Review: Sony Bravia 55 inch 3D LED TV

By Branko Miletic

The Sony Bravia KDL-55NX810 3D LED TV is a lot of things; it’s relatively cheap (around $3000); it has a large screen with passable picture quality; and is also good on the juice considering its size. What it’s not though, is fantastic.

So what happened? Well the Koreans is what happened- specifically LG and Samsung; two companies that have been growing like mushroom fields after a rainstorm, and one of which, in this case Samsung, has become the largest TV maker on the planet.

And Sony? Well, it is still a great company, with top-notch products. However the Bravia KDL-55NX810 LED TV just isn’t one of them. Years of playing catch up with South Korea is showing. All that is wrong about cutting corners to finish first in that race is evident on this unit.

The plastic bezel is a good place to start when talking about cheap and so are the other plastic parts of the TV. It’s all about first impressions – and not that Sony is the only guilty company here but I wish they would all lose their fascination with a plastic fascia.

Now there are many other parts of this unit that I could complain about, but really, I don’t like to get too pedantic. My biggest gripe about this TV is the most obvious, and probably the one that counts the most – the picture quality.

The picture is OK, but – and this is a big but – it could have been a lot better, especially from a company like Sony. Sure if your lounge room is so big that it has its own postcode, I would recommend this TV. The pic was washed out a little, the colours were pale and the there was some blurring on the bottom edges that I could see. The blacks could be blacker, and as for the refresh rate, well, don’t get me started.

There are good points here – it comes with 4 HDMI, 2 component, 3 composite and a number of RCA connections to allow a shipping container full of devices to be connected simultaneously. And it does come with S-Force Front Surround Sound, which is great for the sound quality of Blu-ray discs.

For those that use their TV for other multimedia playing, there is a USB and an Ethernet port. And yes, the USB 2.0 is great for viewing pictures, movies, animations and what not.

Setting up the Sony was  easy- even on my fairly complex and as I have been told, ‘disaster-prone set up’ at home. From the box to couch potato channel surfing took no more than 15 minutes – not bad considering its size and all my audiovisual idiosyncrasies.

Would you like media streaming? Yes? Then, you’ll need to spend a few more dollars on a media player as Sony must have thought that sticking a Wireless LAN into the unit would be way too complex for the average consumer.

If you want a cheap, reliable, easy-to-use huge screen TV to watch sport with your mates, or play games with your kids, then the Sony Bravia KDL-55NX810 LED TV might be the ticket. I you want great picture quality, a total wireless connectivity experience, no sacrificing trees for pixels and a TV that looks like it will last until well after the next Federal election, then maybe you need to look elsewhere .

And for the record, it’s a Full HD 3D TV, but since I did not have a 3D player, I could not try the 3D option – suffice it to say, I doubt the picture screen quality would have got much better.

Pros: huge screen, low power usage and easy set up
Cons: cheap fascia and bezel, no wireless LAN and disappointing picture quality.

2.5 Shakcs out of 5