Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Sony Bravia KDL-46EX523

Review:

Just as it was at the height of the cathode-ray television's popularity, the sub-$1,000 mark is a sweet spot for flat-panel TV purchasing today. Back then Panasonic and Sony were much more popular than LG or Samsung, but things have changed.

Sony has typically been a peg or two more expensive than its rivals but is now producing some value-conscious, high-enough-quality screens. The Sony EX523 series is an example of a television with a decent feature set and image quality that stands up well against the competition. It's an edge-lit LED TV that performs about as ... Expand full review

Just as it was at the height of the cathode-ray television's popularity, the sub-$1,000 mark is a sweet spot for flat-panel TV purchasing today. Back then Panasonic and Sony were much more popular than LG or Samsung, but things have changed.

Sony has typically been a peg or two more expensive than its rivals but is now producing some value-conscious, high-enough-quality screens. The Sony EX523 series is an example of a television with a decent feature set and image quality that stands up well against the competition. It's an edge-lit LED TV that performs about as well as the LG LV5500, although each has its strengths and weaknesses. If you're a stickler looking for accurate colors or are bothered by uniformity issues it's not the TV for you, but otherwise the EX523 represents a solid value.

Series information: We performed a hands-on evaluation of the KDL-46EX523, but this review also applies to the other screen sizes in the series. All sizes have identical specs and according to the manufacturer should provide very similar picture quality.

Just as this year's Apple iPhone looks like the one before it, Sony's designs for 2011 remain largely unchanged from 2010. While it's easy to tell the difference between some competitor's TVs--the distinctive Samsung D8000/D7000 being an extreme example--the only way to distinguish the EX523 from the EX720 or the 2010 EX700 is to take a gander at tiny model number printed on the back panel. The EX523 has a gun-metal lower bezel and black surrounds, which could be kindly described as "understated" or unkindly as "dowdy."

The television is quite slim as a result of the edge-lighting system. It features a swivel base for times when you're not able to watch TV from the couch.


The EX520 shares a similar look to last year's EX with its gun-metal bezel.

Sony's controllers have rocked the concave look this year with a slight inward curve--perhaps as a remote tie-in with the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc (Remote. Get it?) As with previous remotes we appreciate the dedicated media buttons such as Netflix in addition to its ease of use.

Pressing the Home button brings up Sony's redesigned (for 2011) Xross Media Bar (XMB) with easy access to settings, network media content, and other (non-Netflix) streaming services. The menu is a tweaked version of the existing XMB with a right-handed orientation, allowing you to continue watching your program in a picture-in-picture display. Even if you haven't used a Sony device before, you'll find it quite intuitive.


The Sony's menu allows picture-in-picture.

Features

We tend to think streaming media is a much more important feature than 3D, so the EX523's mix of "2D-only" plus Sony's robust Internet suite is pretty appealing. While you can buy a device like a Roku or WD TV Live to add streaming to any TV, some people might appreciate having it integrated into the TV. The Sony EX523 with its Netflix button simplifies the task tremendously, and if you want 3D, there's always the EX720.

The EX523 replaces the existing EX520 but trawling through the specs list it's difficult to see what has changed, but the answer is: onboard Wi-Fi. The 520 only features optional Wi-Fi and so incorporating it makes features such as Netflix more compelling.

Other: Gracenote TrackID; 28+ niche video services; Sony's Qriocity video and music service; Yahoo! Widgets; Picasa, Photobucket and Shutterfly

Joining Netflix in the premium streaming department are Amazon Instant, Hulu Plus, and Pandora. The TV also features access to Sony's own Sony Entertainment Network (nee Qriocity) streaming for both music--subscription or otherwise--and videos. Other hidden gems include full-length concerts on MoshCam shot in venues around Sydney, Australia, and of course YouTube. The only missing link is Vudu.

Check our comparison chart for details on how Sony's Internet offerings stack up to the competition's. We ranked it fifth overall mainly because the company's custom interfaces for services like Amazon and Netflix lag behind the default versions found on other TVs. The NX720 review and our separate write-up of Gracenote have more details if you're curious.


On most devices, Netflix uses its own interface, but here it gets a Sony makeover.Fine color temperature controlHide Review Next page

LG prides itself on its tweakability, but Sony is a little more reserved in handing over the reins to users wanting more control over image quality. While Sony offers a plethora of picture presets, including a very good Cinema mode, there isn't much for advanced users to sink their teeth into.

Other:Side headphone jack with separate volume control

Connectivity is fairly standard for a 2011 TV with the highlight being the four HDMI ports. By incorporating the Wi-Fi adapter inside the unit, the EX523 has freed up a USB slot, leaving you with two.


Four HDMI ports are par for the course these days.

Performance
Just as there are limits to features, the type of performance you can expect from an LCD at this level is also reduced. The Sony's real shortcomings are in shadow detail, color accuracy and uniformity, including off-axis performance. It scored the same 6 rating as the similarly priced LG LV5500, and we'd call them about even, although each has different strengths and weaknesses. Overall the EX523 performs well for the price, especially in a bright room.

During our calibration process we found that fine-tuning the Sony is quite difficult. The problem is that the advanced settings are very coarse, and the delicate, rainforest-like ecology of the TV's picture can be thrown right out with only the tiniest change. As a result, we were able to improve the default picture but not by a lot. Of course you can always use the settings linked here, but know that you'll also get an image that's quite close to the TV's best simply by choosing the Cinema 1 mode under the Cinema "scene" option.

Black level: All told, the EX523 fell into the middle of our pack at conjuring a deep black. It got slightly deeper black than the other two Sonys did in our comparison, including the more expensive EX720, and outdid the LG in this area by a somewhat larger margin. The Samsung LND630 was better, however, and when comparing the EX523 to the Samsung 6400 and the Panasonic plasma, there is no contest.

Watching the slow fly-by of the Romulan ship from "Star Trek" demonstrated that the Sony can lose its hold on shadow detail with the ship becoming a World of Goo-type blob instead of the deadly ninja pine-cone you can clearly see on the Samsung or the Panasonic ST30. Both are a little more expensive, but if you watch in the dark, you'd be better served investing a little more than in the EX523.

Color accuracy: If you're not paying much money you can't expect reference-level accuracy, and while the Sony is lively and relatively faithful in bright scenes, dark ones do suffer. Sony TVs we've tested have exhibited some "blue push," and on the EX523 we found this predilection quite difficult to correct. Due to a lack of picture controls, it's impossible to do much with the blue blacks. Higher up the spectrum color appeared a little more natural, but we did see the TV had a strange tendency to kick out blues in some brighter areas too (80 IRE if you're counting).

Video processing: Sony prides itself on video processing, and the EX523 certainly lives up to the company's hallmarks. Despite being "only" a 60Hz TV, it was able to pass our 24p processing tests with flying colors, ensuring smooth pans during Blu-ray movies without artifacts or jerkiness. The TV was also able to resolve 1080i content without distracting jaggies. In this regard it performed a margin better than the Sony EX720, which is more expensive.

The lack of a 120Hz mode means that motion resolution is low, however, and it barely managed to scrape past 320 lines out of a possible 1080 on moving content. While the times when this would be visible are few, in some circumstances (such as tickers at the bottoms of some channels) it means blurred leading or trailing edges.

Uniformity: Apart from a lack of detail in shadows, the thing that really messes things up for the Sony is its backlighting problems: watch a dark movie and you'll see large gray splodges on the screen. This year's EX720 had the same issue, but side-by-side the EX523 is far worse.

Bright lighting: Though ostensibly a matte screen, the EX523 is a little more glossy than most and off-axis you can see a little more reflectivity than other matte screens. Off-axis is also a problem with the lights off, and if you turn the backlight down, you can lessen the effect but you also lose too much brightness.

Power consumption: Though the company has experimented with different forms of backlighting, particularly with the hot cathode technology that debuted and ended with the VE5, the EX523 is straight-old LED. But unlike some of the more experimental lighting methods, the long-term power usage benefits of LED is well known. It was able to score a very good 63.98W with a calibrated picture, which is one of the best results we've seen in a while.

Motion resolution (dejudder off)

Annual energy consumption cost after calibration

Conclusion
At the moment, the sub-$1,000 television market is dominated by one TV: the Panasonic ST30. While there are a few nuggets here and there--the LG LV5500 and the Samsung 6400--they still have their problems. The Sony isn't quite able to compete with any of these three, but is definitely a better value than the Sony EX720, which is about $300 more expensive. The addition of onboard wireless makes the EX523 easier than ever to connect to online content, and picture quality is fine for the money.

Sony KDL-46EX523 CNET review calibration results

(Read more about how we test TVs.)

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