Tour & Design

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The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's display is edged with a glossy black bezel. Below the bezel is a strip that holds the power indicators, this fades from glossy black to a silver finish. Below that is the speaker, which is matte black and runs the length of the television.

Back

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On the back of the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 you'll see the power cord jutting out from the center while on the right side you'll see the main grouping of ports.

Sides

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Unlike most televisions the KDL-52V5100 places features on both sides. On the right side you'll find the on-tv controls, while on the left side you'll find a secondary grouping of ports.

Stand/Mount

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The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's stand is a very simple black plastic affair. Unfortuntely there's no swivel available. You can mount the KDL-52V5100 on a wall if you wish, although you will need to purchase an additional wall mounting kit to do so.

Controls

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The controls are found on the right side of the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100. From top to bottom they are: power, channel up/down, volume up/down, input and menu.

Remote Control

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The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's remote is the same design we saw on the Sony Bravia KDL-46W4100, which is a simple design, slightly narrow, but not too long.

In the Box*(6.5)*

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Like most televisions the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 ships with a manual and remote (with batteries). Unfortuntely you don't get any extras like an HDMI cable or cleaning cloth with the KDL-52V5100. Setup of the television was relatively simple, although it did take a bit of effort to get it out of the box. Once done, however, the KDL-52V5100 is light for a 50+ inch television and there's no assembly required.

Aesthetics*(6.0)*

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The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 sports a simple design. There's no red tinting or overly flashy bits here. If you're looking for a fashion statement in your living room the KDL-52V5100 won't be the HDTV for you. If you prefer a simple, classy look that will fade into your decor, however, the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 will fit in just fine.

Calibration

Calibration

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As with every HDTV that we reviewed we took time out to properly calibrate the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 before we started running any of our tests. For our calibration process we use DisplayMate software, which allows us to properly set the contrast, brightness, sharpness and other adjustments. We have worked closely with the creator of DisplayMate to ensure that our calibration process and other testing is done properly and accurately.

Our calibration process is focused on ensuring that we get the most accurate colors and greyscale from the display. If you have purchased this HDTV you can pay to have someone calibrate it for you or you can use the settings that we used, which are labeled below. We only list items that we had to actually change. If you don't see a menu items listed you can just leave it in the default mode.

Video Modes

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The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 offers four different video modes: Vivid, Standard, Cinema and Custom. Below is Sony's description of what each mode actually does.

Blacks & Whites

Black Level*(8.23)*

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The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 posted an excellent black level at only 0.09 candelas per meter squared (cd/m2). This is a measure of how much light the screen is emitting when it is totally black. Obviously you want this to be as low as possible and the KDL-52V5100 delivers with a black level that is one-third our average. Below you can see how the KDL-52V5100 compares to three other televisions, note that a lower number is better.

Peak Brightness*(7.94)*

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In this test we look at how bright the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's display can get, basically the opposite of black level. The KDL-52V5100's performance in this test was average, with a peak brightness of 269.03 cd/m2. This is just slightly below average for all televisions. Below you can see how it compares with three other televisions. You'll note that the KDL-52V5100 is right in between the two other LCD televisions, while the Samsung PN50A760, the lone Plasma, is significantly below the other three, as is typical of Plasma televisions.

Contrast*(8.01)*

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Contrast ratio is a measure of the difference between the darkest black a television can produce and the brightest white. The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's contrast ratio is 2989:1, which is well above average. This is not surprising given the very good black level of the television combined with an average peak brightness. Below you can see how the KDL-52V5100 compares to other televisions.

A good contrast ratio is important because the human eye likes to see strong differences between shades of grey and color on the display. The larger the contrast ratio the clearer those difference will be.

Tunnel Contrast*(8.51)*

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In this test we see what happens to the black level as progressively more white is added to the display. On some televisions the black level will rise considerably as this happens. On the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 we saw a slight increase, from .09 to .3 cd/m2, which is enough to notice but not enough to ruin your viewing experience. You can see below a graph of the actuall difference and you can see that it's very slight.

White Falloff*(9.99)*

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This is the opposite of the previous test. Here we look at what happens to the peak brightness as the amount of white on the screen falls. Generally this isn't a problem with LCD televisions, and the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's performance here bears that out. You can see from the graph below that the peak brightness is almost a straight line, indicating no significant change.

Uniformity*(7.38)*

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In this test we look at how uniform the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's display is. We look at a black and white screen and for each we want to see areas of excessive brightness, dimming and general blotchiness. The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 did have a couple of problems in this area, especially when we looked at the black screen. We saw some significant leakage around the corners and some noticeable blotches around the screen. Thankfully the performance of the white screen was nowhere near as poor, with only some very slight dimming at the corners.

Greyscale Gamma*(8.28)*

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Greyscale gamma refers to the curve along which a television transitions greys from black all the way up to white. Ideally the gamma should measure between 2.1 and 2.2, and the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's performance wasn't too far off at 2.49. Below you can see the actual curve of gamma across all intensities. You can see that the curve is smooth and slightly concave, which is what we want to see.

The curve above, however, doesn't tell the whole story as our eyes actually detect differences in light as they increase exponentially. As such we plot the same data logarithmically below, which gives you a better idea of how the curve will actually represent changes perceptible by the human eye.

Resolution Scaling*(8.33)*

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Content today comes in all kinds of different formats, ranging from standard definition and various forms of high definition. In this section we look at how well the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 handlese these different formats. If you don't want to bother reading the specifics below we'll just let you know right off that it does a generally good job.

480p*(8.5)*

This is the format in which content from a DVD is delivered. It's standard definition, but unlike broadcast standard definition it uses a progressive scan rather than interlaced. When displaying 480p content on the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 we noticed that we lost about 2.5 percent of the screen on all sides due to an overscan problem. we did not notice any significant problems with legibility or resolution, and there were no problems with moire patterns.

720p*(8.0)*

This format technically qualifies as high definition, although it's the lowest resolution of high definition officially recognized. 720p is used by some broadcast sporting events as the progressive display offers better handling of motion than the 1080i interlaced format that is used for most HD broadcasts. 720p is also quickly becoming the standard of high definition content delivered via the internet.

The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's handling of 720p content showed the same overscan issues we saw with 480p, with 2.5 percent of the screen being cut off on every side. You can address this by using the Scan setting, however this also reduces the total amount of the screen being used so the content is surrounded by a large amount of black space. We didn't notice any problems with moire patterns or legibility in 720p mode, but we did notice that the KDL-52V5100 had a bit more trouble with resolution in 720p than it did in 480p, for example we weren't ble to make out very closely alternating black and white lines.

1080i*(8.5)*

This is the standard used for broadcast HD television. If you get HD from your cable or satellite provider chances are that they are using 1080i. The i in the name refers to the term interlaced. What this means is that instead of displaying all 1080 lines of content on the screen at once (as is done with 1080p content) the lines are instead alternated, so you'll get the 540 even lines and then the 540 odd lines. The attraction for broadcasters is obvious as this cuts the amount of data you need to send in half.

The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 did a very good job with 1080i content. There were no overscan issues, as you would expect since 1080i uses the same total number of pixels as 1080p. We were also quite happy with the resolution and legibility of the display and there were no moire patterns. We should note, however, that we did notice a problem when we switched the zoom mode away from Scan. In these cases we noticed some significant problems with patterns, if you see these problems we recommend you adjust the zoom mode until they go away.

Color Accuracy

Color Temperature*(9.93)*

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Light emitted by HDTVs can have various color temperatures, giving the television a bluish or yellowish cast depending on where the temperature is set. Whatever the HDTVs color temperature one thing that you want is for it to stay constant regardless of the content being displayed. That consistency is what we test for in this section. Below you can see a graph of the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 color temperature across the greyscale.

You can see form the graph that the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 did a solid job holding color temperature constant. Even at the darker greys where the color temperature deviates a bit more, it's still far less than what we see from other televisions. In actual fact these small deviations will have almost no impact on the viewing experience because our eyes cannot detect them.

You can see in the graph above the same information plotted on a color space. Each of the dots represents one of our data points. Anything within the red circle means that our eyes won't detect the change. This is excellent performance from the KDL-52V5100, some of the best we've seen in this test from any HDTV.

RGB Curves*(7.35)*

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HDTVs produce their light by combining red, green and blue. As such the performance of these three colors is key to determining the quality of color that a television can produce. Here we look at how well the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 did in producing these colors accurately. Below you can see curves for each of the three colors plotted across the intensity scale.

What we're looking for out of these curves is a smooth concave curve that keeps rising all the way up to the end. You can see that there are some issues with the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's curves, for example they're a bit bumpier than we'd like to see. You'll also notice that the blue curve, and to a lesser extent the red curve, both plateau at the higher intensities. This is called peaking and it means that once the KDL-52V5100 reaches a certain level it can no longer produce discernible differences between different shades of that color. These issues combine to give the KDL-52V5100 a slightly below average score in this section.

Color Gamut*(5.32)*

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Color gamut refers to the exact range of colors that an HDTV can produce and their color coordinates. In order to ensure that everyone watching a television, wherever they are, see the same shades of color when watching the same content HDTVs need to match their color gamut to an international standard known as ITU Recommendation .709. Below you can see a graph of the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's measured color gamut as compared to this international standard.

You can see that the KDL-52V5100 had some problems matching up to the international standard, especially in the blues and greens. What this means is that some colors won't appear on the KDL-52V5100 in exactly the way that the content produce wanted them to appear. Just so you know almost all HDTVs have some trouble matching the color gamut, and although the KDL-52V5100's performance here is a bit off, it's actually just about average for all the televisions we've reviewed. If you want to know exactly how innacurate the KDL-52V5100's color gamut is you can see a table of the exact deviations below.

Motion

Motion Smoothness*(7.5)*

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The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's motion performance was unimpressive initially, but improved significantly when we turned on the Motionflow feature, found in the advanced picture menu. With this option set to standard we were able to make out much more detail on complex moving objects like a face. We still did notice some motion blurring with solid patches of color and black/white bars, but significantly less than with the option turned off. We did not notice a significant improvement when turning this option onto high and did see some unpleasant effects such as faces turning cartoonish so we'd keep it on standard. Overall we'd call the KDL-52V5100's performance slightly above average in this area.

Motion Artifacting*(6.0)*

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Artifacting refers to the appearance of items on the screen that should not be there. With the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 we saw some significant problems with artifacting, for example there were leading lines on some bright objects, a result of the HDTV trying to extrapolate the motion via processing. We also saw a significant shutter effect several patterns and photos, especially when feeding the HDTV a 1080i signal. Overall we'd call this performance slightly below average.

3:2 Pulldown & 24fps*(6.5)*

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This section refers to the ability of the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 to reproduce the film-like effect of some content. Film is produces at 24 frames per second (fps) and the KDL-52V5100 is capable of playing back such content natively. It's also capable of identifying when broadcast content should be played back at 24fps and performing processing to produce this. Unfortunatelly the KDL-52V5100's processing in this area, known as 3:2 pulldown, was less than impressive. We noticed some significant problems with complex patterns and jitteriness when the KDL-52V5100 was doing this processing, resulting in a below average score.

Viewing Effects

Viewing Angle*(6.33)*

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For this test we measured the contrast ratio of the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 starting directly in front of the HDTV and then at every five degrees from center all the way out to 85 degrees. We are looking for the point at which the contrast ratio falls below 50%, which for the KDL-52V5100 occured 29 degrees from center, for a total viewing angle of 58 degrees. Below you can see the results of our measurements graphed.

The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's performance is significantly below our average viewing angle of about 41 degrees. That said it's certainly nowhere near the worst we've ever seen and is probably closer to average for an LCD television, which tend to produce worse viewing angles than Plasma televisions. A total viewing angle of 58 degrees means that you'll have a decent viewing angle for most situations. If, however, you want a television that can be viewed from a much wider angle, say for a large classroom, then you may want to look elsewhere.

Reflectance*(5.0)*

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The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 has a problem with reflectance. Shining an array of LED lights onto the display we were not only able to make out each individual light, meaning there's almost no diffusion going on, but it also produced very distracting streaks across the display. These were still visible as we changed the angle of the lights and when watching a standard video clip. We would not recommend putting the KDL-52V5100 into a room that has a lot of natural light that will shine directly on the display and you probably want to be very careful where you place lamps in the room as well.

Video Processing*(1.5)*

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Like most HDTVs the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 offers a variety of different video processing options that are supposed to improve various things. In reality these features rarely make a big difference. Below you can see what we thought of the KDL-52V5100's options.

Remote Control

Ergonomics & Durability*(6.9)*

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The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's remote is the same design that we saw on the KDL-46W4100. This is good as we found the remote was generally well designed. It's thin and light, with large buttons. It's also well-balanced, with the light weight allowing you to hold it in just about any position without it feeling unbalanced. The buttons are mostly made of soft plastic with good key travel, although we would have liked to see a bit more tactile feedback when pressed. The textured back makes it a bit easier to hold and there's a rest for your forefinger when holding the remote with your thumb on the directional pad. Unfortunately there's no backlight onthe remote, so you'll have to memorize the button positions for use in a dark room.

Button Layout & Use*(5.5)*

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The buttons on the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's remote are large and easy to find by feel. This is especially true of the most important buttons, the directional pad, volume, channel and keypad buttons. The problem is that Sony didn't place these most important buttons within easy reach of each other. The directional pad is located near the top while the channel and volume controls are at the bottom. This is a strange design choice as you will find yourself moving between these controls a lot, which will require you to shift your hand about a lot, which is a problem. On the plus side the remote is effective at a wide range of angles from the television.

Programming & Flexibility*(1.0)*

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Sony offers a proprietary service called Bravia Sync, which allows you to use the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's remote with other Sony devices. Unfortunately it cannot be used with devices from other manufacturers.

Audio

Sound Quality*(6.5)*

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The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's speakers produce very good audio quality for television speakers. We found the audio to be clear and rich with plenty of detail. There are four audio modes available: Dynamic, Standard, Clear Voice and Custom and you also have the option to set the Treble, Bass and Balance independantly. We were very happy with the KDL-52V5100's audio quality.

Surround Sound*(4.5)*

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As with most HDTVs the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 offers a simulated surround sound mode, and as is the case with most HDTVs it does not produce anything close to the sound quality of even a cheap set of real surround sound speakers. That said the feature does make the audio deeper and richer, so it may be of use to some. If you want a real surround sound experience, however, you'll need to invest in a separate speaker system.

Maximum Volume*(8.11)*

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The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 speaker's maximum volume topped out at 81.1 decibels, which is just about average for an HDTV. This should be plenty loud enough for almost anyone, in fact we doubt that anyone will be tempted to explore the higher ranges of that maximum volume. Below you can see how the maximum volume compares to several other models we've reviewed.

Connectivity

Input Ports*(7.5)*

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The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's ports are found in two locations, on the left side of the HDTV and just around the left side on the back. The input ports on the left include a VGA input with associated 3.5mm audio input, three HDMI ports, S-video port and an analog video input with associated analog audio inputs.

Around the back you will find a fourth HDMI port with associated analog audio input and two component video inputs with associated analog audio inputs. You will also find the RF input for cable or antenna.

Output Ports*(2.0)*

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As with most HDTVs the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 has only two outputs, one digital audio out and one analog audio out. Both are found in the grouping on the back of the HDTV.

Wireless** Connections***(0.0)*

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The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 doesn't support any wireless connectivity

Media*(1.0)*

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The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 has a single USB port located on the left side of the HDTV. This allows you to view photos and listen to music located on USB devices.

Placement*(8.0)*

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The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's port placement is good. The ports found on the left side are easily accessible while those on the back are just around the side of the HDTV, so you won't need to reach all the way to the middle of the back as you must on some other televisions. Unfortunately the stand does not rotate for even easier access. The ports are clearly labeled and well organized.

Menus & Interface

Ease of Use*(7.5)*

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The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's menu system is a simple tabbed interface with an attractive design. Along the left you'll see icons and names for each the tabs with an area about half the width of the screen to the right showing the options for each tab. From the top the different tabs are Picture, Sound, Screen, Channel, USB, Lock and Setup.

Navigation is accomplished via the 4-way control of your remote. All of the controls are easy to use and understand and we also like that making adjustments wether via a sub-menu or on-screen adjustment bar are consistent throughout the interface. We like this menu interface a lot better than the more difficult to use Playstation style menu we saw on the Sony Bravia KDL-46W4100. Our one annoyance is that the menus didn't wrap from top to bottom, so to get to the bottom of a long list of options you'll need to hold the down button.

Picture Controls*(7.5)*

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The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's picture menu gives you a good degree of control over picture options. All of the standard controls you would expect are here like Backlight, Picture, Brightnes, Color etc. Almost all of the options are available right at the top level of the menu, with only a few requiring you to enter the Advanced Settings sub menu.

In the Advanced Settings menu you will find two motion options, the ability to turn game mode on/off and a white balance control. That last gives you more granual control over RGB settings. Overall the KDL-52V5100's doesn't offer quite the degree of control that some other televisions offer, but it gives you 90% of what even advanced users might want in an easy to use interface. Our one annoyance is that labeling of features wasn't great so you'll have to go to the manual or online help to find out exactly what something like the Clear White option actually does.

Audio Controls*(7.0)*

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The sound tab of the KDL-52V5100's menu system gives you several options that you can choose from. These include several different sound modes: dynamic, standard, clear voice and custom. You can also turn the simulated surround sound feature on/off here, adjust Treble, Bass and Balance and also control the speaker output. We would have liked to see a bit more of an extensive equalizer here, but other than that it does the job.

Other Controls*(8.0)*

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In addition to picture and audio the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 offers menus for adjusting the screen size and placement, channel control, a separate menu for the USB port, a lock menu for parental controls and a Setup menu where you can set the date and time, etc.

In addition to these there are also two other menu interfaces available on the KDL-52V5100. The first is the Tools menu, which is used to access a subset of features that changes dynamically depending on your input. There's also a favorites menu that allows you to add your favorite inputs or channels for quick access. We like these extra features, but once again have to criticize Sony for not providing better on-screen explanations of what options actually do. Combined with the poor documentation that comes with the HDTV (see below) this can make figuring out how to use these tools a bit of a pain.

Manual*(2.5)*

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The manual that ships with the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 is simply sub-par. It does a decent job at giving you information on the things it covers, for example there's a clear explanation of all the controls on the remote, but it simply doesn't cover 90% of the televisions features at all. We found ourselves needing to go to Sony's suppor time to look at deeper documentation time and again. So even though the manual has some of the things we always look for and like such as a table of contents, index and clear page headers, we just can't recommend it. If you actually want to figure out how your HDTV works we recommend looking at the KDL-52V5100's online support here.

Formats & Media

Formats*(10.0)*

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The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 is a full 1080p HDTV, which means it can natively display the highest quality of HD content currently available. This content is typically only available from Blu-ray discs. The KDL-52V5100 is also capable of displaying 1080i, 720p and 480i/p content. It can also playback content that is supposed to be viewed at 24 frames per second either natively or using 3:2 pulldown. The KDL-52V5100 does not support a wider color gamut such as xvYcc.

Photo Playback*(2.5)*

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The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 can play back photos located on USB devices plugged into the USB port on the left side of the HDTV. Unfortunately the photo playback options are limited and the interface is poorly designed. When a USB device is plugged in you are shown the folder heirarchy available. When we navigated to the folder with our pictures, however, we did not see the photos. Instead we had to go to the Tools menu and choose Select Photo Files to view them. Why this extraneous step would need to be added we don't know.

Once you do have the photos displayed on the screen as thumbnails you can view them full screen or rotate them via the Tools menu. You can also add them to a slideshow, but unfortunately there's no option to add them all to a slideshow so you'll have to do this individually for every photo, another annoyance. Once a slideshow is playing you basically have no control over it from this interface. If you go to the main menu and choose USB you can adjust the slideshow speed, but there's no options for transition or to play music. Overall it's just a poor effort for photo playback on an HDTV.

Music & Video Playback*(3.0)*

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The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 does not support playback of video but it can play back Mp3 music files. We found many of the same annoyances we saw with photo playback, in this case you can't just navigate to a folder with your music files but instead have to choose Select Music Files from the Tools menu. Once you've done this you see thumbnails of the music files available with album art displayed if it has been embedded into the file. You can play a file by pressing the center select button and then skip between tracks using left/right or up/down on the directional pad. There is no support for playlists and if you want to shuffle songs you'll have to go into the main menu and make this adjustment under USB options.

Streaming Playback*(0.0)*

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The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 does not support streaming playback from online sources.

Additional Media*(0.0)*

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The Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 does not have a built-in DVR, DVD or Blu-Ray player.

Power Consumption

Power Consumption*(7.65)*

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Not surprisingly, given that we're dealing with a 52-inch HDTV here, the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100 consumed more power than the average television in our testing. Our estimate is that the annual cost of operating the KDL-52V5100 for the average family will work out to $47.06. This is with the backlight turned down to setting 6 so that it emmited about 200 candelas per meter squaared (cd/m2) of light. This is the standard at which we test all HDTVs. Below you can see what happens if you turn the backlight all the way up (as we do in our calibration process) or all the way down.

As we mentioned above, the Sony Bravia KDL-52V5100's performance in this test is slightly below average. Below you can see how it compares to three other HDTVs. You'll note the major outlier in this grouping is the Samsung PN50A760, a Plasma HDTV. Plasma televisions usually draw much more power than their LCD counterparts.

Conclusion & Comparisons

 

 

Series Comparison

Sony V5100 Series

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Sony's V5100 series of LCD HDTVs represents the mid-range of their LCD lineup. New this year the mid-range now features items like 120Hz refresh rate and USB ports that were peviously only found on higher end models. Sony has not included internet connectivity features in this lineup, however. The V5100 series is available in three sizes: 52, 46 and 40 inches.