 | Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Ships from and sold by MODIA 5 new or used available from $681.99  Average customer review:  |
Product Description
Introducing the Sony BRAVIA VE5 HDTV, a revolutionary TV that combines energy-saving features with quality picture performance. Minimize excess power use with a high-efficiency backlight that uses over 50% less power in Home Mode than Energy Star 3.0 requirements. Plus enjoy Full HD 1080p picture quality and smooth motion with Motionflow 120Hz technology.Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #20486 in Consumer Electronics
- Color: Black
- Brand: Sony
- Model: KDL40VE5
- Released on: 2009-05-24
- Dimensions: 25.12" h x 4.12" w x 38.87" l, 38.80 pounds
- Display size: 46
Features
- Offers substantial power savings provision without compromising performance
- Is the smallest of the VE5-series
- Has Sony¿s exclusive micro-tubular Hot Cathode Fluorescent Lamp (HCFL) technology which helps reducing power consumption by almost 40 percent
- The zero-watt standby Energy Saving Switch
- The light sensor feature of the new Sony KDL-40VE5 is likely to adjust the backlight depending on the room light
Customer Reviews
Great Picture and Features, plus it's eco-friendly
This is an excellent TV.
Picture Quality:
The picture quality of this set is superb. In the setup menu, I set
the picture to "vivid" mode and the HD quality is simply life-like.
The color and contrast are excellent. It also uses something that Sony
calls MotionFlow which helps to smooth out the image when you are
watching fast-action pictures.
Backlight Technology:
It is an LCD set, but uses a hot cathode fluorescent lamp for its
backlighting. This technology allows it to be much more energy
efficient and close to par with the energy usage of LED backlit LCD TVs.
Most LCDs use cold cathode fluorescent lamps. The 40" model uses a
maximum of 140 watts, the 46" uses a max of 160 watts, and the 52" uses a
max of 180 watts.
Eco-Friendly:
It has a sensor called a presence sensor that does two things.
First it senses the ambient (room) light and if the room gets darker, it
will automatically dim the picture of the TV. This works well if you
are watching TV in the bedroom at night and you want less light output.
The second thing that the sensor does is senses the room for motion
and body heat. If you leave the room for a preset amount of time (5
min, 30 min, ...) and the TV doesn't sense anyone around, it will turn
off the picture. If you walk back in the room, it senses you and turns
the screen back on. The sound stays on for another 30 minutes or so,
then the whole set will go into stand-by mode if it does not sense you.
Both of these features can be turned off via the setup menu and help to
conserve energy.
Features (just a few of them):
The TV is loaded with features. It will automatically sense if you
have something connected to an input (for example HDMI2). This is great
when you want to hit the input button on the remote because it will not
select items that aren't currently sending out a signal. This means
you don't have to scroll through 10 items if you only have two
components connected to the TV. In the setup menu, you can set each
input for always on, always off, or auto. I used the always on setting
for the PC input because the cable I used to connect the PC did not send
a power signal so the TV did not sense it. By setting it to always on,
the PC input will always be available when I scan through the inputs.
It also has a lot of inputs. There are 4 HDMI inputs. If you have a
DVI port on your PC, then you can connect it through HDMI port 1 which
also has an analog audio input. There is one dedicated composite (with
S-video) and one dedicated component input, but there is another
switchable composite/component input that you can use if you have two
composites and one component, or vice versa. There is a PC input to
connect via VGA connection. The audio outputs are one optical digital
out and one analog out.
Dislikes:
1. All of the Inputs and Output are on the left side (when looking
at the front of the TV) of the TV. This is unfortunate for me since my
A/V cabinet is on the right side of the TV. It is a minor
inconvenience, but something that I did not think about until I got the
set home. I would say about half of the inputs are one the left side
and the other half are on the back, next to the side inputs.
2. The presence sensor is right where I have my center audio
speaker. I will have to raise up the TV to still have that speaker
front and center.
Overall, this is not a cheap TV, but I think this is a case where
you get what you pay for. It is a really great set.
Not for everyone. But read on.
Let me start by saying this might have been an awesome LCD TV. I
bought mine from Sears at a fantastic sale price ($850) less a 10% Sears
card discount. The more I read about this TV the more I liked it.
The Good: If all you plan to do is watch High Def sources (Blu Ray,
HD TV, etc.) then you will love this TV. It has a beautiful HD picture
and comes with many great features. With 100,000:1 contrast ratio and
120 HZ refresh it is top shelf. Claims super low power use and
appearance is very nice. If you do not plan to watch anything "non" HD
then I can recommend this TV. Otherwise, read on to learn more.
The Bad: This issue will not bother everyone but it bothered me
enough to return the TV (very reluctantly) to Sears. Major kudos to
Sears for their courtesy. This [intermittent] issue is with non-HD
sources such as regular cable signal using coax input or standard DVD
using composite input. Given a low light scene (i.e. night scene) the
brightness level would vary as if in "search mode". Sometimes the
picture would fade to almost black and then snap back to normal or
anywhere in between as the scene changed. We used our new Sony as the
main TV and watched everything on it (old shows, new shows, HD stations,
standard DVDs of which we have over a hundred and not likely to be
converting them all over to Blu Ray $$$$!!!) and this problem was
noticed on multiple channels and DVDs. In addition, std DVDs using the
Component video (RGB) input looked pretty bad but that may be somewhat
adjustable and up-converting may help. I did not get that far. I tested
another identical TV purchased by a friend with the same results. This
bothered me more than it did the rest of my family but I refuse to pay
that much for anything that does not work properly out-of-the-box.
Please note that I did give Sony support one chance to rectify this
issue but never got past the first level inexperienced "receptionist"
who asked the usual "no-brainer" questions. I had to explain to him the
actual menu path (his "resources" were incorrect) to get to the
backlight/light sensor settings only to confirm that the factory
defaults were as they should be. I left Sony some feedback on that
issue. If it was a known issue then Sony could have told me a fix was in
the works and I would have been OK with that. If it is not yet known to
them (not likely) then a fix may never happen. Their loss for not
escalating my call. Plus now they have a poor review to deal with.
I really hated having to return the TV but I cannot accept IQ
problems from a top 3 company like Sony with that kind of investment.
Also, Remote is simple but not great (the most used buttons at
bottom rather than middle where they belong) but remotes are a minor
issue.
Hope this helps someone with their LCD shopping.
Great Picture. TV is finally off in the
morning!
Auto-off feature is really nice. I'm not as green as I should be,
but this set has solved my teenager falling asleep with the TV on all
night. Picture is great, menu/settings are very user friendly, and only
ports with an item plugged in are in the "input" rotation on the
remote. Highly recommend.
One weird thing about the White Glove delivery from Amazon. They
showed up on time, and even phoned ahead...very nice, plus set the TV up
and took the garbage. However during the setup the TV searches for
channels automatically. When this seemed to be going slow, the delivery
guy says "this can take awhile the first time it runs", and my wife let
them leave. After performing a "search" for about 30 minutes I
discovered that they had used input cables from a DVD player that was
not hooked up to the satellite system. I simply plugged an HDMI cable
from the dish to the TV...and whammo...200+ channels almost instantly.
Everything else was great. I would make a similar purchase again
with Amazon without hesitation.
No comments:
Post a Comment