The term ‘affordable’ and ‘Sony’ do not always go well together and when they do, it’s time for people like us to rub our hands together and get to work. Costing at around £550, the Sony Bravia KDL-40S5500 40” LCD TV is pretty affordable, especially in Sony’s standards. When a brand like Sony dishes out an averagely priced TV, it definitely makes you think that something is very fishy. With this in mind, we went about studying this TV up close and ended up finding out exactly what this TV was missing. To start off, the TV looks decent, there’s nothing to complain about that – smooth and sharp-edged, this Bravia in one good looker.
The Sony Bravia KDL-40S5500 Full HD LCD TV is not so over-loaded with features – in fact, it lacks quite a lot when compared to Sony’s other top-notch models. It sports the Bravia Engine 2 system, or better put, it sports JUST the Bravia Engine 2. This leaves the TV deprived of a lot of advanced picture processing techniques that the Bravia Engine 3 brought forth. Apart from this, the KDL-40S5500 lacks 100Hz processing too. So all these lackadaisical aspects leave permanent marks in the TV’s pictures.
Motion blurs are aplenty, but it’s the backlight inconsistency that shows this LCD TV in awful light. Coupled with unimpressive black levels, movies in the screens of the KDL-40S5500 are very disappointing. But there are times when the TV seems perfect, and you can’t believe your own eyes – such is the sharpness and clarity. But again, those are only times. Scenes with a dark background are so full of grey patches that the eyes hurt! Colours are again, only average – skin tones are easy on the eyes though. So, we were right all along huh? The Sony Bravia KDL-40S5500 is one fishy TV.
