 Sony Z zooms past current XBR |
| Review Date: July 19, 2008 |
| Reviewer: S. Smith, East Texas |
The 10-bit Z series 40" Sony LCDs are the absolute best. This TV sends XBR down a notch. Digital source material will jump out at you like never before. Gorgous color and contrast. The best yet.
1080i TV broadcast looks about 90% as good as Blu-ray on this panel. The delivery of non-HD DVD movies is wonderful and the picture using Blu Ray is absolutely stunning! (I rarely use the word "stunning")
Also, it's very future-proof with lots of (4) HDMI inputs and a LAN connection and USB. I've had the KDL 40Z4100 for about 2 weeks now and the ranking of picture quality goes as follows: Blu Ray (late release)movies, Digital HD television broadcast or HD digital cable, standard def (480 or 720) movies from a good quality "upscaling" player, and finally - standard def TV broadcast. The 120hz motion control and 24p pull-down work well on older standard def movies. My only advice is to not scrimp on the DVD player. You're going to see your old flicks look better than you have seen them...ever - with a good upscalling player.
Even video sources from my computer look near HD. I've connected my computers 8800GT graphics card's DVI out to the Sony's HDMI input and the look of some of my games is just as good, if not better, than my 22'' Samsung monitor.
This is Sony's best so far, in my humble opinion. Go for it! |
Fantastic LCD TV
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| Review Date: September 4, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Nak, New York, NY |
I was looking for a 40" LCD and narrowed it down to the Sony 40Z4100, Sony 40XBR4, and Samsung LN40A750... I've previously owned a 46" Samsung LN-T4665F and a Samsung LN-T3253H so naturally I wanted to go back to Samsung. The picture on the 750 is amazing but side by side, in multiple stores, I just couldn't take my eyes off the Sony LCDs. I then was stuck between the Sony 40XBR4 and the 40Z4100...
I had my heart set on the XBR4 since it was Sony's top of the line product last year, but when I saw that this years 40" XBR6 and XBR7 were going to have identical specs to the Z4100, (granted Contrast Ratio will probably be higher on the XBR's,) it came down to the simple question of:
Do I want to spend $2500+ on the new XBR or $1700+ on the Z4100??
I have to say I'm extremely happy with my decision to save a few bucks and go with the Z-series. The picture quality is breathtaking in both HD and Blu-Ray. Standard TV is top notch as well but I'm blown away with the detail, color, and overall picture this TV offers. You really can't lose if you're going with any of these 3 TV's but I'm so glad I went with the Z-series. Its thin frame is hardly seen and the TV is almost 20 lbs lighter than the XBR4... The Sony 40Z4100, is hands down, my choice for a 40" LCD. |
Always beautiful
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| Review Date: October 4, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Paul Sturm, Arlington, TX United States |
I have the 40 inch version and while the HD is amazing, I think where it will stand out to the average users is it's ability to upscale standard definition signals. It does an amazing job. I have (non-HD) Dish Network (at least until AT&T's U-verse is available on my block) and this set gives my Dish Network subscription a new lease on life.
The other killer feature is the 'favorites' button on the remote. It will allow you to select which input to view by a animated, ribbon like menu of icons (XBR) that you can somewhat customize. This makes it simple to change sources for those less likely to understand HDMI1, HDMI2, Component 1, Composite, etc.
Picture quality is flawless. The only thing it doesn't have is...wait, it's not missing anything. This costs more than most it's size but it fits smaller spaces since the speakers are under the LCD and the frame around the LCD is less than 1 inch.
This set gave me the most bang for the space, not buck. It's not the cheapest but I have no buyer's remorse either - and I AM cheap. |
Whoa! Nice picture!
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| Review Date: December 12, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Randell J. Grenier, |
I'm very happy with this purchase. I've read other owners' responses on various web sites, and I think that people don't realize the many issues that affect picture quality including inconsistent broadcasts and many picture settings.
The Sony Bravia KDL-40Z4100 comes with several picture modes: Standard, Vivid, Cinema, and Custom. Each of these can be customized with settings for contrast, brightness, color saturation, color temperature, backlight adjustment, noise reduction, and some advanced settings which amongst other things include options to use the wide gamut color space to take advantage of the 10-bit color. I recommend leaving all of these picture modes at the factory settings except the Custom mode which you can experiment with. Each mode has a Reset option so you can restore the factory defaults if you've mucked anything up.
The commentators at cnet.com and others pretty much parrot each other that the manufacturers deliberately deliver the TV's with gaudy color settings so that we morons will go gah-gah when we see them on the wall at a brightly lit Bestbuy. I think its a little more complex than that. In the case of the Sony Bravias, they are typically displayed in the Vivid mode to accommodate the brightly lit showrooms. However, even that picture mode is pretty good... in bright lighting. After all, the manufacturers want these things to look good on display, and they know people shelling out thousands of dollars for a set will tend to be very discriminating. I think the Sony engineers are a little smarter than the pundits give them credit for.
I purchased the "Digital Video Essentials: HD Basics" disk on Blu-ray to calibrate the picture. I carefully went through the explanations and the test patterns. However, I still get the best picture from the factory settings for the Standard picture mode. I've also tried a number of recommended settings downloaded from the Internet. Still, Standard picture mode is the best. My main criteria for judging the picture is how close it is to reality, and I have several Blu-rays, DVD's and some broadcast stuff that I know what they are supposed to look like.
I have been really appreciating seeing dark scenes clearly on the new KDL-40Z4100. Again, I'm using the default settings for contrast, brightness, and backlight. I know there is controversy about contrast ratios, but I can't imagine any better than deep black, bright clear white, and excellent detail in every shade in between.
Motion is also excellent. I watched ape-men fighting scenes and ballet-like spacecraft movements in 2001 A Space Odyssey on Blu-ray, a really fast action sequence in Casino Royale on HBO/HD, and a few Celtics games in HD on cable. All motion was completely smooth, and I saw zero artifacts. It has been quite a relief after seeing so much choppy motion on other sets in the showroom.
Now for the negatives: I bought a Sony Blu-ray player and a Sony Soundbar receiver/speaker system. There is a feature called Bravia Synch which is supposed to make Sony products more compatible with each other allowing you to turn things on and off with one button and a few other capabilities. I have meticulously gone through the manuals and tried various connection configurations, but I can't get the Bravia Synch to work--yet. This negative is somewhat offset by the fact that the remote is a universal remote that can easily be programmed to operate the other devices.
Another irritation is that I can't get closed captioning to work correctly. The options are Off, On, and On with Muting. Nothing works. I emailed Sony support, and to their credit they quickly responded, but the bad news is that you can't get closed captioning when using a cable set top box with an HDMI connection. Any closed captioning has to come from the STB itself. I got that to work, but it takes several steps through menus with the STB remote each time I want to turn closed captioning on or off. A minor nuisance.
However, there's more good stuff:
- 120 Hz
- 10-bit color; xvYCC; wide color gamut; deep color.
- Plug in a USB flash drive and listen to MP3's and view digital photos.
- Connect your laptop with an RGB cable and stereo audio connector.
- Optical digital connection for great digital sound.
- Really good programmable universal remote.
- Slim, modern design--best looking set on the wall.
BTW, Amazon has the best price for the KDL-40Z4100.
UPDATE 1/2/09: I've been reading other reviews about "sparkles" on the V-Series. There is a free software upgrade on sony.com that addresses that. Though I haven't experienced the so-called sparkles, I upgraded the software anyway. It's pretty easy. Just copy the file to a USB flash drive, plug it in to the TV, and follow simple instructions.
Also, in my review I mentioned using default factory settings for Standard picture mode. I now find myself more and more using the Vivid picture mode. Colors look really natural but a little brighter, and the contrast ratio is visibly better.
I am very discriminating and usually quite critical when it comes to consumer technologies. I wouldn't have written this rave review if this wasn't an amazing TV. I've looked closely at the pictures on many HDTV sets, and this one is really more advanced. I have nothing to gain in saying this except to tip off people that this is a really good set.
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Well worth the price
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| Review Date: September 14, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Patrick Stark, Central WI |
| I have been using an old 27 inch Zenith for over 6 years and the color was really starting to bleed so I started looking into lcd tv's and found the sony KDL-40Z4100/B and was very impressed with the features that it offered. I spent at least a month researching tvs but still came back the the sony. The sony tv was a bit more than the others but my parents have a 52" JVC HD-ILA tv and this I feel is no comparison to mine now. I find myself watching the HD stations the majority of the time but am also very impressed at the regular channels. I really like the slim bezel design, it helps give the tv a lighter foot print. |
Great TV!
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| Review Date: October 3, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Bads, Norman, OK USA |
| Lots of research went into selecting this television, both on-line and in the store. The picture & sound quality is outstanding and more features than we need right now. After waiting for weeks at Sears, we finally gave up and ordered it from Amazon and had it in a few days! The delivery service was superb! This TV looks great too, especially because of the really thin bezel...it seems like a bigger picture than 40". Completely pleased with this Sony! |
no white cloud and no sparkles
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| Review Date: July 18, 2008 |
| Reviewer: lcfeminist, Baltimore USA |
I've only had this tv for a week, but I haven't had any problem at all with a white cloud or sparkles. I think it's too expensive, but I also wanted many of the features that it offers and that I haven't seen from any other maker in this size and with a picture this realistic. I've had three Trinitrons over the years and quite a few other Sony products. Except for one experience with a telephone that only lasted a year, I've never had a problem. This is my first HDTV and I'm still working through trying out all of the features. I'll write more when I've had more experience with it.
Update: Now that I've had more experience with this TV I really love it! Watching the opening ceremonies from the summer Olympics on this TV was an amazing experience.
I've only had one problem: occasionally the audio would just stop. If I changed the channel it would come back immediately. I went to the Sony support site today and found out that they have a new software update for this TV. You can either download the update to a flash drive, or call Sony and have them send you a flash drive containing the update. That's the route I decided to take as it will give me a Sony flash drive to use just for future updates. (The software update covers the audio problem and a few other issues that I haven't experienced with my TV.) |
Amazing Picture!
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| Review Date: November 25, 2008 |
| Reviewer: A. Catalano, Mclean, Va |
Bought the Sony 40" 1080P Z LCD running with PS3 over Monster 1000M HDMI. Verdict, Amazing Picture! Go ahead buy Wall-E BluRay and turn on the TVs Motion Enhancer on Standard or High. This is as close to 3D as you can get. Absolutey breath taking during the SpaceWalk scene.
LCD pix looks very good with HD TV and digital cable even looks better then regular 1080I TVs. Amazon is currently offering this TV at a huge discount. Buy this TV or its 46" sister, and you will be happy. The TV on Vivid setting is very bright so you will need to have a very bright roon or manually tweak the custom setting. Also, TV comes with no cables, so you will need to buy high end cables for your HDTV and Blu Ray to get the perfect picture. |
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