Sony Bravia L-Series KDL-26L5000 26-Inch 720p LCD HDTV, Black
by Sony
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List Price: Category: Home Theater See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Sony Bravia L-Series KDL-26L5000 26-Inch 720p LCD HDTV, Black
Customer Review: The Sony Bravia is an oustanding TV
Summary: 5 Stars
This Tv is outstanding. It has a great picture. I plan to purchase another one in the near future.Customer Review: sony tv
Summary: 5 Stars
TV was of high quality we expected
Delivery was on time
Very satisfied with purchase
Customer Review: BEST VALUE
Summary: 5 Stars
DOLLAR FOR DOLLAR THIS IS THE BEST 26" LCD ON THE MARKET TODAY.EXCELLENT PICYURE QUALITY.Customer Review: Great for the money
Summary: 5 Stars
Super TV, great HD for the money. Sound quality is good, but not great.Customer Review: Well above average, with notable limitations
Summary: 4 Stars
(Revised 2/21/2010: Sorry, folks, the Red push is just too much for the mrs and me. I'm attempting to return this set today, as further viewing with all that red and anemic blue is simply too annoying and can't be corrected. If you don't mind this -- to me -- serious problem, it's your choice. But surely SONY should be able to do better than this.) Purchased from eDirect before I found Amazon's listing. I was swayed by all the 5-star reviews at Amazon (nowadays, as viewed in showroom setups, there's no way to judge image quality). The mosquito noise seen in showrooms appears in my living room as well, though it's not as prominent as on other LCD's. As for comments about "great color", I'm not sure what that oft-used phrase is supposed to mean; this tv is deficient in Blue and has a 25% Red push that glows like neon and often bleeds like the reds on dirt-cheap store brand CRT's. The SONY at least has RGB adjustments, although RGB Gain can only be reduced, not increased -- a really odd design. In one picture mode, Red is pushed 34%, which looks bizarre but which apparently appeals to "great color" enthusiasts. Sadly, SONY doesn't provide color Y-level controls, not even in the miniscule service menu. In Cinema/Warm Mode the grayscale RGB is admirably flat except for a typically elevated Blue "leg" from 40-IRE on down; most LCD's have such grayscales, ostensibly to make blacks look darker (actually, it just makes blacks look blue, not black. The value R16G16B16 (digital black) is a color rarely seen on HDTV's). After some drastic and very tricky RGB adjustments with help from a colorimeter and HCFR software, blacks looked more neutral and the Red push was made at least tolerable, but high-red gamma suffered somewhat. At least it kept most skin tones from looking like terminal cases of third-degree burn, although fair-skinned people often have an unsightly hot-pink tint. The overall image is suitably contrasty and sharp, and SD sources look much cleaner than with most LCD's. With HD and SD, there's some noisy moire in fine-grained objects like sequinned gowns and heavy wool coats, and shimmer when very high-contrast objects move. But those effects are common on many LCDs. Low-IRE gamma is a bit aggressive, making some darks look rather inky, especially with BluRay; thankfully there's a backlight control that helps a bit. Motion is mostly handled well, even without 120-hz gimmicks (which don't work anyway, because refresh rate isn't the source of LCD motion blur). Turn off noise reduction, which adds its own artifacts and makes motion blur worse. Thankfully I haven't seen judder or stutter so far, but I saw a mild case of upscaling jaggies. With a pristine image source, the overall picture is better than average and looks quite sharp and snappy, without phony edge enhancement. I measured the real-world contrast at around 2100:1, an impressive figure, with excellent darks and crisp whites: black and white movies play nicely. Less perfect sources (low contrast, noisy, low-density scenes in fog, heavy rain, etc.) just look smeared and murky -- this is digital video's fault, not SONY's. BluRay looks very punchy and sharp, though BR compression artifacts are easy to spot. As far as a generally cleaner image is concerned, SD-DVD looks much better on this set than on other 26-inchers I've seen. At this size, the difference between 720 lines and 1080 couldn't be seen, even with a 37" 1080p sitting beside it. If your BluRay player outputs 720i or 720p, set it that way; HD-DVD downscaling doesn't play well here. The tuner is fairly fast; channel cruising is a bit slow, but I've seen much worse. Setup instructions warn that channel scanning takes 50 minutes; my scan found 100-plus cable stations in 12 minutes. Audio ain't great, but it's cleaner and louder than averege and works well from its coax output (but no headphone jack!). Viewing angle is narrow, about 15 degrees either side, a tad wider than some others. Overall I'd say it's an above-average LCD, aided by limited RGB controls but marred mostly by annoying Reds and absent the full-featured CIE adjustments found on some sets. It nicely replaces the average low-quality generic 20" or 24" CRT. But if your old, higher-end smallish CRT still works well and can be calibrated, stick with the tube.