Sony KP-57XBR10W 57 in. TV

Everyday I see people come into my the store I work at and ask me which HDTV projection set is the best, and before I answer them, they instantly say, "Sony's the best right?" Well yes and no. If you talk about Picture tube televisions, in other words, TVs 36" and under, Sony is supreme among the brands I sell in my store (Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, Sharp, Hitachi) but above that... It does not seem to be true. If you walk into a store right now, (August 2001) You will find salesman pushing the 57" XBR, as well as the 65" XBR. Why you ask? Not because it is the best tv, but because there is a $500 mail in rebate on 57" XBR and 65", but more important to the salesman is the $150 spiff (award paid to salesman through Sony). If you were the salesman, would you push the set where you would get about $20, or the one where you would get $170 from selling it. I think the choice is obvious. But anyways, thats enough inside info, for now. It seems that the widescreen field is getting narrow nowadays. For one thing, Toshiba's 56H80 is barely available, if at all. Toshiba is coming out with a new model this september. Sharp's 55" Widescreen HDTV has problems, and are being recalled...Panasonic's current model is junk. What does this leave?? Sony. I'm not saying the Sony is a bad tv, but it does not compare to the Toshiba widescreen. Toshiba is superior in color, inputs, sharpness, price, size, you name it. Sony's XBR widescreen series does not offer 2 HDTV inputs, which means, you can only have your proggesive DVD player on, OR your HDTV decoder, not both, without getting an amplified HDTV combiner, which is silly to have on a tv which costs $3500. Suggested price for this set is $4000. Expect to pay $3500, perhaps haggle for $3200 if you are good. :-) Remember the $500 rebate too! I believe it is good until september 31st.

This set does have a couple cool features, like the fact that you can hook up your receiver to this TV and use the onboard speakers as your center channel. (Up to 120 Watts!) Which is a lot of power. No more clunky center channel speakers on top of your television. That being said, the built in quality of sound is excellent. However, the picture quality does fail when put in a side by side comparison next to a Sharp or a Toshiba. (Running identical cables to both from a Progessive scanning DVD player (Toshiba's SD9200)) To put it lightly, we had to move the Toshiba TV away from the Sony so people would still buy the Sony. People still come into the store soo fixed on Sony, and who am I to convice them otherwise, its an extra $150 to me. However, if someone comes into the store with an open mind, I'll inform them of the sets available, their stengths and weaknesses, then allow them to choose. I'd rather have that customer come back next time they need something than feel screwed if they buy the Sony. Antother thing that irks me...On the Toshiba, you can adjust each region with each color in order to have the maximum convergence, which means the maximum sharpness. The Sony only focuses on the center, which means poor edge clarity.

Thumbs down on this one sony, you messed up. price is too much, only 1 HDTV input. I Suggest you to buy a toshiba for $1000 less and go out and you have enough money for the Sony HDTV decoder/DSS DirecTV receiver and dish.