In the vast range of BRAVIA LCD TV Sony offers beaches, the W-Series HDTVs have always found their place near the top of the range. Back in 2006, the W-Series displays were among the first to 1920x1080p Full HD panels (now something of a standard), available at affordable prices for LCD users. 2009 W5500 models continue on the path to be feature-packed, yet affordable. You will not find or LED backlight strobe on the beach, but you get 3 Sony Bravia Engine image processing, 100Hz "Motionflow" technology, not less than 4 HDMI inputs and Applicast, which can connect the TV to the Internet. All this is available for around £ 669 - £ 699 from retailers like HiFiBitz direct and digital, making it an appealing proposal. Let's see how the Sony BRAVIA KDL-32W5500 occurs in our usual battery of tests.
The 32 "screen is framed by a fairly thick glossy black bezel, which for me had the effect to be felt the slightly smaller screen. These new televisions come with protective film on parts brilliant, which means I suppose they will get scratched. Gloss black: the party continues!
Like most screens from Sony, the KDL-32W5500 removes the 2005-esque blue and yellow "WEGA GATE" style menus and replaces Sony user interface of the latest invention, the Xross Media Bar, as seen on the Playstation 3 . The concept is pretty neat, but in all honesty, I seem to have a psychological preference for more traditional menus, and certainly miss how they have responded quickly to user input (this menu is displayed with icons of fantasy and of transparency, and has a slight delay in response to later).
Finally, I had a look at the effectiveness of the KDL-32W5500 video processor Jaggies smooth motion video content. The results are not the best I've seen, but perversely, the LCD response time physical deficiencies effectively smoothed flicker of its own.
It's always the problem with motion detailed on the LCD screen: You are damned if you do, and you're damned if you do not, as is often the case that the natural, a vague Optical LCD looks better than digital processing implemented by corruption framework interpolation. None of this really changes my opinion that the systems are the latest 100hz/200hz "large numbers" marketing exercise, but at the same time, the 100Hz Motionflow system can enhance or degrade the content, depending on what you watching. I am happy that Sony provide more control and allow the user to turn it off, if they deem unacceptable.
Image Quality
The images broadcast by the KDL-32W5500 has been as I expected from a Sony LCD TV - the most pure, but nevertheless LCD. The group itself is far from the worst I've seen mounted on a 32 "display in terms of contrast, but it suffers from a common LCD" drag blacks, only a very serious extent. Any notable black leaves trails, especially if the group of pixels were required to change from black to white (or vice versa). The effect is at its worst with untextured animation shows thick black outlines (the years 1990, suggested that episodes of "Family Guy"). "Persepolis" (an animated feature film produced entirely in almost as sihlouette black and white) was, at times, very entertaining: people who went too quickly so that the LCD panel lets trails.
The viewing angle of the panel is decent but not up to the standards of the IPS-Alpha panels found in Panasonic LCD (though these TVs have a lot more of their own flaws). The entire image is the color gray as usual, you see on the sides. Looking from the front, all is well, with the exception of the above black rolling.
Finally, since we are discussing the LCD component itself, it should be noted that a problem has been present for Sony / Samsung panels in the past: a clouding (sometimes also called "mura", the Japanese word for "failure") . Opacification of fragmentation appears to be uneven on the LCD, especially visible against an all-black background. Some users have reported this problem on the W5500 series, but the 32 "version I reviewed was unaffected and was actually incredibly well. (Note that television has been considered in this case , chosen at random one supplied by a shop - not a specially chosen by Sony to consider themselves).
Reactivity and entry Thursday Lag
Input lag - that is, the delay introduced by the video processor of the TV before pixel, it sends data to the LCD screen - is a major concern for video games. The perception delay entry varies, some owners can not claim the spot and others have themselves to stop their game launch pads to the wall in frustration (I'm in the latter category).
Conclusion
The KDL-32W5500 is a small 32 "TV, 32" round. Sony inclusion of the "Theater Mode" is a good quick way to get surprisingly clear images with minimal effort (although in this case, improvement has been made by calibrating grayscale). I came to think that most of the extras here (Applicast, Motionflow, checks and other video processing) should be avoided.