Nick Race28 February 2008, 12:18 AM
So, what does $9,999 worth of LCD TV get you? This baby: the Sony Bravia 52in X Series (52X) monster — straight out of a sci-fi movie set.
This silver behemoth is arguably the best 1080p LCD TV on the market — though the technology in LCD panels is changing so quickly, it might not hold the crown for long, considering Sony’s got ten new full HD models coming out this year.
With an image on it, the Sony glows. Pictures are clear, bright and vivid, with colour reproduction saturated and vibrant, giving a three-dimensionality to the image that really works. On the flip side, it deals well (though not as well as a plasma, mind you) with reproduction during dark or ‘black’ images. Smearing or ghosting with fast-moving images wasn’t noticed too readily. The built-in HD tuner, in conjunction with the ‘Bravia Engine’ used for cleaning up fuzzy images is effective. HD content from free-to-air sources looked excellent — this is definitely a dream screen for the World Cup!
The 52X is over 1.4m wide and almost 90cm tall when sitting on its table stand — an imposing piece of furniture for any room. Thankfully, the silver colour scheme and perspex edging does break it up a little, so it doesn’t seem to cover an entire wall. For the fashion-conscious, Sony offers black, blue, red, brown and white bezels for $699 as well. Inputs are generous, including two HDMI, three component inputs, two S-Videos, one VGA and three composite connectors.