Sony KDL40W3000 Review

[shot2bits]

Hi,

Bought this and very impressed - thought I could notice some lag on the pictures - would the X3500 with 100Hz etc improve every day watching?  It's around £400 to £500 more... I don't watch a massive amount of sports, just DVD's, MotoGP and some everyday TV.

Worried I should have spent a bit more on the X3500.

Any thoughts? Rob.

[maxxam]

me suppose I will invest the money 4 the kdl40x3500, in a kdl46w3000. whatz the benefit of a 40inch screen with great specs but have 2 sit closer than 2feet.

pity the review x3500 aint out yet, but with all those noise problems. maybe it aint the big deal...

[shot2bits]

I looked at the same TV in the shops today - it had a blue ray version of Bond playing.  I could see a noticeable lag in the pictures almost like the refresh rate was bad.

Is this because it doesn't have 100Hz?

If so I'm sending it back and buying the X3500 or is the lag I noticed due to a different reason?

[maxxam]

dont have that problem, not all blurays are worth there heritage .

with mi3, and german audio had lag, not so in da english audio...4 example...

[ian]

Not a techie so can't give lots of figures, but thought you might be interested in my experiences with this TV which I purchased today on the strength of Vincent's excellent reviews of both it and the X3000.

I wanted to move into the HD world but probably like many others was completely perplexed by the apparent trade-offs needed to distinguish between the many offerings including whether to go Plasma or LCD.

After looking at the Panasonic TH42PZ70 I decided I could not live with that level of blurriness no matter how deep the blacks....

I was also looking for a home cinema system having had offerings from QUAD, NAD and ARCAM in the past. Problem is that the one I would be prepared to have in my house would set me back over £3200 excluding the TV.

Pragmatism set in at this stage and after much looking around on internet forums decided that the latest PS3 with the 1.8 upgrade coupled with a decent TV and outputs to my existing stereo would be a good start.

Vincents reviews of both the Sony W and X3000's sent me off to a Sony Store (I know I can get them cheaper off the internet, but I like shops) where wonderfully they had the two TV's set up side by side and working. If you don't take the 'free' 5-year warranty the price for the W3000 came down from £1800 to £1440 with the one year warranty, compared to around the £1300 it is available for online.

As is usual in these shops the displays are great but the staff seem to know little or nothing of the equipment. However once I had persuaded him to set up a PS3 player for me through both TV's I could see that perhaps the motionflow on the X3000 might be nice but I did not think it warranted £400 extra, particularly given the fact that standard broadcasts are just never going to look nice and what I really wanted the TV to shine at was playing standard DVD's and Blu-ray discs, along with being good at 1080i and p material.

I reckon that the only way to get a really good SD picture is probably to play it through an external upscaler and I'll wait for these to come out if they ever do.

So to cut to the chase the DVD's played through the PS3 looked awful in the shop but the Bluray disc was unbelievably good on both TV's. In an act of blind faith I trusted that the DVD's looked so bad because the PS3 in the shop had not had the online 1.8 upgrade applied to it which lets the PS3 upscale DVD's to 1080i output.

I therefore opted to buy the PS3 60GB machine (be careful about the 40 Gb apparently it does not have the wireless internet connection built in to allow wireless updates of the firmware) and the KDL40W3000.

The long and the short of it is that setup of the PS3 and connection to the internet was incredibly simple and the update to firmware 2.0 happened easily. I plugged the two together using an HDMI lead (which I had to buy separately... ) and started to work my way through the set.

Native 1080p games from the PS3 are superb - no ifs no buts. The playing of standard DVD's is also superb using the Theatre setting on the remote. I have yet to play a Bluray movie on the machine.

Now the not so good. I have an NTL cable feed which I use distribute the terrestrial channels round the house using not good enough coax cable. The TV happily picked up these analogue feed throughs along with the cable channel itself. Picture quality is probably best described as OK. I am going to have a Freeview aerial fitted shortly to the house and will then decide whether to ditch the NTL TV feed as it doesn't allow multiple digital channels to be fed around the house.

By the way I found this site really handy for deciding what size screen to get. My room is 14' x 14' (4 x 4m) and you really wouldn't want anything bigger in it http://www.practical-home-theater-guide.com/Tv-viewing-distance.html

I think either of these 2 TV's would make most people happy - and combined with a PS3 bluray player which happily produces superb standard DVD images as well as 1080p bluray images I believe this is as good as I could have hoped for at this moment in time. I am a relieved man that I don't prefer watching my 32" Sony CRT.....

Oh and the sound is OK as well - it is not cinema quality but it goes loud enough to immerse you in the action and for most of the time that is all I want.

I hope this helps. I am not a TV fanatic and I'm prepared to put up with some things that others wouldn't I suppose - but to my eyes these TV's are pretty amazing - and if worst comes to worst as my eyesight fails they'll make a great PC monitor. 1920 x 1080 resolution is incredible and is the same as my laptop's native resolution so I am a happy man.

[ticolico]

Firstly, thanks for this excellent site. Secondly, please excuse any naive questions (you guys all seem so techno-wise and I am "mere" 1st time buyer!).

I have been leaning towards the Sony's as the consistently get the best technical reviews from what I have read (although the aesthetics are gruesome in my opinion).

My criteria are relatively simple:

·   LCD HD Ready
·   40-42 inch screen preferred (but not a “must”)
·   Importantly, my antenna is a small TNT one attached to the tv currently – I have no external tv socket at all – is this a problem??!! 
·   Budget not that important (but if I pay 50% more for the new generation Sony for example, I need to be sure I would get the real benefit)
·   Durability – I change tvs once every 15 years on average!
·   I hardly watch tv itself (I do not have either cable or satellite, and Swiss tv is pretty limited!)
·   I do watch dvds (which is my highest quality need) and even old videos
·   I have not (as yet) connected the pc to the tv, but I do have my pc in the same room
·   The tv would be in a relatively small room (distance to couch of about 8 feet)
·   The aesthetics are not important at the end of the day, but it’s clear that the look of the Philips is stunning by comparison...

1. Would a user like myself get the value from the W3000 incremental price over the W2000?
2. Am I looking at problems watching any tv without an external antenna/ aerial?
3. Is there a general differentiator between Sony's use of "W" series and "X" series?
4. Am I missing something by sticking with the Sony's?

Thanks for any comments/ guidance from you more experienced chaps...

[maxxam]

gruezi aus der schweiz

me bought the w3000, great thing. if u buy go 2 hubacherhifi, he gave me 5yrs warantry, go pricing and very fast shipping (had it after 2days). (if u go tell him mr stoll sent u ):

4get ur old films its bluray time, old films look odd . or u have 2 buy an upscaling dvd player, or go for a ps3.

if u wanna keep for 15yrs longtime , then go for the w3000, maybe even x3500 or 4 the same money 46w3000.

and by the way if u got cable @ home, the dvd-c tuner works fine 4 me. digital tv! and u also got a CI slot.


greetz

[ticolico]

Thanks for the info on the site - will save till "decision time".

However, my reception issue is that I do NOT have: cable/ satellite/ antenna on roof.

I have been using a small aerial that came with the TNT decoder and that works fine on current tv.

I have no idea what reception would be like on a lcd tv...

[maxxam]

well everthing thats not digital, looks shit. and even normal digital tv aint great except its hd 1080i.

if i where u get a dvb-s (satelite) or dvb-t (dvb-t only got the ch channels sf1-2 and the italian).

resume: no hd signal then its not really worth buying a lcd, my opinion!

[Ringo1]

Great review!  I have had my 40W3000 for nearly two weeks now and am slowly getting used to the large number of configuration options (my previous TV was a KLV-L31M1).  One thing I can't understand is why the DRC option is always greyed out.  My inputs are PS3 (software 2.01) and Sky HD box, both feeding in via HDMI.  My Sky HD box is usually set to output at 1080i but I have also tried it at 576 and 720p.  The DRC option is greyed out with all these output settings (including when watching SD).  Is there something wrong with my TV?

I would also like to add my voice to all those requesting details of the calibration settings you used.

[yolan]

Hello.

I'm about to receive this set (hopefully beforE the weekend!!)

Vincent, I loved your review and I am also very interested in getting your post-calibration settings. Will you be so kind as to post them.... PLEASE 

Thank you so much!!

[dajumper]

i am decicing between the 40W3000 c£1350 internet or Panasonic 42PZ70B c£970 both are offering free 5 years warranty if purchased before xmas 2007.

One major set back of the Panasonic is that it's very power hungry consuming 495W on normal watching mode compared to c240W on the Sony.

Can any one advise on the main differences... opinions please and if worth the extra £300 on the Sony.

Many thanks

[anderslofberg]

One major set back of the Panasonic is that it's very power hungry consuming 495W on normal watching mode compared to c240W on the Sony.

I've measured the power consumption of the 40W3000.
Power off, from button on top of the tv: 15W
Power off from remote: 30W
Calibrated picture in dark enviroment: 110W
Calibrated picture i daytime light: 150W

The settings I used is similar to those Vincent used in the X3500 review.

So the difference is even bigger than you suggested.

[dajumper]

Thanks Anders....

Are there anything that you dislike or not too happy with the W3000?

Thanks

[anderslofberg]

It's a great TV. I use it with a HTPC.

The only drawback is the viewing angle. It's quite narrow. I would say that it's not 90° as stated here in the review on HDTVtest. If you would like a good picture with deep blacks and accurate colours I suggest no more than 45-60° viewing angle.