Sony KDL-40XBR2

The KDL40XBR2 is a Bravia XBR Sony television model. This widescreen LCD television has a picture resolution of 1080p that is HD ready.

Features

The Bravia Engine Pro video processor works to improve the color on the widescreen LCD television. It has 16:9 aspect ratio and an image resolution of 1920 pixels by 1080 pixels for a high definition picture on the screen. This TV model is packaged with two 11 watt speakers with Vesa mounting and it has a power consumption of 227 watts. The screen display has a wide angle of 178 degrees by 178 degrees. There are tuners for NTSC, ATSC and QAM that can capture over-the-air broadcasts from non-terrestrial affiliate networks. It has auto channel setup, closed captioning, parental control lock, last channel recall, sleep timer, and multi-lingual menu for English, Spanish, and French. This widescreen television model has inputs for PC, HDMI, S-video, composite video, and RF.

Review Summary

What is there to say about the Sony Bravia KDL-40XBR2? It is made by Sony, a leader in manufacturing gadgets for our personal entertainment and one of the main players in the field of the LCD TV. What else can you expect from the best, except that it delivers, and it delivers well?

Design-wise, the Sony Bravia KDL-40XBR2 is sleek and chic. Previous models of LCD TV that Sony released sported a silver bezel, but with the Sony Bravia KDL-40XBR2, you can choose between arctic white, pacific blue, velvet black, scarlet red and sienna brown. Of course such a treat does not come for free. If you want a pretty frame that is not the default silver, you have to cough up a couple hundred bucks for it. If you think that price is too steep, stick to the silver one and save your cash for other, more worthwhile goodies.

Performance-wise, the Sony Bravia KDL-40XBR2 is one of the LCD HDTV sets around that can deliver the deepest black, almost the way plasma TV renders it. The color performance and the rendering of details are also exemplary, but that is to be expected from a television set with a 1080p natural resolution. Off-angle viewing, a common pitfall of LCD TV, is also handled well by this model. This means that the viewer does not have to worry about colors washing out too much when a scene is looked at from the side or at an angle.

The big issue with the Sony Bravia KDL-40XBR2, however, is that at a mere 40 inches, the screen is too small to be able to handle all the great details that a 1080p natural resolution can bring to the enjoyment of a TV viewer. Another one is that the Sony Bravia KDL-40XBR2 does not accurately process standard definition TV input and analog signals. Naturally, because it is, after all, an HD TV, the Sony Bravia KDL-40XBR2 is best enjoyed with HD TV signals.