Introduction

Tour & Design

Front

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The KDL-46Z5100's front is surrounded by a glossy black bezel. The Sony logo in the bottom center glows when the TV is on, but can be turned off. 

Back

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The lower right corner of the KDL-46Z5100's back has an array of ports.

Sides

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The left side of the TV has several ports. The right side is where you'll find the on-set controls.

 

Stand/Mount

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The KDL-46Z5100's stand is glossy black, with a rectangular front and a rounded back.

 

Controls

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The on-set controls are located on the right side of the TV.

 

Remote Control

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The KDL-46Z5100's remote is the typical Sony Bravia offering. The remote looks a bit sparse compared to other remotes, which will be a blessing for utilitarians and an easy replacement for universal remote advocates.

 

In The Box*(6.0)*

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The KDL-46Z5100 will give you some manuals, a remote, batteries for said remote (two AAs), and a cleaning cloth. The TV isn't particularly hard to assemble, but the monitor portion is large and might be difficult for a single person to maneuver.

Aesthetics*(5.0)*

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The Sony KDL-46Z5100 has a very basic design. It has a a glossy black bezel and only one real design flourish: when the TV is on, the Sony logo on the front will glow. You can turn this off if you find it annoying. If you're looking for a TV that blends in well, the KDL-46Z5100 is a good bet.

Calibration

Calibration

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[

](http://www.displaymate.com/)Before we test anything, we first calibrate the TV. In order to do this, we use DisplayMate and a chromometer to set the contrast, brightness, and other settings. Our calibration procedure focuses on accurate colors and greyscale.

The chart below only lists things we've had to change. If the items were defaulted to the setting we ended up using, we didn't list it in the chart.

As you can see, we didn't have to change much. The Custom mode seems to be pretty accurately calibrated right out of the box.

Video Modes

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The KDL-46Z5100 has the same four video modes of other Bravia models: Vivid, Custom, Standard, and Cinema. Below are descriptions of what each of these do.

 

Blacks & Whites

Black Level*(8.48)*

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The KDL-46Z5100 was capable of a deeper than average black level for an LCD HDTV. This achievement is offset, however, by a poor gamma curve, which we'll discuss later. Essentially, the TV's blacks don't have a lot of differentiation to them. Therefore, while you'll be enjoying a somewhat deep black, you won't be enjoying much additional detail. 

 

 

Peak Brightness*(8.74)*

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The TV also had a good brightness level, which isn't anything unusual for an LCD display. The TV was capable of outputting 339.2 cd/m2, which is above average compared to other HDTVs we've reviewed (including plasmas, which bring the total down a bit). While the TV isn't capable of bright whites that will necessarily wow you, it's more than sufficient for combating glare.

 

 

Contrast*(8.77)*

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The TV also had a good contrast ratio, which we measured at 4240:1. This is very much above average. 

 

 

Contrast is important, because the human eye can detect very fine differences between shades of grey or color. Large contrast ratios typically mean those differences will be easier to see clearly.

Tunnel Contrast*(9.54)*

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The TV held up well on our tunnel contrast test, which is typical of LCD HDTVs. On this test we make sure the black level remains constant regardless of how much black is on the screen. Typically if the entire screen is dark, TVs will have an easier time displaying deeper blacks as opposed to when the screen is 10% black.

The KDL-46Z5100 did well on this test though: the black level won't fluctuate much during your viewing experience.

 

White Falloff*(9.97)*

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White falloff tests the peak brightness when a decreasing percentage of the screen is white. Like the above test, this is to ensure stability regardless of the image on the screen. Like the above test, the KDL-46Z5100 performed almost unwaveringly. Your bright spots will remain bright.

 

Uniformity*(7.0)*

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This wasn't the most uniform screen we've seen, especially from an off-center viewing angle. The worst uniformity issue was the flashlighting at the corners, which led to a blotchy, somewhat uneven screen. The flashlighting wasn't terrible from a straight-on perspective, but even something like 20º away from center will cause the flashlighting to look like giant, purple contusions.

Greyscale Gamma*(5.62)*

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As alluded to in the blacks section, the TV doesn't have a great greyscale gamma. The main issue is that blacks drop out too early, leading to a loss of detail in dark scenes. The TV does have a gamma adjustment feature, but skewing it will have an adverse effect on color representation. While our testing said this calibration was the best one overall, if greyscale gamma is more important than color accuracy, we'd recommend testing the gamma setting. 

 

Resolution Scaling*(8.23)*

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There are various different standard resolutions that today's content comes in. HDTVs need to be able to display them all well. Since the TV will have to upscale or downscale content that isn't the native resolution. Below we've outlined how the KDL-46Z5100 handles different formats.

480p*(8.2)*

This is the format that DVD content is displayed at. When displaying 480p content, the only real issue we saw was a 3% overscan.

720p*(8.25)*

This format is the lowest resolution that's recognized as high definition. Some broadcast HD is in 720p and it's the unofficial HD standard for internet video.

The KDL-46Z5100 did well with 720p content. With fine grey patterns, there was a slight color cast. Also, moving shapes were slightly blurry and we saw some issues with artifacting.

1080i*(8.25)*

This format is the current standard for broadcast HD television. The 'i' means interlaced, meaning the TV will display every other 540 lines.

The KDL-46Z5100 did a  good job with 1080i content. We didn't see any significant artifacting or legibility issues and no moire patterns. Again, the KDL-46Z5100 did a great job.

 

 

Color Accuracy

Color Temperature*(9.08)*

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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-46Z5100 color temperature across the greyscale.

 

You can see form the graph that the Sony Bravia KDL-46Z5100 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.

RGB Curves*(7.84)*

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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-46Z5100 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-46Z5100'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-46Z5100 reaches a certain level it can no longer produce discernible differences between different shades of that color. These issues combine to give the KDL-46Z5100 a slightly below average score in this section.

Color Gamut*(5.19)*

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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-46Z5100's measured color gamut as compared to this international standard.

 

You can see that the KDL-46Z5100 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-46Z5100 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-46Z5100'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-46Z5100's color gamut is you can see a table of the exact deviations below.

 

 

Motion

Motion Smoothness*(7.0)*

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Typically we disable various video processing features, but in the case of the KDL-46Z5100 we found it was beneficial to leave the MotionFlow feature on Standard. This will result in some slight artifacting, but it will all but eliminate motion blurring. We really saw no issues with blurring in pictures at 1080p. A moving set of color swatches showed significant blurring, however, as did a series of black and white bars. We thought this was an interesting combination: complex pictures didn't blur much, but basic patterns did. We're guessing the MotionFlow feature is simply geared towards complex images, since turning it off caused the photos to blur just as much as the other figures.

Motion Artifacting*(6.5)*

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Artifacting was a very mixed bag. On our photo test and color chart test, we saw very minor rolling shudder. Alternating black and white lines prove a much larger challenge for the TV: the bars were wracked with blocky shuddering and acquired a slight color cast. The shuddering was much more noticeable than the smooth effect we typically see. Herringbone patterns or high contrast stripes will likely cause noticeable artifacting.

3:2 Pulldown & 24fps*(8.50)*

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The KDL-46Z5100 performed adequately in its 24fps mode. There were two main issues. First, the TV again has troubles with fine patterns. We saw some weird, randomly shifting blotches in a block of white and black stripes. Another block of stripes flashed slightly. This wasn't terrible compared to some of the other TVs we've seen, but wasn't great. We enabled the CineMotion feature and set it to Auto 1, which reduced the frequency of artifacting a bit, but didn't eliminate it. Another test video pans an empty stadium. The seats looked noisy (less so with CineMotion), like their outlines were crawling. Again, it wasn't a particularly distracting issue, but it will be annoying once you notice it.

 

Viewing Effects

Viewing Angle*(4.71)*

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Like most LCDs, the KDL-46Z5100 had a poor viewing angle: at 71º, the contrast will dip below 50%. This means everyone on the couch will likely be fine, although we noticed significant differences in picture quality even slightly off-center. If you have a lot of people crowded around the TV, however, you might have more issues. 

 

Reflectance*(5.5)*

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The KDL-46Z5100 had some problems with reflectance. We were able to see each and every LED in the array we shined at the screen. Further, the light created vertical and horizontal streaks. This is very distracting. When the light isn't facing the screen directly, the streaks aren't particularly noticeable. The glossy bezel might also catch light, but is far less of an issue, especially given the size of the screen. We wouldn't recommend putting this TV in a room that catches natural light. 

Video Processing*(3.0)*

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The KDL-46Z5100 has a few nice processing features and a lot of other additions that aren't particularly helpful.

 

 

Remote Control

Ergonomics & Durability*(7.75)*

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The Sony KDL-46Z5100's remote is a slightly fancier version of the typical Sony Bravia remote. The remote is designed well for the most part, but the button layout isn't great (as will be elaborated in the following section). The underside of the remote has a groove for your index finger to aid in gripping the remote when it's held in its neutral position. The ribbing on the back gives a bit more grip, but still allows users to slide their grip around easily.

The buttons are all soft plastic and have good travel, but we would've liked more tactile feedback. The buttons do have an optional backlight, which helps illuminate their label. **

Button Layout & Use***(5.5)*

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The remote fits well in hand at the neutral positin, with thumb on the select key and index finger fit into the groove on the remote's underside. From this position, however, you can't reach the volume and channel buttons. It's hard to reach the entirety of the number pad from this position as well. The d-pad is so big that it's really the only control you can reach from the neutral position. Prepare to shift your grip a lot.

The major buttons are easy to find by feel, either because of their size or their semi-unique shape, but the minor buttons are very hard to navigate without looking.
**

Programming & Flexibility***(1.0)*

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While it's not a true universal remote, the KDL-46Z5100's remote can be used to control other Sony products via its Bravia Sync feature. 

Connectivity

Input Ports*(7.5)*

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The KDL-46Z5100 has a good selection of ports, most of which are on its side. There are 3 HDMI ports, a set of analog audio inputs and a corresponding composite video input, an S-Video port, and a VGA input with corresponding 3.5mm audio jack.

On the back you'll find a pair of composite video ports, four analog audio inputs, and another HDMI input.

Output Ports*(2.0)*

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The KDL-46Z5100 has a digital audio out port and an S-Video port.

Other Connections*(3.0)*

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On the back of the TV you'll find an ethernet port, which will allow you to stream videos and music.

Media*(1.0)*

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The KDL-46Z5100 has a USB port for watching videos, viewing pictures, or listening to music off a thumb drive.

Placement*(7.0)*

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Port placement on the KDL-46Z5100 is pretty good. A great deal are on the side and very easy to access. The rest are on the back located very close to the edge, which are also very easy to reach. This is good, because the TV doesn't rotate to provide easy access to those ports.

Audio & Menus

Audio Quality*(7.5)*

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The Sony KDL-46Z5100's built-in speakers are definitely better than average. Voices were clear, explosions were bassy without being boomy, and fire sizzled. Although the speakers can't really compare to a nice set of external speakers, they're probably better than fmost cheap auxiliary sets.

The sound options menu lets you choose a 'Sound Mode,' which are like equalizer presets. There are four different sound modes: Dynamic, Standard, Clear Voice, and Custom. The Custom setting gives you access to an equalizer with sliders for 100Hz, 200Hz, 500Hz, 1kHz, 2kHz, 5kHz, and 10kHz. The TV also has sliders for treble, bass, balance, and voice zoom ('Emphasize voice or ambient audio').

There's also a surround sound and sound enhancer you can toggle, but neither have a particularly significant effect on the TV's sound. Fortunately, the TV creates enough depth on its own.

Menu Interface*(6.0)*

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The KDL-46Z5100 features a PlayStation 3-like design. Pressing the menu button will bring up a horizontal string of icons that expand vertically when highlighted. The menu is attractive and intuitive, but it has some annoying usability issues.

First of all, the menus don't loop around. This means getting from point A to point Z means you have to scroll through the 24 items in between them. We prefer menus that allow you to skip easily between the first and last items in a list. The lack of looping menus is especially noticeable if you like to tweak the picture settings often: opening the main menu will default to the input list, which is the second to last item. You have to scroll all the way to the left in order to access menu items, then all the way through the picture menu before you can access the advanced settings.

While this is will undoubtedly be annoying for power users, the average consumer probably won't be too troubled by this. Overall, we liked the menu system despite its easily fixable quirks.

Manual*(6.75)*

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The KDL-46Z5100's manual is average overall. It has a table of contents and a very sparse index, both of which should help navigation to a certain extent. There's tabs on the edges of the pages to aid in browsing to a particular section. The font in the book is a good size but coud be slightly bigger. The pictures are a bit on the small side and tend to be busy with arrows, but the descriptions are good enough.

Formats & Media

Formats*(10.0)*

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The Sony KDL-46Z5100 can display HD in full 1080p. This is the highest HD format currently avaialable, and will allow you to enjoy Blu-ray in all its splendor. The TV can also play back 1080i, 720p and 480p content.

Photo Playback*(2.5)*

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The KDL-46Z5100 can play back photos, providing you supply a thumb drive with images on it. The photo player is very basic, but will get the job done. In the menu, you can select the photos submenu, then the USB drive. From here you navigate through the drive's folder hierarchy. Photos are displayed as thumbnails and selecting them will blow them up to full-screen size. Pictures take quite some time to load, however. Also, the feature itself is very bare bones, with virtually no options at all. While great for utilitarians, if you're looking for sophisticated slideshow features, the KDL-46Z5100 isn't going to satisfy you.

Music & Video Playback*(4.0)*

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Music and video operate much like the photo playback feature. One nice touch is that, when media is playing, the menu button will return you to the folder your media was in. Typically the menu doesn't remember where your cursor was last. The TV also seemed to recognize some album art, displaying it when the song was playing.

Streaming Playback*(10.4)*

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The KDL-46Z5100 has some incredible streaming playback options. Your internet connection will give you content from the following providers:

In addition to the above, there's a good selection of podcasts to check out, but you can't subscribe to an RSS feed of your own. With the exception of Amazon Unbox, this content is all free. You can also buy premium Sony content.

Further, the LAN provides you with access to Yahoo! widgets. There are currently only a three widgets currently available: weather, finances, and news.

Other Media*(0.0)*

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The TV has no other media playback features, such as an integrated DVD or Blu-ray player.

Power Consumption

Power Consumption*(8.48)*

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The KDL-46Z5100 has a slightly expensive upkeep. Even if you're blasting backlight, it'll only cost you $40.62/year. Even though this is slightly more expensive than our current average of about $30/year, its upkeep cost isn't grossly out of whack for its size.

The TV also comes with several power-saver features, such as the ability to automatically turn off when it senses an input has cut, or a general 'power saver' option that reduces the backlight and potentially does other things.

 

Vs Samsung LN40B650

Value Comparison

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Both of these TV had similar performance results, but the Samsung is 6 inches smaller. In general, they both did the same on black and white performance tests, the Samsung had better color representation, and the Sony had a better viewing angle and less artifacting. The Sony also has access to a lot more internet content than the Samsung does. Overall, this is an issue of budget. If you can afford the Sony, it has a great portfolio of features that the Samsung does not.

Blacks & Whites

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Both TVs have very similar black levels and peak brightnesses. The Samsung has a better contrast ratio and a much better greyscale gamma.

 

Color Accuracy

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While the Sony has a better color temperature and a more accurate gamut, the Samsung has much better color representation overall.

 

 

Motion

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Both TVs did about the same on our smoothness tests. The Samsung had far more artifacting issues.

Viewing Effects

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The Sony had a significantly better viewing angle.

**
**

Connectivity

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The Sony has an S-Video input and two analog audio outputs compared to the Samsung's one. The Samsung has an additional USB port and analog input.

Other Comparisons

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While both HDTVs have internet connectivity, they implement it in slightly different ways. The Sony comes with far more built-in video sources, but the Samsung contains better picture options and can stream data from your PC.

Vs Sony Bravia KDL52V5100

Value Comparison

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This is a battle of old vs. young. The KDL-46Z5100 (for clarity, we'll refer to it as the 46Z) is the newer Sony TV. The 46Z outperforms the KDL-52V5100 (52V for short) in black and white performance, but the two TVs perform about the same elsewhere. The main two differences between the two are size and extensibility. The 52V is obviously the larger set, but it lacks an internet connection. The 46Z's LAN port gives it access to a lot of streaming content that the 52V can't offer.

Blacks & Whites

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The 46Z had a better black level, peak brightness, and contrast.

 

Color Accuracy

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The 52V had a slightly more accurate color temperature, although both TVs were excellent in this regard. The 46V gains the upper hand in color acuracy. Both TVs did about the same on the color gamut test.

 

 

Motion

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Both TVs did about the same in terms of smoothness and artifacting. The 46Z had less of the former and the 52V had less of the latter.

Viewing Effects

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The 46Z had a better viewing angle than the 52V, but not by any great stretch. Consider both TVs equal on this one.

Connectivity

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Other than some analog audio ports being a bit different, the main difference is the 52V's lack of a LAN port.

Other Comparisons

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Although mentioned above, the 46Z's LAN port gives it a lot more functionality than the 52V. With it, you can stream videos from more than 20 different content providers.

Vs Vizio SV470XVT

Value Comparison

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In this comparison, the two TVs are about the same size, with the Vizio standing slightly larger. The Vizio is also significantly less expensive and has a 120Hz mode. The Sony had a better contrast ratio and black level, but the Vizio had more accurate color representation. As with other comparisons, the main advantage the Sony has here is its LAN and USB ports. These will give you access to photo, music, and video playback, either via a thumb drive or internet connection. The Sony's streaming video options are significant, but this functionality will cost you.

Blacks & Whites

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The Vizio has a slightly higher peak brightness, but its poor black level leads to a bad overall contrast ratio.

 

 

Color Accuracy

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The Vizio did slightly better in color accuracy all around.

 

 

Motion

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The Vizio handled motion and artifacting a bit better than the Sony did.

Viewing Effects

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The Vizio has a slightly better viewing angle, but it wasn't by any great stretch.

Connectivity

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The Sony has a LAN and USB port that the Vizio does not.

Other Comparisons

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As we said in the previous comparison, the Sony's LAN port gives it a lot of additional functionality. You can stream video from many, many different content providers and download updates. Also, the USB port gives you access to photo, music, and video playback.

Conclusion

 

Series Comparison

Z5100 Series

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The Z5100 series' most notable feature is its online content. The LAN connection allows access to a lot of streaming video content and widgets that are available for download. The USB connection further extends functionality by allowing photo, music, and video playback from a thumb drive.