“Sony Bravia KDL40XBR5 = Amazing Picture!!”
Reviewed By ‘L. Williams’
Sony Bravia KDL40XBR5 Review from Amazon.com
I was looking to get the best picture I could in an LCD TV. I narrowed it down to the Sony BXR4/XBR5 and the Samsung LNT4071. (Both have great pictures, but the highly reflective screen on the Samsung is not practical for me as the TV must sit opposite a large window, so I opted for the XBR5 which has a matte screen. (The XBR5 is the same as the BXR4 but with a shiny “piano” black bevel). I have NO trouble with reflection on the screen with the XBR5.
The picture on the XBR5 is just amazing. It’s truly hard to tell the difference between it and some of the plasma TVs out there! As the other reviewer noted, you will probably want to create a custom picture setting (vivid is usually TOO vivid for me, but the standard wasn’t quite right for my taste, either). The good news is that you can set all KINDS of individual picture elements on this tv. (The “Cinema” mode is great if you’re watching movies with the lights dimmed.!)
As with all LCD TV’s, there is a significant difference in picture quality between HD programs and non-HD programs, but even the non-HD programs look decent on this TV.
The shiny black bevel looks great with the thin “glass” pane around it. Very upscale and elegant.
The icing on the cake for me is that I was able to save several hundred dollars on this TV buying it through Butterfly photo instead at the one local “big box”-type store in my area that carries it (most stores here only carry the XBR4, which is less expensive). So I got the XBR5 for the price of an XBR4.
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