Sony KLV-46W400A LCD Review

[iSonics]

Sony has launched KLV-46W400A so that buying a 46-inch LCD monitor does not burn a hole in your pocket and still you get a very good display. This model is cheap as compared with the equivalent Samsung models with similar features. However, the picture quality is not as good as the equally priced Samsung model. This LCD is positioned in the line of KDL-45W4100 which was released in Europe, but without 100hz technology & slightly lower powered speakers

The brief summary of good features of this product is that it produces a deep level of black, accurate primary color, dejudder mode is really powerful and it smoothes the scenes with motion, the screen has vibrant ambient lighting, connectivity is mind blowing with four HDMI ports and a VGA input, it has a good style and has many options to ease customizing the display. The brief summary of bad features of this product is that the black level is not uniform and it keeps fluctuating, viewing angle is also good, menu is not user friendly and color coding has some flaws. Conclusion is that except for dejudder the video quality is below average.

Design

KLV-46W400A has a pleasant look. You can view the silver pedestal stand along with the complete view of the screen. It has a refreshing look and looks a lot different from conventional LCD monitors. KLV-46W400A is 44.1 inches wide and 29.3 inches deep and weighs 58 pounds. We admired the design of the remote control as well. Remote control looks sleek and classy but it does not has a back light which makes it very difficult to use in dark but you get used to a remote easily and then there is no need to peep into the remote for using it. Menu is unmanaged as there are more vertical than horizontal icons. Sony, we think forgot that this monitor is much wider than its length. The main menu has too many options. According to us main menu should be kept as simple as possible. Sony has added a favorite screen and this screen not only tells you the favorite channels but can have shortcuts for all your most frequently used options and also you can configure it to show the last used inputs.

Features

KLV-46W400A has features matching those available only in HDTVs with price much lower than HDTVs. The screen has a dejudder video processing and a motion enhancer which provides a high quality output. The resolution is 1920 x 1080 which is highest available in market today. There are four picture presets offered which can also be manually adjusted by the user. Every single option can be adjusted and saved for single channel. Theater mode cannot be adjusted at all. Settings like noise reduction, color temperature can also be adjusted. These settings make a very good impact on the screen and are found in few LCD monitors of this category. There is a menu option for changing gamma settings as well but it should be kept off for best quality as adjusting gamma will always reduce the quality and its best set by the manufacturers only. Menu has extraordinary graphics and changes in aspect ratio can be seen very clearly.

Sony has pre-configured the LCD monitor for play stations as well. The gaming mode removes all the video processing and makes sure that there is no delay between a game controller and a screen. A photo/video optimizer is also provided to make the gaming experience a good one. Video processing options include MotionFlow and CineMotion which help the LCD monitor to attain better video processing. Sony has provided four aspects ratio modes for High Definition sources such as input from HDMI. There are also options for HD input which allows them to display without any scaling or over scan.

There is an onscreen TV guide. We really like this feature and is only present in HDTVs. The onscreen TV guide gives step by step instructions to make the settings. There is also a picture-in-picture mode. But the secondary window can just play input from TV/antenna. HDMI port is also available. The KLV-46W400A also has a power saving mode in which you can reduce the power consumed by the monitor by reducing the colors and brightness. Connectivity can be made through all possible modes such as through HDMI input, component video jacks, old fashioned VGA input from PC, Audio and Video input with S-Video and composite video, a RF cable input, an analog audio output and an optical digital audio output. These ports are spread on side and back panel of the LCD monitor.

Performance

KLV-46W400A has a good video processing but the back light keep fluctuating. Menu is a complicated and it’s difficult to adjust screen quality as the menu is not user friendly. This monitor has a very good shadow detail and is as good as that of an HDTV.

Color accuracy of the KDL-46W4100 is good and primary color efficiency is also superb. Motion scenes are displayed properly with the help of MotionFlow processing. There was no uniformity in the display and we saw that dark areas were glowing and colors were not displayed uniformly. Further, when we tried watching the LCD monitor from different angles we saw that there was no uniformity in different colors and some times the screen was going blue and yellow when we saw it from different angles.

We also checked the performance of the HDMI input port by connecting it with a Dell Studio Laptop. We found that a menu was displayed automatically as soon as the LCD monitor received input from the HDMI port. The menu was asking the scaling options but there was no need because the video was already of high quality. We tried some presentations which were good with the white background.

The Sony Bravia KLV-46W400A under performed when we checked its standard definition performance. There were lines in many scenes when we played a DVD movie on this LCD monitor. This LCD monitor can display very deep shade of black and is the best that we saw in models from other brands of this category. It’s not as dark as plasma TV’s yet. Maybe the video processing of this model is slow because we saw fluctuation when there were bright scenes following dark ones and again dark.

The best part was noise reduction which really makes your experience a good one. Unfortunately there was no movie mode which can be used to optimize the display of DVD video. When connected with PC via VGA port, the monitor performed well we also tried playing a video but the quality was not as good because of the resolution. This LCD monitor should preferably be used via HDMI port to connect to a laptop or PC and not via VGA. We also played a PC game with input on this monitor. We played Need for Speed Carbon. The graphics were superb and also we also connected the audio via audio-in port and the feel was just like playing a PS3 on this monitor. The graphics and audio were simply superb as Sony has optimized the graphics of KLV-46W400A for games and we could see the difference.

Price

Though sony always carries higher price tags, Sony Bravia KLV-46W400A appeared in market for decent price of Rs 153,500 or less