Sony Bravia S-Series KDL-32S3000 32-Inch 720p LCD HDTV
by Sony
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List Price: Our Price: $292.00 You Save: $807.99 (73%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Home Theater See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Sony Bravia S-Series KDL-32S3000 32-Inch 720p LCD HDTV
Customer Review: Good looks, great picture, Sony reliability!,
Summary: 5 Stars
I went over to Best Buy yesterday and took a look at all 3 of Sony's 32" LCD TVs. The KDL-32S3000 looks better than the 32M3000 becuase they have put a black stand on it instead of silver. The XBR does not look as good becuase they changed the speaker to a shiny black rectangle at the bottom that looks cheap. For looks I would go with the 32S3000. The XBR is supposed to be technically better though. The 32M3000 is their base model being phased out now. The picture on all 3 is great and I could not tell the difference.
I am very happy with this purchase. The TV has very good looks, sleek and discreet. The equivalent Samsung and Sharp had frames too shiny and looked cheap. The picture is great. SD cable looks very good, better than on my earlier Samsung 30" Slimfit. Audio is very good. Best of all is Sony reliability. My previous experience was the Samsung 30" SlimFit. That had bending issues at first and was replaced. Then it refused to turn on, and customer service was rude and unhelpful. The Slimfit has major reliability problems. I am very happy with this Sony that replaced it.
Adding to this review after 2 weeks of extensive use. I compared this TV to Sony's 37" KDF-37H1000 LCD projection TV. This 32" LCD TV won out because:
1. Sharper picture on HD signal - the KDF-37H1000 is a little more blurry. (Note the KDF-37H1000 picture is better than no-name brand LCDs). The Sony LCDs had better focus.
1a. LCD TVs have a brighter picture. The Sony TVs have 3 picture settings: i) Vivid (very bright, what you see in Best Buy, ii) Standard (less bright, what looks better at home), and iii) Cinema (softer, more reds and earth shades). On the KDF-37H1000, you have to set it to vivid to watch even at home. On LCDs, you have to reduce brightness becuase they're brighter pictures.
2. SD cable on LCD TV is much much better than on KDF-37H1000.
2a. Motion was much cleaner on the LCD TVs. Sports blurred on the KDF-37H1000. I watched a bit of "8 below" Disney's Alaskan adventure with lots of white dogs and snow, and it looked bad, blurry and soft on the KDF-37H1000.
3. LCD TV has much less depth. Looks sleeker. I also tapped my fingers and felt around the frames on the 2 TVs. The LCDs were firmer and fit better. The KDF-37H1000 frame was looser and cheaper materials like a toy.
4. Maintainence costs - the KDF-37H1000 will require $200-400 bulb replacement in 1.5 years. The sales people said this could even happen in less than a year due to bulb malfunctions, just like in a floor lamp or any lamp. Note, Sony is phasing out LCD projection TVs in favor of SXRD, Hence, parts for the KDF-37H1000 will become harder to find. The KDF-37H1000 lamps are already $400 (Sony parts are always costlier - look at their digital camera memories, compared to Canon's).
4a. The complex combination of chips, mirrors, projectors, lamps on a projection TV is more prone to break than the simpler LCD technology. I am an electrical engineer and design integrated circuits for a living.
5. The KDF-37H1000 generates more heat than LCD, but much less than plasma.
6. The KDF-37H1000 has moving parts, such as the cooling fan, etc., All of these are more prone to malfunction.
7. Consumer reports rates the LCD TV reliability higher than projection TVs after looking at consumer repair data. Projection TVs had higher rates of return and repair.
7a. The folks at Best Buy told me they saw higher rates of returns due to reliability on the KDF-37H1000 than on Sony's LCDs.
8. The LCD TV has higher pixel count 1368 X 768, compared to the KDF-37H1000's 1200 X 720. This leads to sharper picture and better focus.
9. Screen door effect on KDF-37H1000. When objects on screen moved, their individual pixels did not move as a group. The picture was constantly dissolving and reforming. Faces had spots that appeared and dissappeared.
10. 2-3 years from now, I can put the LCD TV on a dresser in my bedroom as a 2nd TV, or put it in my study as a computer monitor. Cannot do this with the KDF-37H1000.
11. Moving - when we move houses, the LCD TV will ride easily in the seat in my Honda Civic. Cannot do this with the KDF-37H1000, which will have to go in the back of the truck with my wife.
The KDF-37H1000 was better than the Sony LCD TV in terms of:
1. Sound was much better becuase larger speakers and probably more pwerful amp.
2. A few more features and options that I will not use.
3. Larger screen. However, you must sit further back to avoid seeing spots and motion blurs.
Note the KDF-37H1000 is an excellent TV and very reliable compared to no-name brands. Definitely more reliable than the Samsung Slimfit TVs. We just came out of a bruising warranty battle with Samsung, and their reliability and customer service is pretty bad. The KDF-37H1000 does look very good compared to Samsung or Westinghouse LCD TVs, which had cheap and shiny frames. However, the KDF-37H1000 is just not as good as Sony's 32" LCD TVs. If you want a bigger screen than Sony's LCDs, go 46" or 55" projection. The SXRD projection TVs had better motion. If you're thinking of 37", get an LCD.
One thing Sony's have going for them is Sony reliability. I work for IBM and we design integrated circuits for Sony's products. They require a 100 defective parts per million quality level from us. This is very good in the industry.
One other note: We only have standard SD cable channels 2 to 99. Yesterday we found that if we disconnect the cable box, connect the cable directly to the TV, go to Channel 2 and hit the channel down button on the remote, we get the 4 HD networks in HD for free! ABC, NBC, Fox and CBS, plus a local HD PBS channel. Try it at home kids and don't tell Comcast! The HD picture is amazing.
Customer Review: Far Exceeded My Expectations
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this based on several consumer reviews I read here and on other sites, and what I'd seen on display at Best Buy and Circuit City. I ordered it from Electronic Express on Feb 8, with free shipping, and it arrived on Feb 14, 5 days before the latest estimated delivery date. Very nice.
My entertainment center's TV cabinet is 31.6" wide. My old CRT is a 27". I'd spent several months researching HDTV's and HD technology in general, and was expecting to have to settle for a 26" HDTV to fit in my cabinet. You can imagine my excitement when I discovered that 32" HDTV's actually do exist that are small enough for my cabinet, though I only found 3, including this one. At 31.1" wide, this TV fit beautifully.
My wife and I subscribe to digital cable through Time Warner. Our plan includes 21 HD channels, including HD versions of all of our premium channels. Time Warner also offers an HD pack with 4 additional movie channels exclusively in HD, so we decided to try it for a few months. We watch close to 50 movies a month, so it made sense for us to add a few extra channels to really get as much out of our new TV as possible. I know DirectTV offers a lot more HD channels, but having used them once before, my experience found that reception is exceedingly poor during storms, and DirectTV doesn't offer local channels.
After hooking everything up, I turned it on for the first time, and turned to one of the HD channels. I was sorely disappointed with the poor picture quality, until I realized I needed to switch the input source from TV to HDMI. Then, suddenly...
:: jaw drops ::
I WILL NEVER GO BACK TO STANDARD DEFINITION!
HD truly is a whole other world. Images are crystal clear, and colors are more vivid than I ever thought possible. In fact, the signal being fed by Time Warner provides a superior image than even the over-the-air HD signals that stores like Best Buy and Circuit City have piped into their display models. Consider that food for thought if you're planning on sticking with the TV's built-in HD tuner. If you can afford a digital cable subscription with HD channels, I highly recommend it.
The TV supports 1080i, but the picture is interlaced, and I've found that its native 720p offers better overall image quality. I've read that choosing between one or the other depends on what you're watching - action-packed programs such as sports being better suited for 720p, and 1080i for everything else. Personally, I don't watch sports. I hate sports. But, I love action movies, and I've chosen to view everything I watch in 720p, even if I'm watching a documentary. 720p just looks that much clearer to me, because each frame is drawn all at once.
Go to any electronics store and you'll see that the picture quality on all of their display model HDTV's are set on Vivid. The brighter picture is designed to grab your attention and 'wow' you. I tried the setting out at home, but I found it surprisingly overwhelming. I switched to Standard, and immediately found it perfect for home viewing. I especially love the TV's Light Sensor. When enabled, it automatically detects the ambient light in the room and dims the picture to match. It makes for incredibly pleasant viewing at night.
After watching a few of my new HD channels, I switched on my XBox 360 Elite. I have its HDMI cable connected to the second HDMI port on the back of the TV. Words cannot begin to express how much better XBox games really do look in HD. If you own a 360 Elite, and you have friends who've been pressuring you to upgrade your TV to really enjoy the visual power of the console, I urge you to heed their advice. I can finally clearly read the HUD in Call of Duty 4, and Halo 3 is now a truly cinematic experience. I downloaded a trailer for Clive Barker's Jericho the other night. There's a screenshot of a scene from the trailer you can see at most gaming web sites. It features a close-up of one of the members of the Jericho team - the woman with the butch hairdo. The image quality of the trailer when viewed on the 360 Elite connected via HDMI is identical to the picture quality in that screenshot. It totally... blew me... away...
I'm also now finally able to take advantage of the 360 Elite's ability to upconvert standard DVD's to 720p, and it does an incredibly impressive job of that. It's nice to know I'm not going to have to shell out another $170 for a stand alone upconverter to enjoy my current DVD collection. One thing to note is that any upconverter's ability to produce an HD picture is dependent not only on the quality of the chip it's using to convert, but the quality of the DVD itself. Some DVDs will absolutely shine when upconverted while others may produce some digital noise. For example, The Matrix displayed a lot of digital noise while Superman Returns was spotless. Keep that in mind if you already own a 360 Elite and are shopping for a stand-alone player. Having said that, I'm going to wait another year until Profile 2.0 of Blu-ray is released and compatible high-end Blu-ray players come down in price. I know that the PS3 has a built-in Blu-ray player and is future-proof with its inherent internet connectivity, but I have zero interest in its games.
In summary, I couldn't be a happier with my new Sony. I've already got the next week's worth of my favorite movies set to record in HD, and I can't wait to see them. I've already watched Spider-Man, Videodrome, The 6th Day, and Bram Stoker's dracula, and they all looked spectacular. You really can see every single pore on peoples' skin.
Customer Review: fantastic television!
Summary: 5 Stars
I am a first-time buyer of a HD-LCD and just picked this television set up yesterday. Overall I am very pleased with the performance I am seeing. I went through two Samsung television sets: the first being the Samsung LN-S4095D 40" 1080p LCD and the second being the Samsung LNT3253H 32" LCD HDTV (after realizing I needed something smaller). Both models are full of video-tearing and audio-muting issues that Samsung has failed to resolve, so I decided that before any of these problems severely affected me, I would return them before the 30-day return policy expired. The sales person even mentioned that the LNT3242 model by Samsung was returned to his store over 7 times by the same customer (possibly in hopes of finding a non-defective set).
I ended up purchasing the Sony KDL-32S3000 and am very satsified with the purchase. I was initially hesitant to purchase a Sony, especially after hearing about the issues of clouding on XBR2 & XBR3 models.. but it seems now that most issues have been resolved for both the S-Series set & the new XBR4 model. I can certainly say it out performed the two Samsungs I purchased, especially in terms of picture quality. While both manufacturers have good television sets, the Samsung, while maintaining softer imagery, did not have as sharp and vibrant of picture-quality. From what I understand, the new Bravias (2007) are equipped with a 10-bit video processor, unlike the previous Bravia Models equipped with 8-bit processors (BR2-3 Models); thus creating more vibrant colors & making previous models look inferior. Sound-wise, this TV also does better than the Samsungs. The Sammys had a less than mediocre output from the speakers (no deep lows whatsoever & mostly high-ends).
In terms of the User Interface, the Sony sports a menu similar to that of PSP and PS3 interfaces. It can be confusing for the first time user, but I find the system to be rather easy to navigate through. The set itself is loaded with many options for tweaking video output, but does not have enough options to flexibly tweak color temperature (I.E. cool, warm, etc). It also comes with an Internet Link option, mainly for streaming HD to your television from the Internet using a proprietary Sony device. I am not sure if I would take advantage of this, but the option of having it is nice. The built-in tuner was also able to pick up a variety of HD 1080i and SD 420i channels. They look fantastic on screen.
If you are a gamer looking to use your PS3 on this, you will be pleased to know that games do output on this set at 1080p resolution. DVDs also display (according to the television information) at 1080p. Mpeg2-noise reduction is also available, in case you would like to reduce the amount of noise on DVD output. There is a PC-input on this television, which also displays very nicely, but only displays at a max resolution of 1360x768.
From my understanding, the only major difference between this set and the XBR4 set (the higher end consumer model) is the option of having "motion-flow" 120-hz display; however, according to other users who have purchased the XBR4 set, motion-flow is still not fully developed. Apparently, the system creates artifical frames in between frames in order to create a much more fluid and realistic picture (which I hear is quite amazing), but this also creates artifacts and other miscellaneous noise in the process. All in all, the picture quality is improved with this system, but whether you want to take a 200-300 dollar gamble on this is purely up to you.
I am usually not inclined to give products a 5-star rating and I do believe that there are products that are far-superior.. but this television is definitley worth its bang for the couple extra bucks.
Customer Review: Oh yeah!! Sock it to me with this!
Summary: 5 Stars
No stupid "Dynamic contrast ratio: 8000:1" gimmicks that merely flicker the backlight when the set's AI decides it ought to be, which is disconcerting and not to mention misleading in terms of real display quality...
Just a true, real contrast ratio that allows numerous shadow and hue detail that you're not going to see so clearly in any competitor's 32" set.
No washed out or dull colors, either - this Sony is a worthy replacement for dead-end, electricity guzzling, heat generating CRT technology.
And I looked at 6 brands, looking at every nuance, black level, color saturation, sharpness, detail, features, menu functions, et cetera, noting all TVs were at out-of-box conditions. I'd love to namedrop the worst ones, but that's a no-no... Here's a hint - those models are "inexpensive for their size". :)
Sony costs more, yes, but the difference in visual quality is formidable - worth every penny. Detail is exceptional, and sharp. Other models may not be as bright, may give edges jagged lines, colors may be flat, and so on...
If you are a videophile, this is THE set to get. Every setting under the sun can be changed (brightness, 'picture' (contrast), tint, et cetera). And this monitor also, much to my surprise and delight, includes filters to make DVDs (MPEG2) and broadcast signals look less grainy/noisy and sharper. You bet I'm a happy couch potato.
Casual viewers would probably be satisfied with any competing model, but why? As with lower quality screen technology, the hardware quality is bound to be lower as well. You do get what you pay for. If you read up on competing models where people say "it broke after 1.5 years", you'll see a pattern forming...
And if you looked at the competing model next to the Sony, you'd be tempted to buy the Sony anyway. Even if the cost difference was a mere $150.
I also apologizing for sounding like a shill for Sony. I'm not.
One small addendum (06/30/07): The stores' labels say it's 1600:1, the sticker on the left side of the monitor claims 8000:1. This TV set does alter the backlight's brightness - solely on the level of ambient light in the room, not the incoming signal. Either way, I've still had no negative issues with visual quality on DVD playback, NTSC TV, HD broadcast, or PC display (if your computer cannot handle 1366x768, try 1280x720 if possible.)
Customer Review: Shocking performance
Summary: 5 Stars
No, I was not electrocuted, but I am ecstatic. I just acquired this HDTV from Costco (different model number, KDL-32SL130, but apparently same as 3000 but with different trim). The manual has both model numbers on the cover.
We purchased another LCD HDTV (Sharp Aquos 32" over two years ago). I thought it was good, but this tv far exceeds that earlier technology. The picture has well saturated colors, exceptional blacks, and a level of detail that appears to exceed its real resolution (sometimes it's not the specs, but the actual apparent performance). I get my signal from cable although I wonder what the reception would be for air hdtv signals.
Besides the extreme satisfaction with picture quality, the sound is also good. It is tough to be more complimentary since the best sound still comes from auxiliary sources, and I am relying totally at this point on the tv's internal speakers.
A problem I have observed in some LCD tvs is their inability to accommodate image speed or fast-moving images. The real test is probably sports viewing, but I have insufficient evidence to a concrete assessment. However there have been NO lags in responding to motion so far in a variety of programming. There is a lag in channel changes. It takes about 3 sec for the picture to compose after a change. A little slow for fast grazing... perhaps my settings are not yet optimal. I need to explore this further.
I will also add that hdtv satisfaction is dependent on signal sources. For example, CNN Am show uses awesome cameras and their reception is impressive. On the other hand, TNT is broadcasting older shows which are not as impressive. Some of the dedicated high definition networks such as Universal HD, many Discovery channel shows, etc. have frequent outstanding content.
Finally, what about regular definition, but digital signal television? Most are acceptable, not breathtaking. Mainly again limitations with content. Graininess is apparent in most older shows. Certainly better than regular definition even though not hd. This is clearly a function of the imaging capabilities of the Sony Bravia.
I am not taking it back. It's my first Sony. Oh, and my wife, who doesn't typically care about high definition signals... says, now that's a sharp, rich picture. So go for it. Geez, at Costco it was $750. The Amazon price is higher. What an inexpensive way to get HDTV.