Customer Reviews

Sony Bravia KDL46W5500U 46-inch Widescreen Full HD 1080p LCD TV with Freeview,100Hz Motionflow

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is my first HD television, having had a non-HD 42" plasma from LG for four years previously. I spent a lot of time researching models before choosing, and then had to wait for a month or so before this new model came available. And what a difference from my old TV!
I can't really comment in great detail on the image quality - for me, it's fabulous but I'll leave the microscopic reviews to the professional reviewers. As a user, this TV is great. Although the screen is larger than my old TV, the unit is lighter (24kg). It's pretty easy to fix the supplied stand (place the TV on top and then fix in place with 4 screws), and the TV rotates 20 degrees to either side on the stand.
So far, I have connected my old DVD player (my Sony Blu Ray player is on order), my portable PC (which has a Blu Ray drive), media PC, Wii and the Xbox 360 that I couldn't resist buying now that I have an HD television (and don't regret at all!). The television gives a great picture on most of them, although I'm having trouble with my media PC - but that's due to Windows and the graphics drivers rather than the TV (which shows a very nice picture at 1280x768).
The on-screen menus are very practical, and you can switch between inputs rather easily. I have set up DLNA servers on my home network, but apparently the TV is very picky about video formats, so I'm moving back to the idea of using my media PC or the Xbox to present videos. The TV happily plays music from the DLNA connection, though (using the Windows Media Connect function in Windows Media Player).
The sound is actually pretty good - again, certainly better than my old TV. Naturally, it is lacking in bass and it's only stereo; reproduction is pretty clear, though, and whereas I had completely abandoned the TV speakers on my old telly for my surround system, the speakers on this one are perfectly usable (good thing too, as I've run out of channels on my rather ageing amp!).
What else? Picture quality is really great; HD sources look superb and I am very impressed by the quality of the standard definition TV images coming from my satellite tuner - much better than I had expected. No artefacts noticed so far, and I certainly haven't seen the clouding issue, although I haven't really done specific tests for that (sitting in a dark room in front of a black TV screen....that doesn't sound like much fun anyway tbh!). The TV does take several seconds to warm up when you switch it on, but there is a little green light that comes on (unobtrusive when you are watching) to tell you that it is actually thinking about it.
Bizarrely, there is an angled edge on the inside of the screen surround that sometimes reflects parts of the image on the screen. It's not really a problem, but it's noticeable sometimes (particularly when there is a black border on the screen).
The remote is clear and easy to use, and feels good to hold.
Overall, a superb piece of equipment, and I'm very happy with the investment that I have made.

Finally decided to upgrade my old Trintron CRT and spent the past 3 months or so looking at the various LCDs available out there. I initially settled on a Sony KDL46W4500 after seeing one in a store and was just about to part with my hard earned cash when I started reading reviews and read about the so-called dreaded 'backlight bleed'. Given the high cost of the Sony, this completely put me off, so it was back to the drawing board for me.

I spent more time looking around but never quite found a set I fancied as much as the 46W4500, that was until the Sony KDL46W5500 came out. I couldn't find any reviews but Amazon had it at a very competitive price so I decided to take a chance on it.

All I can say is I'm glad I took the risk. The picture on this set is nothing short of stunning. I don't have HD installed yet but the SD picture is very, very good. I'm using it with a Sony blu ray player and although I haven't watched any blu rays yet, the DVD upscaling is jawdroppingly good - the sports mode makes the pictures scarily real. I've been going through my entire DVD collection just trying out the pictures and it's totally different to watching them on my old CRT screen. Can't wait to see blu ray, although it's difficult to imagine how much better the pictures can get.

Of course I was a bit worried about this backlight bleed issue, and I've sat there in a pitch black room, watching dark DVDs, and all sorts of different pictures and programmes. The blacks on the TV are the blackest I've ever seen on a screen and I simply cannot find any evidence of backlight bleed. I think that 99.9% of people will be delighted with the picture.

The TV is packed with features, the menus are quite easy to use. There are the usual HDMI and SCART inputs, plus you can plug in a USB Key with photos, videos, and music on which the TV will happily work with. You can also connect the TV to your router although not quite figured out how to set the networking bits yet. My laptop plugs in quite happily via a standard monitor cable and I can view my PC screen on the TV.

The TV is easy to lift (a lot lighter than my old CRT) and feels solid and well built. The screen swivels on the stand just enough to adjust for comfortable viewing.

Overall, very, very pleased with this TV. Can't wait to see blu ray on it.

Have just bought this television on Friday 7th August and up till now I am very happy with both sound and picture quality. The t.v it is replacing is the 40W2000 which is an excellent television too . I was in the same frame of mind as other reviewers in that I perhaps dithered a little in going for the bigger screen size in first the W4000 and then the W4500 only to be disppointed that when I finally made my mind up both models were discontinued. I settled for the 5500 based on reviews alone both in magazines and customer comments and so far no regrets . As with the W2000 , I went for the 5500 with little or no show-room demonstration.
I relied on Sonys reputation and just went for it . I have yet to have a proper play with all the controls and settings and what everything does,so I set the brilliance,colour and contrast to the same levels as I had on the W2000 and the picture was stunning,especially on close-up during the Sky game on Friday night. Over the past few weeks I have picked the brains of some high profile retailers regarding the difference between 100 and 200hz and the bottom line is there is no noticeable difference to the human eye . At one time I almost went for the 46Z4500 as this has the 200hz feature, the 5500 has the Bravia 3 engine to compensate . Set up was simple and straight forward.I managed to get a good deal at Comet in comparison with a local independant retailer. I never expected such a big firm as Comet to tolerate any form of haggling,
so Ijust put on my Dominic Littlewood head and talked of price matching . Very pleased . If this television is on your short-list and within your budget the go for it .

We bought this to replace a 50inch Panasonic which developed a fault within the 1st month. This is far superior, despite being cheaper. There is not one negative thing I can say about the quality of the picture or the sound, and it was easy enough to assemble for me and my boyfriend to do it between us, and start up was pretty much instant.

Excellent TV,I am not a geek when it comes to tv but i am some what of a spec man and whenever i buy a tv i spend weeks and weeks looking into the spec and price on the tv's im interested in and try and pick through all the reviews i can get my hands on.
So first of all take no notice of the bad review that K.Patel left on this site for this Tv he is an idiot who does not know what he is talking about.This Tv was delivered the next day using the super saver option"FREE",packaging was not that good but there was no damage at all.
The 46 W 5500 is a top notch tv the HD on Sky sports and Discovery/HD movie are stunning quality which is what i expected from the spec of the Tv, the clarity is unreal, which backed up my thoughts when looking at Led tv's before buying,i have family members with led tv's and the pictures are very very good but in my opinon the W5500 is even better.I have always bought Sony Lcd's and never been disappointed but this even beats my V3000 which is an excellnt tv and is now in my bedroom.
Dont be put off just because its Lcd and not Led this set beats alot of the newer Led's.
So if your thinking about this set you will not be disappointed. Awsome.
The only complaint is i did have a bit of pictue buzzing on one program i watched even with the noise reduction on but ive had it for a week now and it was only once and the price dropped by £25 the day after i bought mine and Amazon would not refund the difference but i did try, ah well can't win them all.
S.Paskin

amazing tv the picture with blu ray, ps3 and sky hd is absolutely stunning. well worth the money this tv is top quality. highly recommend.

Brilliant TV. Cannot fault it one bit. HD pictures are awesome. The internet connection is a bit gimmicky and useless for the time being, but other than that, perfect.

Bought to upgrade from a KLD32V, superb quality all round, only minor complaints are

1. don't know why Sony decided to move the HDMI inputs from 3 rear mounted and 1 side on the older KDL32V to only 2 rear and 2 side inputs here, not keen on the side inputs.

2. No guaranteed next day delivery from Amazon unlike our previous TV, which meant we had to judge our order with a day when someone would be in the house.

A 46" screen is just manageable to set up on your own, although I wouldn't recommend it, getting it out the box was the hardest.

Okay, this review is brief and concerns only one aspect of the set - the god-awful backlight.

The backlight for this set is so uneven I can't believe a set ships like this, let alone a W-series from Sony. The backlight seems to feed from the corners at varying levels of brightness which, when watching dark scenes in a dark room appear as though torches are being shone from the corners.

I've spoken to Sony tech about this and they describe it as a "characteristic" of the set. They would charge a call out fee from a 3rd party service agent to come and tell me that there is nothing wrong with the set.

I can't even begin to explain my disappointment with this set after consistently good results from other Sony sets including those in the W series - the 4000 and 4500 are great sets.

The build of the 5500 also seems cheaper than the 4500 and is missing the lit Sony logo which has been replaced with a glued-on plastic logo. The cross media-bar is also very clunky and appears to be a low-res bar blown-up to fit the 1080p resolution.

It seems as though Sony have taken their top-selling W series and cheapened it to increase margin and have done a poor job of it. Avoid the 5500 is my only advice.

Fantastic technology in a great package, but SD Freesat programmes do tend to be a little pixelated especially images in the middle distance such as crowd scenes. HD programme are fine so I'm sure this is not a problem with the TV. In fact, anything but. I think the TV is way ahead of all the peripherals I have connected to it. Slow delivery and the 'white glove' service from Amazon was not evident. But all round, very pleased.