A Sony 32EX650 arrived at our doorsteps today and giddy little me took it for a spin. This TV is not a cheap contender! It's priced at 28500 - Expensive for it's size and more expensive than some sets with larger dimensions!
The EX650 is a FULL HD LED set with Sony's X-Reality engine with a barrage of image enhancers to make your head spin. Picture processors to control black and white levels, edge and detail enhancements, light levels, cinema drive, skin tone control, etc, etc are at your disposal...This is a "Tocino" TV! (Samsung/Sharp makes a lot of Tocino TVs too) A TV designed to serve you processed meat...uhm...What I meant was processed picture
If you're a cinema purist, you're going to spend your first moments with the X650 switching off all these enhancers to give you what the director intended... but if you're a real cinema purist you shouldn't even be reading this! So go over to the plasma section and get the hell out of here! Joke
On to the review...
Blu-ray:
Using our PS3 set to 1080p/24p and playing "The Avengers" you'll begin to notice that the X650 delivers very razor sharp pictures and vivid colors. And all these are backed up by deep blacks (minus the detail crush) and a good motion flow. I'm not a big fan of 100/120hz tricks because they tend to give off very unnatural movements, but the X650 does it in a subtle way some purists may even live with it. The edge enhancers accentuates fine details, further "sharpening" the entire picture. This could either be a good or a bad thing depending on your taste, but thankfully these enhancers could be switched off. Sony's Cinema drive though effectively reduces judder.
DVD:
DVD performance was competent to say the least with the X650 delivering good colors, and again very sharp pictures! The only negative aspect we observed (via a side by side comparison with the much cheaper Panasonic 32C30) was that the X650 presented a darker over-all picture! Note: Despite the darker look, black crush was kept to a bare minimum.
Image quality reminds us of the Toshiba 32PB200 minus the black crush, with sharper pictures and better rendered colors.
Screen Quality:
The X650 has a semi-glossy screen enhancing contrast and delivering deeper colors. However, the EDGE LED technology presents some corner bleeds. Screen uniformity (in my opinion) is below the Panasonic C30 and the Toshiba PB200.
Viewing angles are also not as good as IPS-Alpha panels and contrast fluctuates when viewed from either side or from the top and bottom.
-To be updated with gaming performance-