on offer here too. Almost all aspects of the images is adjustable across an exceptional range of settings, thanks to the following smart tweaks – an amazingly fulfilled colour management system, a level slider for black/white together with a backlight adjustment, all of which looks to be a neat tool that helps you with balancing the brightness level against the shadow detail and black level response. Again, the Colour Master system on-board aids with tweaking the hue, brightness and saturation of the Blue, Green, Magenta, Red, Yellow and Cyan elements together with the overall, Red, Blue, Green colour temperature levels.

As we are well aware of the frustration associated with the Places online service so far in 2011, though it did manage to impress us initially with its admirable interface (nothing comparable to the Smart TVs out there) and promises to deliver personalised services adapting well to preferences of users, it just did not have enough content. Well, looks like Toshiba have given it their best shot in tweaking it with a little more content than before with the key options on offer now that include The Cartoon Network, BBC Player, HiT Entertainment, Box Office 365 (all of which has to be subscribed), Viewster Daily Motion, Flickr, Woomi, YouTube, the Aupeo internet radio site together with two significant added attractions – the Acetrax on-demand movie and Facebook service. Then again, despite the above additions, there is no denying the fact that Places still lags behind big time in the online service race with the giant rivals like Sony and Samsung in the leading places. So let us keep our fingers crossed in hoping that Toshiba does something real quick in adding some attractive features to the existing meaty interface.

A couple of other connections that you might find on the rear of the 46TL868B would be the Component inputs and Scart, a VGA port, an Ethernet socket together with an output for optical digital audio that helps with feeding sound to the onboard tuner from an external amp.

Moving on to the remote control that is shipped, thankfully it is not as awful as most of the remotes that comes with a couple of their high-end models. Instead, the telly has been lucky to have a remote that is all-new and looks quite classy, while still maintaining its comfort. The width of the remote doesn’t really interfere with the comfort and sits snug in the hands with the chunky buttons making the usage a real pleasure. It sure is trendy and remarkably heavy and robust for something that has been paired with a budget beauty. With buttons lacking the appropriate level of prominence, there is also a little heaviness associated to it, that it might tend to slip out your hands, so watch out! Overall, it is neat.

To sum it up, aside from the fact that it lacks free 3D glasses, it looks to be ambitious by being feature-rich and providing exceptional ports for connectivity. So is it worth the buy? Let us decide on that by taking a glimpse of its performance levels.

Performance & Picture Quality

When it comes to performance, Toshiba has always remained an over achiever for their price tag and they are only too happy to carry on this trend. Boasting an indisputable active contrast system, the telly also offers an adjustment for black/white levels (a fairly welcome tweak) that helps with adjusting the shadow detail and black level balance. Again, the latter can be turned off to your discretion in case you find it distracting. Additionally, you can now fine-tune the telly’s strength of Active Vision motion processing. We would rather recommend turning it completely off or keeping it at “Standard,” at best. As already mentioned, since it doesn’t ship any active shutter 3D glasses, you will have to shell out an extra £60-£70 for each pair of glasses, if you need one. Again, the 46TL868 also lacks CEVO Engine processing power that played a vital role in making their flagship model, Toshiba 55WL863, a big hit. Despite all these, there are a lot of things still to be admired about this 46TL868.

For starters, they are fabulously rich when it comes to colour and would be your best bet for such a cheap 46-inch telly. Images literally pop off the screen with the kind of colorful and bright images it sports with the range of tones delivered by the screen being way above any budget norm. We have to mention about the subtlety in colour palettes, which is fairly decent (provided you do not hang on to the overwrought Dynamic picture preset and also tone down the contrast and backlight a little bit), if you are going to choose other presets other than the Hollywood preset that is used by default. In terms of brightness, the 46TL868B is capable of more than is expected from TVs of this price tag consuming an average of 118kW per annum, procuring itself an energy rating of “A.” As a matter of fact, dark portions of predominantly bright images do indeed look remarkably black with a little compromise on shadow detail.

HD feeds are nothing short of sharp, particularly with the telly’s remarkable confidence at stifling smear motion and blur, a pretty much a common tendency of LCD’s. The same goes true despite turning off the Active Vision processing, though we would recommend leaving it at the default setting of Standard.

3D Performance

The excitement starts off right from the time you procure your active shutter 3D glasses from Toshiba that is amazingly flimsy, stylish, rechargeable and a tad narrow, where you get to witness impressive levels of colour richness and brightness associated with the 3D images. While wearing the glasses sure does tend to decrease the brightness, it doesn’t really give you an extreme feeling similar to the more affordable glasses offered by some rival 3D TVs. A decent level of brightness brings out the naturalness of 3D colours along with displaying subtle tones particularly with the dark parts of the images. The Full HD trait of active 3D images become more apparent with striking high detail particularly with watching 3D Blu-rays in Full HD. Despite there being a good amount of frame motion, the telly manages to keep things looking textured and crisp, something that budget TVs generally struggle even with the 2D mode, let alone 3D. Yet another contributing factor that works towards the clarity of the 3D images would be the minimal crosstalk noise. This budget beauty seemed to handle this most loathed bugbear of 3D (crosstalk we mean) almost seamlessly. In terms of ghosting issue, it certainly does not crop up regularly like it does on other 3D TVs that are relatively higher priced than this TV. While it gets apparent with colour-rich and bright objects particularly during deep shots, it is largely just a minor glitch and nothing really significant. So to speak, it is the clarity of the 3D images that lingers in the memory more than any of these issues.

2D Performance

Though for the most part there is nothing much to complain about 3D images in a telly that is less than £700, we cannot totally overlook the fact that the 3D images do have a little problem with dark scenes. This gets more evident with inconsistency of backlighting at the top right and left corners. Things start getting worse when it dawns on you that the extra bright areas are nothing but 2D artefacts lying along the surface of 3D images. It comes as no big surprise to see the backlight inconsistency issue even with 2D images. Fortunately, it is way easier to tackle problem with 2D images than 3D since you don’t really need to feed the images with so much of brightness, as there is no need to contend the dimming effect associated with 3D glasses. Toning down the backlight to a rational level of say around 55 or 60, ideally below 70 (that is assuming that your room isn’t too bright) you would barely notice the backlight consistency issue for the entirety of your viewing time. There is a good amount of black level response too when it comes to 2D images. In terms of detail and sharpness with HD images, the 46TL868B comfortably exceeds all expectations.  The motion clarity that looked to a fab with 3D images continues the trend in 2D too. Again, the telly also humbles a good range of rival TVs when it comes to colours. The range and vibrancy is dashingly more evident in the 2D mode than 3D, and is devoid of off-key and washed out looks, which is relatively common in the affordable range. Summing up, we can barely think of any expensive high-end TVs that can really live to the kind of colour vibrancy touted by Toshiba.

Standard definition
While HD images are incredible aside from a couple of insignificant backlight glitches, the relative affordability of the Toshiba 46TL868B 46-inch LED TV becomes glaringly evident with Standard Definition images. The telly tends to exaggerate noise levels, be it MPEG or anything for that matter, to a degree that it gets annoyingly distractive. In fall fairness, there is a noise reduction circuitry onboard, but it only leaves images with a laggy/soft look.

EPG/User interface

It is kind of disappointing to note Toshiba use their old flat-style menus as against the new design of twin-circle that was incorporated in their high-end sets. Appearing in a black box, they come with a range of tabs on the top corner with functions like sound, picture, set-up menu, and tuning being represented by icons. Upon selecting one of these, the remaining space is box is occupied by couple of other settings linked with each option. Though the black and white menu isn’t really impressive nor are they really user-friendly, they are fairly quick to navigate with all included features that would one look forward to. Taking their cue from Panasonic, Toshiba has crafted this telly with two tuners – while one takes care of HD satellite feeds, the other handles Freeview HD. Unfortunately, the former is not Freesat HD compatible HD and on being hooked to a dish, it just tunes in all free channels it can locate like the regional variant of BBC 1 & 2 along with a whole load of foreign language channels. Worse yet, the EPG doesn’t really work for satellite channels and practically it is just the Freeview HD tuner that is of any use. Again, the Freeview too doesn’t boast of a great visual style but at least has a lot of channels on offer together with programming info, not to mention it being a bit slow to navigate and respond via the remote.

Sound quality

The sleek chassis encasing the 46TL868B unfortunately only proves to be a feast for the eyes, but doesn’t really prove to be of much help when it comes to sound quality. Regrettably, there isn’t enough real estate to fit in good quality speakers in the 46TL868B. While the audio looks just fine, if anything a little better too for those undemanding and typical shows, the lack of deep bass gets more evident with action scenes. Also it fails in expanding the soundstage wide enough to steer clear of sounding thin and flat.

Gaming

The pricing and chassis of the 46TL868B sure does have the potential of being a decent gaming monitor, but guess the input lag figure decided to think otherwise when it gave out a score of roughly 38ms by using the telly’s Game preset. Well, this definitely isn’t the best figure around and hence cannot be held responsible for disappointments associated with the gaming sessions.

Ease of use

As mentioned earlier, it is kind of disappointing to note the on-screen menus of the Toshiba 46TL868B’s not sporting the menus in the ‘radial wheel’ format and is a tad slow and long-winded when it comes to navigating your way around. But then they are absolutely decipherable and having calibrated the set once, there is no need to delve back every now and then.

Couple of other frustrations includes, the set not supporting playback of few files from a PC that is not Windows 7 compatible and irrationally neither YouTube nor the BBC iPlayer has access directly from “Places”. Instead, upon choosing them there is a message that pops up requesting you to quit Places and take a different route to access them. Otherwise, the Places Menu is a neat addition on this Smart TV. Along with being inviting and colourful, the content of Places has been organized logically and we admire the attempts of Toshiba trying to Personalise the Places Menu in order to suit the various needs of different members of a family. We are hoping to see this interesting app be tweaked in a more impressive way in the near future.

Internet/Digital media

Well, this is one area that Toshiba lags behind, big time. Like its other smart TV models, there is the Places system with minor recent updates like providing support for Acetrax and the system is divided into various hubs for Music, Social networking, Video, Games and News. The video hub looks to be relatively well populated with a range of apps like Box Office 365, Dailymotion, Cartoon Network and Woomi. You are also provided links for YouTube ad BBC iPlayer, which as mentioned above, asks you to access the same from the TV menu while in the Places system, so it is zero user-friendliness here. The remaining hubs also look to be quite barren with the music hub sporting just the Aupeo radio app and SN hub sporting just the Flickr and Facebook app. So, it is a long way before Toshiba catches up with competitors like Samsung or LG in terms of adding depth to the content.

As is expected of such budget models, there is also media playback here that allows accessing movies from home networked PC or you can playback the same via memory sticks or hard drives by plugging it into the telly’s USB ports. Local playback seems to work just fine with files like DivX, MKV and Xvid. However, in terms of media streaming, there is support provided only for files coming for a Windows 7 PC and refuses to play files from a Windows Vista PC or a NAS drive and stream just DivX and Xivd files and not MKV files. This is fairly mediocre, seeing how other manufacturers have no issues with supporting MKV streaming.

Energy Consumption

Toshiba, a corporate Citizen of the Planet Earth, strictly adhere to the green procurement standards (RoHS) and seeks to promote harmonious lifestyles. The 46TL868B utilizes an approximate consumption of 101w with the standby consumption being 0.3w and the annual energy consumption being 118kWh/y. Their Eco-conscious initiatives like the AutoView technology aides in reducing power consumption. Additionally, they concentrate much of their efforts in using materials sparingly to create a greener environment by prohibiting usage of the following 6 harmful materials like Hexavalent Chromium, Cadmium, Lead, PBB (Polybromobiphenyls), Mercury and PBDE (Polybromodiphenylethers). This has resulted in drastic weight reduction of their TVs and carton boxes by 77% and 79% respectively together with simultaneous reduction of protection foam usage.

Warranty

The manufacturer offers a 1 year warranty on parts and labour on this Toshiba REGZA 46TL868B 46″ Smart 3D LED TV.

To Conclude

The Toshiba 46TL868B is worth every penny and is an exceptional TV that is smart in ticking just about all of the most-sought after feature boxes like Active 3D playback, Edge LED lighting, Freeview HD tuner, Network Multimedia and USB playback – all of these neatly packed in a chic thin chassis that can be compared to a set costing twice as this. On top of this, let us not forget that awesome HD 2D and 3D performance that is so neat, colourful, sharp and bright literally soiling the efforts put in by competing manufacturers. Well, there are glitches too, like the mediocre audio and backlight inconsistency, but then for the kind of pricing attached to this set, the positives sure does outweighs its negatives and looks to be your best bet in the current budget market segment.

Pros

• Exceptionally sleek bezel
• Freeview HD tuner
• Active 3D playback
• DLNA/UDB multimedia support
• Optional Wi-Fi
• Toshiba’s Places platform

Cons

• Flimsy Audio
• Backlight inconsistency
• Mediocre Standard-definition performance
• Substandard Internet feature

Toshiba 46TL868B 3D LED TV – Technical Specification Table

Manufacturer	Toshiba
Model Name	46TL868B
Display type	LCD w/ LED
Size	46-inch
Dimensions (W x D x H)	1056 x 287 x 704 mm
Weight	16.50 kg (with Stand)
Finish	Black
Screen Resolution	1920 x 1080 pixels
Supplied accessories	Remote Control – CT90388 Batteries – R6 AA x 2 Instruction Manual TV stand integrated
Display	Screen Type: LCD w/LED Backlight Type: Edge LED Diagonal screen size (in/cm): 46/117 Refresh Rate: 100 Contrast ratio: 5,000,000:1 Viewing Angle: 178 Screen Format: 16:9
Picture	Brightness (Cd/M2): 400 Response Time (G To G): 8ms LED Full Hd 1080p 3d Full HD 3d – Active Shutter Solution 100hz Processing 24p Mode Standard|Smooth Real Digital Picture MPEG Noise Reduction 3D digital combo filter Auto backlight control 3D colour management Colour temperature selectable Manual picture size select Exact scan mode
Modes Available	Dynamic, Game, Movie (Hollywood-1/2), PC, Standard, Store
Expert Settings	Pre-Sets: Hollywood Mode 1&2 (Day/Night Mode) 3D Colour Management Gamma Settings
Audio	NICAM stereo Dolby Digital Plus Sound output (RMS)W: 2 x 10W
Tuning	Freeview HD Analogue Tuner Auto Set-up NTSC Video-Playback
Interactive TV Features	Smart TV Text page memory: 500 Digital Text EPG: 8 days Now and next info Picture/Audio/Video (USB) Wireless Ready (Toshiba Wi-Fi dongle): Optional DLNA BBC iPlayer (UK only) HbbTV Toshiba Places YouTube
Other features	Audio description (UK only) Freeze Screen Timer Panel lock Audio format 4:3 Stretch No signal off Hotel/Clone Mode
Connections	HDMI x 4 LAN Component video Composite video SCART PC input UBB x 2 Digital audio out Headphone
Eco and Energy Saving	Power Consumption (approx): 101w Standby power consumption: 0.3w On-mode power consumption: 55.5w Average annual energy consumption: 81kWh/y
Warranty	1 year

With the ever growing popularity and attention enjoyed by flat TVs thus far with their varying degrees of enormity, looks like consumers are starting to turn their attention to secondary rooms like kitchen, conservatories and bedrooms for the next level of TV upgrade. Normally, the second room might be lucky enough to get bog standard LCDs or at the max a Freeview tuner, but guess Sony has other plans and is all set to hot up the market, which looks not just small enough to suit any room, but also looks to be the best. With the small TV arena evidently boasting an unmatched amount of action from all leading manufacturers, the results seem to take the form of some amazing small TV models that is well specified. One such TV in contention would be the Sony Brava KDL22EX320 22″ HD Ready LED Smart TV that has designed exclusively with the space saving factor in mind.

With a good number of Brits being proud owners of a living room flat TV, the demand for the second TV is on the rise and Sony is all set to take thorough advantage of this fact with its 22-inch flat TV, which doesn’t just pack an LED backlighting or the BBC iPlayer, but comes with a super slim waistline along with an iPhone App and Wi-Fi on board, not to mention it being Skype compatible.

This Sony KDL-22EX320 TV sure does seem to be a league of its own for a portable TV that compromises on nothing, but size. So let us just cut the chase and get on with the vital ingredients, shall we?

Design, Slots and Connectivity

Pretty much a shrunken version of the KDL-EX723, we think, the KDL-EX320 comes in a glossy black bezel at the sides and the front that is complimented by a gun-metallic grey as it tapers down. One striking difference would be the stand, uh the chrome feet, should we say, where it happily perches itself. The novel stand subtly supports the set via two glossy steel pipes. Along with being feature-packed, the telly’s effortless design makes it evident why Sony has a thing for slick design. While the two-tone frame takes care of the boring shape, the unique design of the stand evidently stands out against the rest in proving to be absolutely practical when it comes to fitting in tight spaces- thanks to the low profile stand that makes it seamlessly glide under places like the kitchen cabinets, which is kind of hard for other similar-sized TVs. Then again, on the flip side the swivel stand might look kind of unnecessary to others especially for a TV of this size and weight, as moving it shouldn’t really be an issue. Well, all in the eyes of the beholder we believe!

So moving on, the KDL-22EX320 has really nothing to fall out with, when it comes to design we guess, and it looks to be a perfect fit for any kind of environments. Despite the screen of this widescreen TV being a 22-inch across with a mere 42mm rear sticking out, still the diminutive frame manages to carry an absolute what-is-what of handy TV tricks.

For those of you who are used to seeing 4 conventional HDMI inputs, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to see just 2 in the EX320 given its size and intended use, both of which are located at the rear together with the Component Video In that has corresponding stereo audio jacks, an aerial socket (non-compatible with receiving HD transmissions), a RGB Scart terminal, a LAN connection and a SPDIF optical audio out. One of the killer feature of the EX320 would be the fact that the telly is wireless ready right out of the box, this means no costly or unsightly USB wireless dongle required. Guess Sony understand the issues with hardwiring second room TV that many people face and has made life easier for such. Again, boasting of a Wi-Fi wouldn’t do any good unless a gateway is provide to a decent set of features and the EX320 obliges this gracefully by providing more than decent Wi-Fi related features.

So getting towards the side, there is a USB input that comes in handy with HDD TV recording or for media playback. It also features a headphone jack, D-SUB PC in together with a CAM slot. You might want to be aware of the fact that the EX320 comes with a resolution of only 1366 x 768, especially if you are thinking of doubling it up as a PC monitor. It is kind of disappointing to note that there is no HDMI input on the side, which would have proved to fairly handy with HD video cameras and the like. Well, no big deal here as long as you can wirelessly stream content to the telly.

The other connections, of note, are few HDMIs, adequately enough for a TV of this size, together with a USB port that doesn’t just playback an assortment of photos, videos and music but also comes in handy with recording programs from the Freeview tuner to the USB drives, in fact remarkably well for an affordable TV of this size.

Sony Bravia KDL22EX320 Features

For those of you who gauge the feature list with the size of the TV in mind, it might come as a surprise to note that the features list goes on and on with the gratifying effect of the Bravia Internet Video (BIV) that steals the show.  Access is provided by the hub to tons and tons of video content via sites like Youtube, Sky News, LoveFilm, Daily Motion, BBC iPlayer and Demand 5 together with Sony’s very own world of TV and Qriocity film/TV libraries. Well the above is just a glimpse of the video iceberg. Almost all of the Online Video Services gets streamed immaculately together with great picture quality with any typical broadband connection.

Getting on with Sony’s Web Browser, well it is kind of a lite browser, we think, and unlike Samsung isn’t capable of flash video playback. Then again, it definitely is far better than Teletext and would pretty much suffice for quick surf. It is definitely less cool than the other features of BIV for the simple reason that it is kind of useless unless you are seated less than a foot or if anything less away from the screen if you need to understand the tiny font of the browser’s text – despite the zoom level being at its maximum, may we add. Yet again, using the TV remote might pose to be a big challenge, but there this App which comes to your rescue particularly for Smartphone owners. Also the EX320 is DLNA-compliant and Windows 7 certified and proves to be an excellent network performer.

Now, if you are a frequent user of video chat, you might be glad to know that there is Skype on-board the EX320, that is, if you do not mind the trouble of purchasing an optional CMU-BR100 Webcam/Microphone, which kind of resembles the Wii sensor bar. Check out the Presence Sensor in the menu, which smartly switches the TV into the Standby Mode if it doesn’t sense the presence of anyone for a defined period of time (it is set at 30 minutes by default); well this can always be changed with the range of options available. A fairly handy feature, we think, particularly on a secondary room TV where most of the time it is left On, by various members of a household, particularly the kids.

Yet another cool online ‘trick’ would be Track ID. There is a dedicated button for this feature on the remote, try pressing it as and when some music gets played on a program that you are currently watching, and watch the EX320 skillfully identify that tune for you with uncanny accuracy. A nice little creepy tool that you can flaunt of, with all those unending visits of family and friends calling upon you time and again….

As if the above list wasn’t enough, the Sony Bravia KDL22EX320 22″ LED TV also sports a feature, which comes as a surprise in a TV of this size, called Sony’s new X-Reality processing. This is particularly designed to enhance the appearance of the compressed videos that you manage to stream online. Well, we have to admit that it is a real fab in adding sharpness and reducing the noise levels, which you barely get to see with other upscale engines, particularly in terms of internet video content.
Last but not the least, would the remote control, which is of the conventional design from Sony and nothing much to talk of, nevertheless seems kind of light in comparison to its other siblings. Well, nothing to fall out with here. So, we feel it would be fair to say that this LED edge-lit telly has been very generous in terms of packing features, which at times kind of startles you on how much is on offer!

Menus/Setup

Setting up the EX320 looks to be a literal cakewalk, meaning it is an absolute no fuss telly. Key in the Language, Country, PIN, inform the telly you are at home and be it on a wall mount or a stand, once you tune in the channels you are all set in less than 3 minutes or if anything less. Well, creating a network connection is not a part of the setup process, so nothing to complain here. Sony has tweaked the GUI, akin to the EX723, in making the Cross Media Bar’s (XMB) presence less imposing. The XMB now rolls towards the bottom of the screen with the current feature in focus towards the right hand side. Plus there is a sizeable window that displays the viewed input towards the left hand side. As always, the XMB bar can be almost negated with the use of the Options button on the remote, but for the internet functionality.
Again with most of the users interest focused more towards the Picture Menu’s content, you might be happy to know that Sony hasn’t omitted any of the calibration options in comparison to the other siblings of the EX320. Then again, there is the conventional options of Contrast, Brightness, Sharpness Sliders and Backlight in the Advanced Menu together with global settings that take care of the 2-point White Balance Control and Gamma. It is worth mentioning here that it is advisable to turn off all other options in the Advanced Menu if you are looking at having optimum picture quality.

On the flip side, we guess the telly could really benefit from larger fonts for its operational menu, though we do realize that there are going to be issues on these lines particularly when you try to stuff this many features on such a small screen. Again, it really doesn’t thrill us when it comes to the telly’s rather convoluted Onscreen Menu, that has far too many small fonts/options that is neither organized.

Picture Processing

If we have to describe this in one word, it is thumbs up! To elaborate, the Sony KDL22EX320 HD Ready LED TV scales perfectly well literally making you forget the absence of a HD tuner. Video de-interlacing looks to be a fab despite challenging materials, fine details, particularly HD content along with maintaining integrity under motion. You get to witness film cadences with the conventional NTSC 2:3 and PAL 2:2 settings with interlacing and the 24p material shot is presented without any undue judder. You might have to set the Film Mode to Auto (in the Picture Menu) just in case you want the cadence detection to work without issues. Overall, the KDL-EX320 proves to be one good nifty petite mover in terms of video processing, which doesn’t really surprise us at all, as it is coming from Sony.

Picture Quality

After being in awe of the feature list that the 22EX320 provides for a price tag close to £24, we have to admit that its picture quality did come as a disappointment for the following reasons. For starters, we all know that the 22EX320 utilises edge LED lighting (exactly the reason for it being amazingly slim), the pictures don’t really seem so bright. There is a weird mute look to the Vivid One pictures with any picture preset bar despite watching the TV in a relatively dark room. In fact, despite the Vivid setting being engaged, the pictures don’t really explode off the screen, as you would generally expect it to.

Yet another issue would be the motion handling that looks to be barely average, with moving objects losing resolution. Nevertheless, this really doesn’t prevent HD pictures from looking sharp. There is certainly a visible difference  between HD and standard images in the 1,366 x 768 (rather than full HD) screen, despite the playback on standard definition being unusually crisp, thanks to the X-Reality engine.

As there are two sides to coin, let us look at the positive side as well. For starters, despite the telly lacking a wee bit of brightness, colours blend subtly well and look unusually natural for this kind of a small and affordable TV. There is indeed no trace of PC-favouring colour temperatures that we often tend to see with smaller screens. Additionally, in terms of contrast too, the 33EX320 seamlessly outguns its similar small-screened peers with the screen producing some convincing and engaging black levels that takes care of the squint factor with the grey ‘mist’ that is almost inevitable with conventional small-screen TVs. It is also kind of relieving to note that with darker scenes, the 22EX320’s LED engine stands robust battling issues with backlight consistency that includes the screen’s corners too. Yet another baffling thing about the EX320 is that it manages to retain a preferable amount of shadow detail with dark scenes, which is a rarity again with small flat screens. In terms of SD images, well they seem to realize well, thanks to the top drawer processing. Also a couple of low quality dross pumped via Freeview doesn’t really look half bad, although it was beyond doubt, partially, thanks to the diminutive screen proportion that smartly manages to mask the nasties.

Hi-def images, regardless of the size, do mange to exhibit a sizable improvement in comparison to their SD counterpart with Blu-rays looking a real fab. Looks like the KDL-26EX320 would prove to be a better proposition for Blu-rays.

The telly is prone to sound a tad harsh as its audio lacks bass together with the tendency for voices to ‘buzz’ with you trying to push the volume high. Then again, these kind of issues are pretty much expected when it comes to small flat TVs and the 22EX320 obviously isn’t any worse than the rest. If anything you might find it a touch better overall, at least with normal movies rather than action movies.

Finally, the EX320 looks to be real strong in the area of image lag, which is fairly minimal.

So summing up these strengths, the EX320 has a good picture by small-screen standards, provided you watch it under appropriate conditions, meaning avoiding bright environment.

Gaming Performance

Well, the KDL22EX320 LED LCD TV is certainly not designed to be a gaming TV, but guess it can survive it even if it finds its way into an affluent students or an odd kid’s bedroom. It sure does seem to be a consistent performer when it comes to input lag, measuring about 50 msecs in 9/10 measurements. While this score wouldn’t really impress a competitive gamer, as it loses up to 4 frames at 60 frames/second, at least it has fairly consistent measurement across all picture modes that includes ‘Game’. Even as we are skeptic about anyone having this on their radar as a gaming monitor, it would beyond doubts do a fairly good job with just single players where adjustments would be fairly easy to make.

Energy Consumption

In terms of power consumption looks like the 22EX320 would prove to be a record breaker, consuming just a bare 22w per diagonal inch (when calibrated) supposedly beating the 15” OLED LG released last year. Also there is a “B” Energy Label rating tagged to the TV with a 32.0w power consumption in the Home Mode, 52.0w in the Shop Mode, 0.35w in the Standby Mode with an annual energy consumption of 47kWh. Additionally the 69% peak luminance ratio together with the Presence Sensor, Dynamic backlight control and Backlight off mode helps save energy to a large extent.

Warranty

The manufacturer offers a 5-year warranty on parts and labour on this KDL22EX320.

A Few Suggestions to Sony

• We would appreciate a side-mounting HDMI port
• It would be nice to have the Theatre button on the remote back.
• Perhaps allow us to make the network connections during the initial set up.
• Light up the set a bit.

Final Words

With increasing number of small-screen TVs in demand, we would still consider the 22EX320 to be niche product particularly with its incapability at producing bright images, yet accurate, and largely depends on where it is located. Though it does a fairly creditable job with low lighting conditions, it definitely cannot be considered to serve the cinema room on a day to day basis. On the flip side, the telly is nothing short of excellent, post calibration, and it is really fascinating to see the TV wirelessly stream the likes of iPlayer. Well, just because it isn’t a badge winner, doesn’t mean that it is not worthy of consideration. In fact it is a cute telly with a touch of elegance to it. Sony sure does know how make things look good and have done it yet again. Menu wise, the dominance of the XMB bar is a welcome one, but the GUI response is a tad slothful. Again, the X-Reality Engine’s video processing sure does look to be the best, as always, together with fabulous black responses and screen uniformity for an edge-lit LCD as this. While we don’t wish to be old fashioned, the EX320 does lack the required brightness with the clipped light output certainly hampering the dynamic range and contrast. The EX320 could’ve been a real petite cracker with twice that oomph, but then as it is – it manages to fare good.

Sony Bravia KDL-22EX320 LED TV – Technical Specification Table

Manufacturer	Sony
Model Name	Sony Bravia KDL22EX320
Display type	LED Display
Dimensions (W x D x H)	60.5 x 12.8 x 46 cm
Weight	4.1kg (without Stand) 5.1 kg (with stand)
Colour	Black
Screen Resolution	1366 x 768 pixels
Swivel Range	20° Left/Right
Tilt Position	0°/Back 6°
Menu	XrossMediaBar™ (XMB™)
Supplied accessories	Remote Control – RM-ED045 Batteries – Type AAA x 2 AC Power Cable – attached
Display	Screen Type: LCD Baclight Type: Edge LED Screen Size: in inches 22 in cm 55 Aspect Ratio:16:9 Dynamic contrast ratio: High Picture Mode Settings: Vivid/Standard/Custom/Photo-vivid, Photo-original, Photo-standard, Photo-custom/Cinema/Game-standard, Game-original/Graphics/Sports/Animation Wide Mode Settings: Yes Wide Mode Settings for PC: Normal/Full1/Full2 Auto Wide Mode: Yes Frames per second: 50Hz Picture Processing Engine: X-Reality Advanced Contrast Enhancer: Yes Live colour technology: Yes Scene select: Cinema/Game/Photo/Music/Animation/Graphics/Sports 24p TrueCinema: Yes CineMotion/Film Mode/Cinema Drive: Yes Noise Reduction: Yes 3D comb filter: Yes
Network Features	Wireless LAN (Wi-Fi): Yes Wi-Fi Direct: Yes (require firmware upgrade) DLNA: Yes BIV/BIW: Yes Web Browser: Yes (require firmware upgrade/does not support display of embedded video) Media Remote (iPhone/Android): Yes (require firmware upgrade) Skype: Yes (require firmware upgrade)
Audio	Speaker Type: Invisible Speaker Audio Power Output: 16 (8w X 2) Sound Mode Settings: Standard/Dynamic/Clear Voice Surround Mode Settings: Sports/Game/Music/Cinema S-Force front surround 3D: Yes S Master: Yes Dolby: Dolby Digital/Dolby Digital Plus/Dolby Pulse Stereo System: A2/NICAM
Connectivity	AC power input x 1 (rear) RF connection input x 1 (rear) HDMI input x 2 (2 rear) HDMI PC input SCART input (without Smartlink) x 1(rear) USB 2.0 input x 1 (side) Ethernet input x 1 (rear) Composite Video input x 1 (rear) Component video input x 1 (rear) PC in+Audio in x 1 (rear) PCMCIA input x 1 (side) Analog audio input x 1 (rear) Optical digital output x 1 (rear) Audio output x 1 (side) Headphone output x 1 (side)
Special Features	EPG On-screen lock Sleep Timer On/Off timer On-screen instruction manual BRAVIA Sync Auto photo mode Picture in picture (1 tuner only) Picture and picture (1 tuner) Parental control USB photo viewer USB music player USB video player USB HDD recording Picture frame mode Multiple language display (27 languages) Favourites Quick Start
Built-in Tuners	DVB-T, DVB-C, CI+, Analogue
Eco and Energy Saving	Energy Label Rating B Power consumption in – Home Mode: 32.0w Shop Mode: 52.0w Standy Mode: 0.35w Annual Eenergy consumption: 47kWh
Warranty	Five Years for parts and labour

JVC is a Japanese multinational company serving the world with high quality consumer electronics.It has its own fixed spot with its customers. The quality of products and quality of service are the main reasons for their unique position in the competitive electronics market. It looks like JVC started concentrating in the LED television manufacture in which they are still trying to hold a standard place among the vital rivals. JVC LT22HG22J LED backlit television is one of the midsized televisions from the Japanese consumer electronics manufacturer. This edge LED television is with 22 Inch widescreen and a digital tuner. It is with all the basic features of an LED HD ready television.

Simple and Decent Design

Since the screen size is 22 Inch LED, we cannot say that this television can be kept in a midsized or large sized living room. May be it could fit up to a small sized living room or a midsized bedroom. Although other LED TV manufacturers made a lot of innovations and upgrades, JVC made the design very simple and sleek, all it can give is a decent look in its glossy black finish. However it could be also used as a computer monitor. Note that there is no tilt adjustment in the stand, so it is not possible to tilt the screen as per the comfort and position while viewing and the screen will always stand vertical. JVC LT-22HG22J HD ready LED Television can also be wall mounted with VESA 100 wall mount.

Features

The picture refresh rate is pretty basic and it doesn’t make any difference between a standard television and this edge LED television as it produces the standard frames per second of 50 frames per second. It supports the full HD resolution of 1080p and this LED backlit television is HD ready. The viewing angle of 85 degrees is quite enough to a fairly comfortable view to the screen. Widescreen aspect ratio is 16:9 to show everything in the picture more vivid and clear. The seven day electronic program guide is the most mentionable feature; it gives the details on scheduled TV programs for seven days. Since the television is HD ready, it can support all kinds of HD devices through its HDMI port. It has the feature of Freeview digital tuner, as there is no need to buy an external tuner to watch the Freeview channels.

Connectivity

JVC LT-22HG22J 22-inch LED TV has a fair range of connectivity features, which are quite enough for a 22 Inch LED backlit television. It has one HDMI port to connect devices such as blu ray player, game console and other devices come with HDMI socket. There is a headphone jack for personal listening while watching programs in the TV. There is one scart socket and one RBG scart socket is given for supporting AV devices to the television.

Verdict

The JVC LT22HG22J 22 Inch LED backlit LCD Television can be used for dual purpose, as it can be used as a TV and as a PC monitor. It is widely used primarily as a PC monitor and many people use this television as a PC monitor and uses it as a television. In this HD ready television, there are few reports about the LED light getting bleeded out from the bottom and there are issues with full HD compatibility. There is no screen tilt given in the television to adjust the view of the television screen.

This 22 inch LED backlit television proved just satisfactory and there are some issues with it as mentioned above. But it is the best to be used as a PC monitor.

JVC LT-22HG22J 22″ LED TV – Technical Specification Table

Manufacturer	JVC
Model Name	LT22HG22J
Dimensions(W x H x D) cm	53.3 x 35.3 x 4.8
Weight	5.6 kg
Colour	Glossy Black
Display Size	22 Inch
Resolution	1920 x 1080p ( Full HD)
Freeview	Yes
Image aspect Ratio	16:9
Frame rate	50 Hz
HDMI	Yes
Freeview Tuner	Yes
Full HD	Yes
LED	Yes ( Edge LED)
Scart	Yes
Frame refresh rate	50
DLNA	No
EPG	Yes
Can be used as PC monitor	Yes
RGB Scart	Yes
Warranty	1 Year manufacturer warranty