Customer Reviews

Sony KDL-32V4000 - 32" Widescreen HD Ready Bravia LCD TV

5 star:		(122)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Excellent picture; pretty good sound; very easy for this LCD TV newbie to set up and to operate, both TV reception and DVD / video recorders. I don't know enough about the market to make subtle comparisons with the competition but this gives much better results than most other TVs I've watched. Highly recommended.

Our ancient 24" CRT TV finally gave up the ghost and, as pensioners, we were forced to enter a whole new world of TV technology with much apprehension. Fortunately we seem to have made a great choice with this TV. In spite of choosing the free delivery option it arrived only 2 days after ordering. With the help of our son-in-law it was quickly assembled, connected up to our other equipment and ready to use. What a revelation! We cannot beleive the difference between the sharp, clear and colourful picture we now receive compared to the old set. The instruction book is very easy to understand and all the special features easy to access and genuinely useful. A great TV at an almost unbelievable price. Thank you Amazon.

When you first set this TV up at home it looks stunning. If you have a decent freeview signal then the inbuilt receiver can pick up all the extra channels like BBC News, Sky 3, Film 4 etc etc. It works far better than my old digital set top box. It also picks up standard terrestrial channels and when I set it up I had to manually switch back to digital. Just something to be aware of if you think you've only been left with the basic channels, you may still be in analogue mode (there's a button on the remote to select analogue or digital).

I was worried about how standard TV broadcasts would look on this as am aware that freeview through an aerial isn't HD. I can say that on the majority of programmes, at a reasonable viewing distance it looks great. The set also has a feature called "Smart" where it takes an old full screen show and converts it to fill the whole screen. This loses a little from the top and bottom of the image in order to make it wider without stretching it. You can use the up and down arrows to re-position the image when in smart mode but usually it works fine. If you want to see an older show in it's original aspect ratio, you can select 4:3 mode and it gives the full image with gaps to the left and right.

Out of the box, it's an awesome picture with so much depth it almost has a 3D feel to it. After a bit of tinkering with the settings, the eye straining glare is reduced and you should be able to find a comfortable setting. I kept the contrast quite high to preserve some of the depth effect but lowered the backlight and brightness a little. Some people may be happy with the default settings but they were too much of a strain on the eyes for me.

You may want to change the settings when using a DVD etc and happily the set will remember what you selected for each input so if you change the settings on a scart connected DVD, TV will stay the same. The set also has 3 HDMI socets for connecting things like Blu Ray players and games consoles and again each of these can keep it's own settings. Finally, there is an orange button on the remote which switches to Sony's recommended theatre mode which is supposed to help keep films looking cinema like. This takes the vividness off the image at the touch of a button but you can also change this slightly if you find the image too dull or simply stick with standard settings when watching films.

Now some negatives:

The remote control is not very user friendly and will take a while to get used to. Some of the buttons you may wish to use a lot eg the TV guide are tiny and you can barely read the symbol on them. You need to remember where they are on the remote. Also selecting an input from TV, Scart, HDMI etc isn't as quick as it could be and requires more than a few button presses on the remote. I'd have liked one button for each of the connections, although I suppose this may have cluttered it and it already has a lot of buttons. The remote will take a while to get used to and it's worth studying the instructions so you know where all the features are.

Not unexpectedly the TV performs best with a High Definition input. I've played Blu Ray discs and these look crisp and detailed. Also up scaling DVDS (which most Blu Ray players and some newer DVD players can do) really make DVDS look better and in some cases make them close to Blu Ray quality. Haven't noticed any motion blur on Blu Ray yet but sometimes there is definite banding around bright objects with an even dark background eg a moon in the sky will have slight banded halos around it. This seems common to most LCDs I've seen and isn't overly distracting.

Games are slightly disappoiting. I've played a few PS3 games and on some there is some definite motion blur. Moving images have a shadow that hangs behind them (particularly very dark images) and once you start to notice it, it becomes irritating on certain games. This seems to be a common problem on most LCDs though and personally I think games are best played sitting closer to a smaller screen (I have fewer games problems on a 19" LCD monitor). I haven't noticed much motion blur on TV / DVD but it possibly is there and to be fair I don't watch much sport so can't comment on things like tennis and football.

Overall this is a fine TV which is excellent for under £400. For a small front room this is ideal and gives a large vivid picture full of life-like colours and depth.

Sony KDL-32V4000 - 32" Widescreen HD Ready Bravia LCD TV - With Freeview
I spent a long time looking for a tv for my father who is 70, and the 15" Philips cathode t.v. though still brilliant picture quality was becoming a strain for him to watch.
So I did a lot of research and it was down to either a Sony or Toshiba.
There was no need for full 1080p as the input was going not to be HD for the bedroom just the in built freeview tuner and may be a sky box.
When I saw this and read the specs I was amazed at the price..lets just say its the best price I found compared to any of the other major retailers ..with free delivery.
Ordered the tv wednesday it arrived 7.30 on saturday by a happy citylink courier guy who said when i opened the door..got a nice new tv for you mate. Great Service.
But the best was yet to come. Unpacked the t.v. put the stand on pluged it in and connected the aerial...and in 6 minutes it was up and running.
And the picture quality through the in built tuner ..is amazing.
It picked up all channels using an the old aerial we have that is 25 years old...as i was worried we would need new digital aerial. All i can say is try your old aerial first before spending money on a digital aerial, you may not need one.
connected the sky box and the picture is just as good. have to say I turned down the backlight setting from 7 default to 5 as it less strain on the eyes..but that's a personal choice.
The sound is great too , more than enough for a bedroom, and even a living room as it was set-up and tested in the living room first.
And what I loved best..was that the instruction manual is all in English. Not a multi language book that sometimes comes with electronic goods.
So to round up this tv was a great buy at an amazing price with free delivery.
Just do a search on Tesco or Asda's site at the price and I think you will have a heart attack...and they even hadn't had delivery yet as the t.v. is that new ....
Amazon I thank thee lots .

As the above states, this is a quick review for anyone a touch apprehensive about ordering this product. I was in exactly the same boat but its one of the best descisions i've made recently. Ok i have upgraded from a 720p 19" LCD, so any 32" TV is going to outshine it but the quality is fantastic. The picture when running a 1080i signal through it is perfect, very sharp! Havn't got a bad word about it, great solid build quality and ample ports to get everything hooked up.

The price is amazing, very good value, Sony currently sell this for £549. A similarly priced TV on the highstreet at this size won't offer anything above 720p and a much poorer contrast ratio.

Great call on the price drop amazon, and i can't urge potential buyers enough, get this ordered, now!

I had previously owned the KDL32V2500 which died approx 2 months after the warranty ran out. At the time I didn't have the sense to take out the extended warranty. Anyhow, I contacted Sony re: this who were very helpful. About a week later Sony came back to me and offered me this TV, brand new for £200!!!! I was actually looking at the w4000 version, however after careful consideration of the offer made to me by Sony (which they didn't have to do)I accepted it. Very impressed with their Good will gesture.

I don't think there's anything that I can add really to the review as per Mr. M. S. Read, except that the 32v4000 completely blows my earlier 32v2500 model in terms of picture quality, and colour contrast, etc.

Very impressed with the product and Sony's customer care service.

I thought I should emphasise the gesture made by Sony because all too often the "big-boys" are slated for their lack of customer-centric practices.

Ordered this tv on Wednesday 15th October and opted for the free delivery so was not expecting it for at least another 7 days - however it was delivered this morning (Sat 18th October)to my delight! I had it up and running within an hour or so and it looks and sounds magnificent! I would have had it operational within 15 minutes if it wasn't for the fact that the instruction booklet didn't give any instructions as to how to connect to a "Sky" box,only a DVD or Video Recorder. However I just went online to their suggested website and easily accessed the relevant instructions. This is not really a criticism as most people with any knowledge would already have known what to do but as a novice I needed a bit more detailed instructions. I even managed to lift and screw it on to the stand on my own (I am a slender female) as it is so lightweight! One comment I will make is that I prefer the picture quality to be set at "Vivid" as opposed to "Standard" (which is recommended for Home viewing whereas the "Vivid" is recommended for shops displaying the tv)as it is a brighter picture. Well done Amazon again for an amazing service. I had been considering buying this tv for months and am so glad I took the plunge once the price fell. I am certainly no expert on techinical details no

Here's the short review: Gorgeous, great quality, recommended!

Here's the longer review:

In my humble opinion when looking for an HDTV you need to examine the following...

a. what source material you're going to put on it,
b. what level of picture quality you're happy to settle with, and
c. how much you're willing to invest in pursuit of your optimum picture quality.

The answers to these question for myself were

a. Freeview via an external Daewoo Freeview PVR, an Apple TV, and an upscaling Toshiba SD580EKTB DVD Player also from Amazon (£50),
b. I had looked at friend's HDTV with Freeview / Sky Freesat and the picture always looked worse than what I was getting on my CRT, so I wanted as good as my CRT for Freeview, and something approaching HD for my Apple TV and DVD,
c. I wanted a sub-£500 set that had as many of the features of it's £800 W4000 relative.

I believe the KDL-32V4000 provides that happy marriage between cost and quality. If you have a bigger budget then I'm very happy for you and would recommend the W4000 version, but I think that considering that the only HD I could get right now is via Freesat or via subscription and would only be showing a modicum of programmes from 2 TV channels - and via 1080i or less, plus that I don't play Playstation (or any) games, and don't want to start replacing my DVD collection with Blu Ray then 1080p is a bit over the top for me.

This is my first HDTV and my largest screen so there have been a number of things to get used to that have been no fault of the TV so here are my observations to help you get over any anxieties when investing in this set as your first HDTV in similar circumstances to my own.

Firstly, however great your TV the source material piped into it is extremely inconsistent. You've got old movies, stuff from the USA that looks fuzzy, badly filmed documentaries, but also some very well filmed stuff that makes you go wow! even though you're watching non HD. My old CRT used to flatten everything out to a consistent standard so there never was a time when I noticed the rough edges of broadcasts like I do with this set. This initially felt like a downgrade, but it's the broadcast's fault not the telly. In order to make sure I got the best quality broadcast I got a SCART cable from Woolworths for £7 - make sure it has all 21 pins connected if your source supports RGB, a £15 and £9 HDMI cable from M&S (don't get ripped of with cables - unless you're stretching them over a great distance the £50 equivalents in other stores really don't make enough difference to your picture). The cheaper HDMI was for the Apple TV which does upscale but I wanted to invest the most in the cable for the DVD player. All 3 sources are providing excellent results. I can't imagine how much better true HD can be and it's calmed my passion in rushing into any Freesat and Blu Ray purchases as I'm totally happy with the picture quality the current set up gives.

Secondly, because of the inconsistency of the source material and the loads of different things you can set on the TV itself I found myself mucking about with the picture settings for hours. I also felt some eye strain for the first couple of days. If you have any DVD's with a THX optimizer test in the set up menu - like most Pixar movies e.g. The Incredibles (http://www.thx.com/home/dvd/search.html) then this will help you set your TV's picture settings to a happy set up so you can rest easy that you've done the best to improve your picture from the extreme settings that it ships with to one that won't leave you rubbing your eyes. My settings were: Picture - Standard, Backlight - 5, Contrast - 84, Brightness - 38, Colour - 56, Sharpness - 7, Colour Tone - Warm, Noise reduction - Auto, Adv. Contrast Enhancer - On. You may not like these settings but they're my favourite :-)

Also I never had such a big TV and was worried that it was too big for my room. I would say that if you sit around 8 foot from your TV then this is fine for your set up. Problem is that Amazon won't refund you once you've opened the box so I would recommend you do a mock up in your lounge to the feeling for how it will be before you buy. Because you get so much detail you spend more time trying to look at parts of the screen that you never bothered with before, it's like looking through a window onto the world, that takes a bit of getting used to, but you do after a couple of days. It's easy to obsess over picture quality, the THX test helps with this.

The sound is OK, nothing to complain or write home about. I have mine on BBE ViVa which seems to satisfy most viewings.

I think Sony have pitched the features and price point on this TV to give you the benefit of 3 HDMI connections and PC input, 30000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio, and the size and design, all of which normally feature in more expensive sets and put them into a lower price machine which for me makes this set unique in the range - which is why I got it.

P.S. A lot of searches on Google for this set come up with a similarly named Australian 1080p set so ignore them. There really isn't a lot on the net about this set right now which is why I wrote this review - the review I wish I could have read before buying in order to comfort me that I was doing the right thing.

Last year, I bought the (now discontinued?) KDL-32U2000 for myself, and was thrilled with it. I wanted a similar model for my mother, and, a couple of days ago, purchased the KDL-32V4000. Previously sceptical of getting an LCD TV at all (fearing that it would dominate the room), she has become an instant convert - delighted with both the excellent picture quality (amazing clarity, texture, and depth) and the sleek, elegant design.

I have to disagree with another reviewer, who disliked the shiny "piano black" finish and two-tone stand - in my opinion, both are stylish and tastefully understated; in any case, the surround is minimal, giving full focus to the screen. (The swivel stand is a useful feature, if you need to place your TV in an awkward space.)

I placed the order at midday on Monday, and received the TV at 9.15am the next day (sold direct by Amazon, though, not the current vendor); by 9.45, it was all up and running - could not be easier. Great value too, for a set of this outstanding quality (£429.99 on day of purchase). So far, we are 100% satisfied with this product. My only regret is that it's nearly £50 cheaper today! What more can I say? Buy one!

Had I wanted a larger screen, would have paid the extra £200 for 1080hd. As an artist being critical of VISUALS, wanted the best picture for little money. After TrALLing other tv's came up with Toshiba contrast 2000-1. Settled on that, found the relatively new SONY 32KDLV4000 with a similar price and contrast(no contest)AMAZON WON hands down." Just to save you all looking for that better deal"Look no further. On time, on budget, and well over expectation on QUALITY!!!!!thanks Amazon.Mike EssexSony KDL-32V4000 - 32" Widescreen HD Ready Bravia LCD TV - With Freeview