Sony KP-57HW40
Written: Dec 17 '01
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Pros: Great picture and sound, 2 sets of component inputs, many dual tuner options.
Cons: Some menus cumbersome to use, only stores 20 channel labels.
The Bottom Line: Great picture and sound. Many input options. Highly Recommended.
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| altog's Full Review: Sony KP-57HW40 57 in. TV |
I've owned this set for over a month now, and overall, feel this is a great model. Picture overall is very bright and crisp. I used the "Video Essentials" test DVD to get settings ideal, and most settings required very little change from their "default" positions. The only non-standard picture control on the set is the "Flash Focus" button, which you just push once and forget. No other focus/convergence knobs are needed, nor were they included.
Once calibrated, the picture looked great, and the built-in line doubler did its job well. Even analog broadcast TV looked watchable, and HDTV (with an external tuner), or progressive scan CD's looked excellent.
This TV has a wide variety of input choices including composite, component and s-video. One input missing was IEEE1394 (i-Link) which was strange since Sony was such a strong supporter of the standard.
I have three minor grips with input selection on this TV. First, the remote doesn't offer any way to directly go to an input. Instead you must cycle through them all to get to what you want, but you can set the TV to "skip" unused inputs. A second grip is that you can't adjust the picture controls on an input by input basis, although generally that isn't important. The set does have 3 sets of programmable picture settings, but they are not tied to input setting. A third grip is on input labeling. This set does allow you to label your inputs, which is great because there are 6, but you can't pick your own labels, and instead have to pick from a list Sony has created for you. To make matters worse, the labels are not very descriptive, for example the have "VHS" but that is it. If you have two VHS VCRs, you have to name both with the same label, thus nothing differentiates one "VHS" from the other.
As for tuner options, this set has many. Although it doesn't have picture-in-picture in the conventional sense, it does have picture along-side picture, and you can enlarge or shrink the size of both. (Note, you can only display "component" input signals on the left, so you can not display two HDTV signals side-by-side, assuming you had two HDTV tuners.)
As for TV options with the built-in tuners, there are several. You can watch two shows at once, or you can watch one show with a large screen as other shows are previewed on smaller screens along the right. Overall the set makes good use of its screen real-estate. One grip on the TV end of things involves the TV station labeling. This set only holds 20 station labels which doesn't cut-it anymore, in a day when cable broadcasts over 100 stations. I would have expected a set costing $3000 to have a bit bigger memory.
Sound of the set was fine with built-in speakers, and line-level outputs are available that are fixed or variable. This set does not have external speaker outputs, which are handy in some situations. One minor grip with the sound is that it takes several menu clicks to switch between internal and external speakers. An switch for this would be nicer than a menu setting.
The remote that comes with the set is O.K., but nothing special, and it can only control a few functions of other Sony components.
Overall, this is a fantastic TV with many input options and a great picture. On the down side, user interfaces could be better, but still, for what you mainly want from a TV, great picture and sound, this set excels.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 2850
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Epinions.com ID:
altog
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Location: Phoenix, AZ
Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 1 member
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