Sony KDL46W5500U

Finally decided to upgrade my old Trintron CRT and spent the past 3 months or so looking at the various LCDs available out there. I initially settled on a Sony KDL46W4500 after seeing one in a store and was just about to part with my hard earned cash when I started reading reviews and read about the so-called dreaded 'backlight bleed'. Given the high cost of the Sony, this completely put me off, so it was back to the drawing board for me.

I spent more time looking around but never quite found a set I fancied as much as the 46W4500, that was until the Sony KDL46W5500 came out. I couldn't find any reviews but found it online at a very competitive price so I decided to take a chance on it.

All I can say is I'm glad I took the risk. The picture on this set is nothing short of stunning. I don't have HD installed yet but the SD picture is excellent. I'm using it with a Sony blu ray player and although I haven't watched any blu rays yet, the DVD upscaling is jawdroppingly good - the sports mode makes the pictures scarily real. I've been going through my entire DVD collection just trying out the pictures and it's totally different to watching them on my old CRT screen. Can't wait to see blu ray, although it's difficult to imagine how much better the pictures can get.

Of course I was a bit worried about this backlight bleed issue, and I've sat there in a pitch black room, watching dark DVDs, and all sorts of different pictures and programmes. The blacks on the TV are the blackest I've ever seen on a screen and I simply cannot find any evidence of backlight bleed. I think that 99.9% of people will be delighted with the picture.

The TV is packed with features, the menus are quite easy to use. There are the usual HDMI and SCART inputs, plus you can plug in a USB Key with photos, videos, and music on which the TV will happily work with. You can also connect the TV to your router although not quite figured out how to set the networking bits yet. My laptop plugs in quite happily via a standard monitor cable and I can view my PC screen on the TV.

The TV is easy to lift (a lot lighter than my old CRT) and feels solid and well built. The screen swivels 20 degrees on the stand, enough to adjust for comfortable viewing.

Overall, I'm delighted with this LCD. Can't wait to see blu ray on it.