Sony KDL-52W5150 - 52" BRAVIA LCD TV - 120Hz - widescreen - 1080p (FullHD) - HDTV - black Review

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(More customer reviews)My Sony 52W5150 is a thing of beauty! The pictures are fabulous and it looks great in the living room also. My old 60 Hz Sharp 46 inch cannot compare to this TV in terms of deep blacks and motion picture quality.
First, the pictures are amazing! The blacks are so ridiculously black... my biggest pet peeve on a HDTV is the greyish black when there's supposed to be a black background on some older TV's. You don't have that problem with this TV. This TV has Bravia Engine 3 (Sony's latest video processor) and has a 120 Hz refresh rate. Inbetween those two, the motion judder that I used to see on my old Sharp TV during fast action scenes in movies or sports are gone. All I see is smoothe motion which is a thing of beauty. Once you turn off the "Vivid" colors mode, the colors look real and true to life. I just love it. In fact, my wife told me how she noticed for the first time all the intricate details of the makeup on the TV news anchors' faces. That's high picture quality.
Second, it looks great in the room. I love the Sony light that comes on on the bottom center of the bezel when the TV is on. (In fairness, my wife hates it so be aware that all or most late model Sony HDTV's have this feature) And it looks great whether it's on or not... showing the deep blacks and the rich colors. It really does become the center of your family/living room entertainment. Some prefer the touch of color from Samsung... I prefer the all black look of my TV.
Finally, comparing the specs on this TV versus the top of the line Sony XBR9, there wasn't enough difference to pay the extra $500 premium. Both TV's have the same contrast ratios (3,800 native, 100,000 dynamic). For novices, the contrast ratio is a rough ratio of the brightness of the darkest color the TV is capable of versus the brightest color. So the higher the number, the more capable the TV is in terms of reproducing a wide range of colors at a wide range of brightness. They also look very similar, both use the latest Bravia 3 Engine video processor to produce their pictures, have the same # of HD ports, and allow for widgets & broadband access to Internet.
The three major differences are the following: 1) 120 Hz vs. 240 Hz refresh rate, 2) 8 bit versus 10 bit panel, and 3) of course the $500 or so in price premium. Frankly, my research into 120 Hz vs. 240 Hz refresh rates lead me to conclusion that most people can't really notice the difference. People can notice the difference between 120 Hz and 60 Hz (as I pointed out earlier), but the 120 vs. 240 seems much more marginal. I am not such a videophile that I will pay a serious premium for a marginal difference. Then the 8 bit vs. the 10 bit panel is an even more dubious distinction. 8 bit panels allow for 17 million colors... the 10 bit panels allow a billion in theory.... But you don't really need it. That's because no content source available right now (not blue ray, not HD broadcast, HD cable/satellite) can differentiate colors to that degree and no LCD panel can reproduce that many colors at once. My advice is - save your money and buy the 10 bit panels when the content actually catches up. Buying 10 bit panel right now could be like buying a 50 inch plasma TV in 2000 for like $20K when no real HD content sources were available to take advantage of the big screen & TV capability.
The only thing this TV does not have is LED backlighting. This TV and the XBR9 are Sony's best CCFL backlit LCD TV's. Now the latest TV's have started to use LED backlighting technology to really hike up the contrast ratio to 1 million to 1 and beyond. Sony's latest release XBR10 does this as do the Samsung B6000, B7000, B8000, and B8500 series TV's. Those TV's are fabulous TV's, and they look so cool with their super thin form factor (Samsung's are 1.2 inches thick!). But I am not prepared to pay double or even triple the cost of my W series to get a similar sized LED backlit LCD TV just yet. Wait 3 years and the prices will be MUCH cheaper, since by then larger screen true LED TV's called OLED (not the LCD with LED backlighting TV's that are available now) will probably be more widely available.
By the way, the Samsung TV most comparable to this TV is the Samsung 52B650. Both are 120 Hz, near top of line TV's with CCFL backlighting. I could have gone with either, but I ended up going with this TV because I got a great deal on it and because my sound system and blue ray player (PS3) are Sony products - hello Bravia Synch. Some do think the picture quality on the Samsung is slightly better... but I found the differences to be virtually indiscernable to my eyes. Can't go wrong with either as Samsung and Sony are, IMO, the two greatest LCD TV makers right now... but Samsung seems to be pulling ahead lately.
Overall, fabulous TV... well worth the costs. One of the best top tier, large screen size TV's available with CCFL backlighting. LED backlighting is better, but it costs over double. So for non-early adopters, this is the way to go.

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Thanks to an ethernet port and built-in DNLA compatibility, the Sony BRAVIA KDL-52W5150 lets you connect to your home network or the internet for expanded functionality. Access music, photos, or video on your computer, get the latest news and weather with BRAVIA Internet Widgets, or access Amazon Video On Demand or YouTube with BRAVIA Internet Video. For a smooth, lifelike video experience, this W5150 series LCD sports Sony's Motionflow 120Hz processing. While four HDMI inputs offer optimal HD connectivity, ENERGy STAR 3.0 compliance delivers efficient operation. Finally, a black bezel finish adds sleek styling to your living room.

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