In my home, the television is a device that's always on. When not being actively watched, it serves as a sort of generic white noise machine, which is useful and addictive.

So, with that lame set of excuses and weak justifications, I barged into one of the electronics superstores, and snagged the Sony KV-32 television. It required that seventy three big burly guys be brought out of retirement in order to lift this TV into my Jeep Grand Cherokee (a different review). The TV really is that heavy. It's amazing. I mean, the people at Sony must have this deep and bitter hatred of all things lightweight. I'm still trying to figure out exactly which component is the one that weighs the most; but suffice it to say that you'll not be lifting this product on your own. My advice is to just hire a bunch of drifters, bring them to your home, and force them to set up the TV. Go ahead and feed them, if you feel generous.

Okay, so it's heavy. What about the TV quality? Glad you asked. It's good. Really good. And that's exactly why I paid twelve hundred dollars. I knew that it was going to be good; I expected that. But there are some subtle performance flaws that I would put into the "bummer" category. One of which is the tendency of the TV to display what I call "color banding".
Here's the deal: when the TV is showing a limited set of colors, but with a broad range in that one color, then you'll see the banding. Imagine that the TV screen is showing the picture of a Green flag that's flapping in the wind.
The shades of green are going to vary, based on several variables including the shadow, light, etc. But when the colors/shades change, you'll see weird effects that look kind of "ghostly". Here's a different explanation: computer monitors are adjustable with regard to the number of colors being shown. Try opening a photo (of anything) on your computer screen. Look at the photo. Now, change the monitor's color depth to "hundreds" of colors, instead of thousands or millions. That same photo will now show the banding. Again, bummer.

Now then, the flat screen is nice. In fact, it's one of those things that you don't really notice; it just kind of does it's job without reflecting annoying stuff from the background.

And here's a cool feature: my friends are astonished over what I call the "picture changing thingy" (that's a science term). The deal is that you have several (four, to be exact) adjustable modes with which you can watch whatever you happen to be watching. So, you can set or program the screen to perform differently, based on your own preferences or biases. You could, for example, increase the detail, brightness, color, etc. on one mode, while reducing it on another. When I'm bored, which is most of the time, I just sit down, and switch modes, trying to figure out which one I like the most. Normally, I end up changing one of the modes, only because I can. My friend, Johnson, likes to increase the amount of Red in the picture, while reducing the sharpness. I think that might be related to his having done time in an "institution" where many of his emotional needs were not met. Long story.

Anyway, this review is largely an opinion piece, and doesn't cover all of the elements of the TV. Mostly, I wanted for people to be aware of the good and bad that comes in this box. For detailed information with regard to the complete feature set, you'll want to look elsewhere.

Bottom Line: is this TV worth $1200?
Well, probably. If I was pinching pennies, as it were, I would not have bought this TV. It really isn't that good. But because I had a few bucks sitting around, I dropped them on this product, and I reasonably glad that I did.

I attached a very, very good sound system and DVD deck to the TV, and now my friends actually prefer to watch movies at my place, as opposed to the theaters. That's not necessarily a good thing, by the way, as they often require beverages and food, which gets expensive.







Recommended: Yes