Sony BRAVIA KDL-52W4100 52" HDTV LCD TV

When our old Sony Big Screen started to have audio problems we contemplated fixing it but because of visual problems we'd also begun to have with it we were afraid to put any money into repairs fearing that we'd wind up sinking more and more into it.  So we started shopping around for new TVs.  WOW!  It was like we'd come out of a cave and gone straight into the future.  We had not TV shopped in so many years we practically needed to learn a new language.  What with 1080p and HD etc. we felt a bit lost. 

We started out narrowing down our search by deciding on size and brand.  Based on the size of our living room and the distance between the sofa and the TV we chose the 52 inch.  Based on all our other electronics products being Sony, including this Sony Vaio laptop that I'm typing on, we chose the Sony brand.  Then we started going to electronics stores such as Best Buy, Conns, and the Sony Store.  From talking with the Best Buy guy we determined that we did not want Plasma - which was good because Sony didn't make a 52" plasma.  Best Buy explained a bit of the lingo but they also told us that in addition to buying the TV we would be best to buy their "calibration" service for an extra $300 whereas they would deliver the TV and "calibrate" it using a computer. 

NOT SO!, says the Sony guy.  These TVs are ready to go out of the box.  The Sony guy also explained the rhyme and reason to the model numbers.  KDL is just sort of a TV thing as opposed to PCG, for example, that starts off their Sony Vaio laptop models.  The first number (52) is the size of the screen - of course this is measured diagonally as it has been for decades.  The next letter (W) is sort of a tier system - starting at the back of the alphabet.  XBR is the best, Z is the second best, Y is the third best, and so on.  The final number (4100) indicates the newness of the model.  Also, typically in the Sony world the W4100 becomes next years V5100 so it drops down a letter and up a number.  Now, as to what's included in the specific letter - you really have to dig in and investigate by looking online or going straight to the Sony Store.  We went online and compared features and read about the individual features.  For example, a Z model might have 27 features and a X model might have 22 but one of the features on the X may not be on the Z. 

So, it's really about deciding what's important to you.  Overall we are so pleased with our new TV.  The picture is OUTSTANDING, especially compared to what we had been used to, a grainy pictures full of lines that had gradually worsened over the years so that we really didn't realize how bad it was until we went and saw the beautiful new screens.  In fact, the night before we went shopping we had seen Cars on TV.  When we were in the Sony store they were showing the Cars Blue-Ray and we were so impressed with the details like the rust falling off or the tar on McQueen after the race that we just plain didn't see on our TV.

To my surprise, the Sony Store prices were comparable to other electronic stores.  For a while they even had a sale price that blew the screens off the other stores.  But, alas, we waited too long and missed the sale.  We wound up searching the internet and found a fantastic price at homegoodz.com.  Not without a bit of hassle and upsale tactics but still were very pleased with the overall purchase.  We mounted the TV on the wall and got a shelving unit to go under it.  The modern age is really a marvelous thing!

Some of my favorite features of our TV are the sleep timer and, even better, the wake-up timer.  Our little boy still doesn't understand that morning does not come at 4:30 am.  So, I am able to set the wake-up timer to come on at a reasonable hour and we are teaching him that if the TV is on then it is morning time but if it's not than he needs to go back to sleep.  (Of course, I leave it tuned to his favorite channel in the hopes that he'll just sit down and watch and let us sleep in a bit...)

I also think it's cool that the Sony logo glows when the TV is on.  But, if you find that annoying you can easily turn off that feature using the menus that are easy to navigate with the remote.  I also like the Picture in Picture.  Our old TV had that feature but it never worked with the satellite.  Nowadays it's called Picture and Picture (P&P).  It still doesn't work with two satellite channels but you can have one window as the satellite and one as the DVD or Wii or whatever else you have plugged in.