Sony Bravia KDL-52XBR9 LCD HDTV Review

The Bravia KDL-52XBR9 is the flagship model of Sony's premium range of Bravia XBR9 HDTVs, and that means it comes with both flagship performance and a flagship price. Priced at about $2400, this 52 inch LCD display has excellent performance and a comprehensive feature set, but at a price that could scare off all but the most ardent of fans.

The HDTV is a 1080p model, which means it can display every pixel of any sort of high definition signal that gets thrown at it; the screen has 1920 by 1080 pixels. It has 4 HDMI ports in total; one on the back and three on the side. These side HDMI ports are accompanied by a VGA port (for connecting to a computer) and a handful of analog video and audio inputs. The remote of the KDL-52XBR9 is a long, thin model with the channel and volume controls somewhat inexplicably located at the bottom, which means you have to shift your hand to reach them. If you prefer to use the controls on the display, they are located on the right side of the case and aren't visible from the front; you have to look around the screen front to read the labels.

The KDL-52XBR9 is also well connected to the Internet; it includes an Ethernet port that can connect to your home network and, though that, the Internet. It supports the DLNA standard, so if you have a computer or other device that also supports this, it can stream videos, music and photos across the network. For the wider Internet, the KDL-52XBR9 can stream videos from a number of sources, including YouTube, Amazon Video On Demand and a number of other  video streaming services. These are done through Sony's own custom software, but the screen also supports Yahoo! Widgets, which can add other services as new Widgets are created.

Performance (Read the full lab performance results at Televisioninfo.com)
The Bravia KDL-52XBR9 had outstanding performance in most of our tests: in many cases, it had the best performance that we've seen so far. This is true for black level, peak white and the contrast ratio between the two, which we measured at a very impressive 8809: 1 (our method of measuring contrast ratios is different to the ones that the manufacturers use, and gives lower, but more realistic, scores). This means that you'll see deep, dark, blacks and very bright whites on the screen, and you'll see both at the same time. It also means that the screen should still look good in daylight; the whites are bright enough that they will still be visible in anything but direct sunlight.

Colors were also impressive, but we did find that the color gamut (the range of colors that the display can represent) was a little inaccurate, with the gamut being a little too wide in the blue and red areas, which could lead to very slightly inaccurate colors. However, the response of the red, green and blue elements of the screen was very smooth, which means that there should be no problem with the display reproducing subtle color changes.

Motion was also very well rendered on this HDTV; we found that the Motionflow 240Hz processing did a very good job of rendering rapidly moving images while still preserving the details. There are two levels of this processing; we found that the Standard setting did the best job of smoothing motion without creating too many artifacts in the image.

Comparisons (Read the full comparisons at Televisioninfo.com)
Although the KDL-52XBR9 has great performance and a very long list of features, it is also significantly more expensive than many similar models. The Vizio VF550XVT is larger (at 55 inches), but also $600 cheaper; you can pick that up for about $1800. The Vizio can't stream video or use widgets, though (although the forthcoming VF551XVT does support widgets) and has much poorer performance. Similarly, the Samsung UN46B6000 is cheaper at $2000, but is also smaller (at 46 inches). The Samsung is much thinner though; less than an inch thick while the Sony is 3 inches thick. The Samsung also uses an LED backlight, which helps keep it thin and is more ecologically sound, as LEDs don't include the mercury that conventional florescent backlights use.

The KDL-52XBR9 is priced at $2400 and up, it is one of the most expensive TVs in its size. But you get what you pay for: it is one of the best performing TVs that we've reviewed, and the Internet streaming and widget features make it a very flexible media device, as well as being a seriosly good television.

For a more in-depth review, visit the Sony Bravia KDL-52XBR9 Review at our partner TelevisionInfo.com