Posted by: Sony Reviews on: December 27, 2008
David Katzmaier, Senion eidtor over at the cnet labs present us with a great little video tour of the 46-inch Sony Bravia KDL-46Z4100 LCD television. The Z-series models, available only currently in the 46-inch variation shown and a 40-inch variation in the KDL-40Z100 Bravia, are a mid/high end unit in sony’s extensive collection of Bravia models, and has been gaining a huge amount of buzz and popularity as of late thanks in part to some price cutting to bring it down to really affordable levels for its upper-middle class Audio/Visual quality:
At the time of the recording on this Sony KDL46Z4100 review, prices were quite high for the 46″ z4100 series, and as such the review spoke of how for the money, some of Samsung’s LCD option would be more enjoyable for the average consumer, but I think that opionion has probably changed or at least been brought down along with the pricing of the two competitors.
Anyways, enjoy the video sony kdl-46z4100 review tour on the youtube player above, and head on over to cnet for the full write-up and technical review if your truly interested in the Sony 40Z4100b (40″ Black), 40Z4100s (40″ Silver), 46Z4100b (46″ Black), 46Z4100s (40″ Silver, showin in video)(40″ Black)
Posted by: Sony Reviews on: September 21, 2008
David Katzmeir of CNET has finally got his hand on the ultra-cool new OLED television being produced by sony, and takes us on a little video preview / review of the Sony XEL-1 OLED television:
The first thing you notice is that it is small, small AND expensive to be exact, but that is just because it is such a brand new technology and prices will drop and sizes will go up just as they did incredibly quickly with plasma & lcd technology.
OLED is still an emerging technology as compared to the more popular and similar LCD and LED/LCD displays, with a currently very expensive manufacturing process which is limiting its size and reasonable everyday cost factor, and as such most people won’t be willing to pay the big bucks for a smaller television.. But over the course of the next year or two as the high price of OLED manufacturing drops, much like the rapid decent of the new LCD/Plasma generations before it, there is a great chance that OLED technology will sit among the top of all television technologies with some key advantages over its LCD brother:
So while Sony’s XEL-1 television is the first of its kind and is amazing in many ways with some major advantages in size/weight/picture quality, OLED is not much more than an exciting future hope with some great potential advantages.. But limited by price at the moment, it doesn’t look like OLED will be in the spotlight all that quickly, and with Laser / LED technology rapidly emerging as well, it will be interesting to see which future tv technology will become the next LCD / Plasma type champion.
Posted by: Sony Reviews on: September 22, 2008
HDTVsolutions has released an awesome and quite detailed video review of the Sony XBR4 series LCD televisions (available in 40, 46 and 52 inch variations) and although the XBR4 series has been out for a while now and have been succeeded by the XBR5 and soon to be fully released XBR6 series televisions, that doesn’t mean that they are dead.. In fact far from as they have recently received generous price cuts making them quite affordable and still very high end (the XBR4 series was a very top tier and incredibly expensive professional choice 6months ago, although price kept them out of reach for the average person.
The editor of HDTVsolutions does a great hand on look and takes you for a video preview of the unit, explaining the basics of television performance and detailing how the XBR4 performs in those areas. Alot of emphasis on the design/appearance/connection ports as well as going on to talk about its black level performance and why this is significant.
There are newer choices like I mentioned in the XBR5/6 series, and the recently announced XBR7 and XBR8 bravia televisions will be fully released in the upcoming months before Christmas, but with massive price cuts, the Sony KDL-40XBR4 (40inch), KDL-46XBR4 (46inch), and KDL-52XBR4 (52inch) have finally reached incredibly affordable levels for the everyday person while still maintaining its top tier performance amongst LCD hdtvs in 2007/2008.
Posted by: Sony Reviews on: March 17, 2009
I spent an incredible amount of time to really research the best LCD or Plasma HDTV for the money before ultimately deciding on this after reading many other positive and some downright persuasive customer Sony kdl-46Z4100 reviews online. I was originally turned onto it right after the holidays but never got around to ordering, and to my surprise the price dropped quite nicely and now is an even better bang for the buck thanks in part to the announcement of next year’s Bravia Z series coming in the next year. There are already tons of Sony kdl46z4100/b and kdl464100/s reviews out there, so I will try and add my own insights and not just say what all the other 5 star reports have beaten in dozens of times:
Overall I am truly pleased and wouldn’t pick another set if I had the chance. The only negative / con I can point out so far is that the sony z4100 series doesn’t have a 52-inch option, and the extra size would’ve been nice and a further worthwhile investment seeing as how much we are watching old movies and tv these days thanks to our new favorite toy!!!
Two thumbs way upp for Sony’s Bravia Z models!!!!!
-Charles
Posted by: Sony Reviews on: December 23, 2008

46-inch Bravia W4100 LCD
Samsung’s KDL46W4100 LCD Television was easily one of the most sought after and wished for 46-inch Full High Definition displays this holiday season, and quickly became one of the best selling televisions period after some holiday price cutting and advertising came out for this wonderful HDTV. The Bravia KDL-46W4100 the 46inch variation of the truly spectacular Bravia W4100 series – also contains the 40-inch Bravia KDL40W4100 and 52-inch Bravia KDL52W4100 – is Sony’s 2008 Mid-High end range sets, adding 120hz and some other things to the slightly less potent V4100, S4100, and M4100 models, and cutting back on some of the extra bells and whistles found on the cream of the crop Z and XBR6 series to make it more appealing and budget friendly to your everyday shopper. With its rock solid picture quality and home theater performance coupled along with the very fair price tag, the W-Series LCDs appeal to a much larger audience then the ultra-cheap or ultra expensive options, placing itself within everyone’s budget while still offering them some of the best in audio/visual entertainment possible.
The Sony KDL46V4100 is the lowest end model of the 3, and stepping up and comparing the Sony KDL46W4100 vs Sony KDL46V4100, you will get most notably the following two upgrades on the more expensive W4100 model:
120hz dejudder process: Easily the biggest reason to upgrade, having 120hz mode, the KDL-W4100 models handle fast motion and action found in shows, movies and games much better, without the appearance of the annoying and common place to LCD ‘lag, judder, motion artifacting
24p True Cinema Mode: another side effect of the increased refresh rate of 120 Hz (standard is 60hz as found on the V4100 series), this is a great feature for movie lovers as films are shot at 24frames per second… With a standard 60hz LCD, 24fps is not a direct multiple and as such the picture needs to be converted and ‘filled in’ causing a noticeable untrue to the film effect, with 120hz, which is a direct multiple of 24fps, there is no need to up-convert nor process the un-natural information and the effect on image quality and experience is very noticeable.
A few smaller less significant differences / subtleties as well
The Sony Z4100 series is a higher end and more advanced television than the W-Series, and as such will cost a bit more for the added technologies and upgrades. Currently only the 40-inch KDL40Z4100s / KDL40Z4100b (silver & black versions) and the 46-inch KDL46Z4100s / KDL46Z4100b (silver & black) are available missing the 52-inch variation of the Bravia V4100 & W4100 series. When comparing the Bravia KDL46W4100 vs. KDL46Z4100 models, several things have been improved and added, the most noticeable but not limited to, being the following:
10-bit processing and display – Most modern LCDs, and indeed with the 46V4100 and 46W4100 as well, use 8-bit panels and display processing… In the Sony KDL46Z4100 however is the 10-bit panel and imaging engine that effectively adds 400% the number of colors displayable and is attributable to making much more natural and attractive images, for example skin tones and high contrast vibrant color scenes.
x.v.Color support – The Bravia KDL 46Z4100 also has support for a brand new x.v. color application, which provides 180% more color information than today’s standard NTSC specifications found on almost all LCDs, including the KDL46V4100 and KDL46W4100 models.
DLNA compliant – DLNA, or, digital lifestyle network alliance, is a standardized set of protocols and procedures agreed to by many of the major electronics manufactures, that lets digital content by interchangeably accessible and streamable between devices, for example new features on emerging digital camera technology in a year, will be accessible on your Sony KDL-46Z4100 – helping to keep the product future proof and not to be obsolete shortly after purchase in the fast pace and ever evolving gadget and tech worlds.
Quite a few smaller less significant differences / subtleties as well
Through this in here because many people are looking for differences between these 3 models within the Bravia V4100 series… There are no significant or real differences to compare between the models, and the differences in model name – the first two numerical digits – only represent the size in diagonal size measurements at 40 inches, 46 inches and 52 inches respectively.
Posted by: Sony Reviews on: December 3, 2008
Just beware of Mura
Sony Bravia KDL-52XBR6 Review from Amazon.com
Until the XBR8 is shipping, the 52″ KDL-52XBR6 HDTV is the top-of-the-line Sony LCD television. Consequently, as you might expect, the color, image, and performance are superb. The picture is honestly nothing short of spectacular.
It was a great disappointment, however, to discover that “mura” (also called black clouding), an irregularity in the LCD panel that keeps it from going dark evenly during playback of a very dark scene or during a dip-to-black in the program material, is STILL an issue with the XBR6 family. I found posts about this problem as far back as the XBR2.
Simply said, “mura” (the japanese word for “unevenness”) is a quality control issue. Some sets have it, some don’t. The larger the panel is, the harder it is to build it perfectly, and the nature of LCD backlighting makes it difficult to build a large, LCD screen that renders a pure black screen evenly without clouding. But not impossible. You see many 40″ sets with no mura at all. Other manufacturers’ 52’s that have fewer accolades about their onscreen images don’t seem to have the problem, although, admittedly, their operating images may not look anywhere near as good as images seen on this tv.
Amazon is shipping my 2nd sony kdl52xbr6 even as I write this…so we will see whether my first was just a bad panel, or whether Sony Customer Service’s comment that “some mura is typical of this unit and LCD technology” is accurate.
This is Sony, after all…and it’s their best-of-the-best product in the family (if you don’t count the $7,000 XBR8). You don’t expect “good enough” from Sony; they are the unit against which all others are judged, which means you expect “perfect”.
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Thursday, November 27, 2008
I’m happy to report that the second unit supplied by Amazon is considerably more uniform in low light. In a pitch black room, there is still a small amount of black level mura, but it is so much better than the first unit that I can live with it. In a nutshell, if your viewing area is a very dark, movie-theater-like environment, you may see what I’m talking about. But if you have even a small amount of ambient light in your room, you probably won’t.
Posted by: Sony Reviews on: December 2, 2008
CNET’s David Katzmaier has gone ahead and got his techy little hands on the Sony KDL52XBR6 a little while back, and did a great (brief but to the point and accurate as always with cnet) hands on Sony KDL52XBR6 review. He takes the watchers of CNET TV and youtube on a video demonstration around the televisions exterior and interior features, and talks briefly about the performance and quality of the XBR6 models
The Sony XBR6 series is available in several sizes; with a few more supposed to come out soon along with a sampling of the XBR7 and XBR8 units in very limited size soon. The current XBR6 series models available are the 52” inch KDL52XBR6 (shown in video) 46 inch KDL46XBR6 (same features as featured) and the KDL40XBR6 (40 inch variation with the same features again)
Enjoy the video, and if you are thinking about getting the Sony Bravia XBR6 series, early KDL52XBR6 reviews and reports from the series are getting great scores, thumbs up and high ratings across the board on the net and in consumer reports and magazines.