Sony KV32FX65

...my previous TV was a Sony and it is still going strong after 11 years of hard use (it is now relegated to the bedroom). Sony is a brand known for quality in electronics, but it does mean you are paying more for your TV than for some other makes such as Philips or Matsui.

•• Which screen size? ••
Nowadays, not only do you have to decide what size screen you want in inches, you also have to decide whether to go for widescreen ...
...32“ widescreen TV. This Sony TV allows you to watch programmes in various formats (4 of them), which you can change using the remote control. You can watch normal TV programmes in the non-widescreen format which has black bars either side of the screen, watch in normal widescreen which squashes the picture, use another format which fills the screen but chops a bit off the top and bottom of the picture or use something called ‘smart’ which does its ... more

It took me months to persuade (he would say nag) my partner into agreeing to buy a new widescreen TV, as he said I am always on the PC, so why did I want a new TV. Well, he does have a point, but with my poor eyesight, getting a large TV would mean I could actually watch it whilst at the PC desk – sorted! I dragged him to John Lewis to take a look, and was surrounded by televisions of all shapes, sizes and prices. Where do you begin?

I have laid this opinion out in a way that shows the questions I asked myself when deciding which TV to buy, and then added my personal experiences. I am not a techie, so I have commented on the features I have used, but also included the technical specification for those that understand it. I have now had the television for 7 months.

•• Which manufacturer? ••
I didn’t really have to think hard about this one, as my previous TV was a Sony and it is still going strong after 11 years of hard use (it is now relegated to the bedroom). Sony is a brand known for quality in electronics, but it does mean you are paying more for your TV than for some other makes such as Philips or Matsui.

•• Which screen size? ••
Nowadays, not only do you have to decide what size screen you want in inches, you also have to decide whether to go for widescreen too. The government is hoping to convert the whole country to digital technology within the next 10 years and apparently digital TV is broadcast in the widescreen format, so if you want to futureproof your TV, it is worth buying widescreen now. Also many films are widescreen both on TV and on video/DVD.

We therefore decided to go for a 32“ widescreen TV. This Sony TV allows you to watch programmes in various formats (4 of them), which you can change using the remote control. You can watch normal TV programmes in the non-widescreen format which has black bars either side of the screen, watch in normal widescreen which squashes the picture, use another format which fills the screen but chops a bit off the top and bottom of the picture or use something called ‘smart’ which does its best to fit a normal format into widescreen without distortion. It generally works very well, and this is what we leave it on, unless we are watching a widescreen film.

•• Digital or not? ••
You can get digital television in three ways: cable, satellite or through your normal aerial. We don’t have cable and can’t have a satellite dish (as we have a listed building), so we have had our roof aerial upgraded to receive digital. You can now buy TVs with a built in digital receiver which will receive the signal through your aerial, and although I really wanted this, I had heard (from Which reports and John Lewis) that the technology was unreliable at the moment, as these TVs are more likely to go wrong. As you can buy a digibox for under £100 we opted for a TV without a digital receiver, but in general these TV were about £60 cheaper.

•• Picture quality ••
You now have the choice of picture quality too - 50 or 100 megahertz. When we looked at the 50 hz TVs the picture quality looked great, until we compared it to the 100 hz TVs, which were sharper and flickered less. They were at least £100 more expensive, so we were going to opt for 50 hz, until the sales person mentioned that the 100hz TVs had been proven to cause less headaches. As a migraine sufferer, this convinced me!

The first time I saw the quality of the picture on my new expensive TV, I was hugely disappointed. It looked quite fuzzy at the edges and actually worse than on my old Sony. I then switched on a video to see if this improved it at all. It didn’t. I tried a DVD – what a difference! Crisp and clear picture quality with not a fuzzy edge or flicker in sight. Later I bought a digibox (which I subsequently returned as my video didn’t have the required SCART connection) and the difference in picture quality was again immense. I therefore conclude that my TV has a superb picture quality, but you simply cannot appreciate it unless you have decent input. If you do not intend to watch DVDs or get digital television for the life of a new TV, I think it would be an utter waste to spend the extra on 100 hz. By increasing the screen size, it just highlighted the poor reception we get (despite having a TV signal booster).

Another point to mention is that this Sony TV has a Trinitron WEGA flat screen, which I found a bit odd at first. It means that the screen looks slightly concave when you look closely, but the overall impression is a much flatter screen that doesn’t distort at the edges or reflect the light. This is very useful when I am on the PC as I am at a funny angle and the screen still looks great.

•• Cabinet ••
For most TVs you can choose whether to have a cabinet at all and then whether the cabinet is predominantly glass, wood or metal. We chose a cabinet in silver metal which blends in with the TV and has a glass front. I particularly liked it as I thought it would keep the video and DVD player free of dust, unlike some open fronted cabinets. However, when I got it home and set it up, I discovered that the back of the cabinet was open to the air and so the dust would just get in at the back.

The construction of the cabinet was hell! The there were dozens of parts to be put together which weighed about 18 kilograms, and you needed two people to put it together. The instructions were mainly pictures and were reasonably clear, but it still took me two hours! It is very sturdy when put together, which is needed, as the TV weighs 64 kilograms (more than I do). It has three feet on a triangular base and you actually attach the TV to the base of the cabinet. The moving of the glass front has never been smooth, but whether this was my DIY or poor quality, I will never know.

•• Setting up ••
Setting up the TV was my next problem, mainly because I wanted both video and DVD I think. The tuning of the TV programmes was simple – you just followed the instructions and it did it automatically. However, it couldn’t find the video signal and the DVD channel would only set up as channel 8 (when I was trying to set it up as 9). The TV has three SCART sockets, and with some playing with wires and swearing, after another hour everything was ready to go. You have to supply your own SCART leads for any required connections.

•• Manual ••
The manual, for once, isn’t ten inches thick and in every language under the sun. It has 24 pages of clear instructions in English only, and mainly with diagrams or pictures. Thumbs up - one of the best I have seen in a long while.

•• Sound quality ••
You have an enormous range of speaker set ups to choose from on new televisions. From single mono speakers to complete surround sound coming out of wire free speakers positioned all around your room. As neither of us were particularly worried about proper surround sound, nor fancied a multitude of speakers, we opted for a television with NICAM digital stereo coming out of two speakers integral to the TV. The speakers are either side of the screen, just making the border a bit wider. We were advised that Sony have almost managed to replicate surround sound without separate speakers, by angling them in a certain way. I can’t say I have noticed this, but I am pleased with the quality from our Sony television, particularly for films. You can turn the sound up very loud without the slightest hint of distortion - excellent. The stereo effect is very evident.

•• Overall look ••
My TV looks sexy! It is huge compared to my old 21" TV, and dominates the room. The dimensions are: height 567 mm, width 883 mm and depth 562 mm. It has sleek lines, a metallic finish, and I love the way the cabinet looks like an extension of the television. The cabinet only has one shelf, but I have stacked the DVD on top of the VCR. The striped frosted glass front looks good too.

•• Remote Control ••
The remote control is very comprehensive – a far cry from the first one I ever had in the early 80s. It is slim, light and grey, so stands out from all the other black remotes I own. It comes with 2 X AA batteries supplied. The buttons are marked intuitively, and the manual explains all the functions very clearly. You can make all the screen, brightness, contrast, etc. adjustments using the remote control and the on screen menus are also intuitive. I have found nothing I need to do regularly that cannot be done by remote – excellent. Having said this, the TV would be pretty difficult to operate without it, so try no to lose it.

•• Other features ••
It has many standard features like a sleep timer, teletext, and standby mode. There are a number of customised settings you can choose, such as AI (artificial intelligence, which automatically optimises the contrast level according to the TV signal), equaliser mode (adjusting the sound for vocal, jazz, rock, pop, etc.) and colour tones (warm tint or cool tint). You can re-arrange the order of the channels, change the name of the channels (nothing rude please!), manually tune the TV, change the picture rotation (something to do with the earth’s magnetism!), and even input a personal ID which would help the TV be recovered in the event of it being stolen (I really must do this).

•• Technical specifications ••
� 76cm visible FD Trinitron WEGA screen (32” tube)
� Advanced 100hz digital plus
� NICAM stereo sound
� Auto volume adjustment
� Auto tuning/auto start up
� Auto labelling/auto sorting
� SmartLink
� Smart/zoom/4:3/wide/14:9 mode
� Fastext + 200 page memory
� 3 X SCART
� 1 X front AV input
� 1 X front S video
� Headphone jack
� Sleep timer
� Auto standby
� Parental lock
� Left/right speaker output 2 X 20 W
� Sub woofer output 30 W

•• Price ••
I’d actually rather not mention this here, as I am sure we could have got it cheaper elsewhere. Having got my partner into John Lewis to buy a TV (taking me 9 months to convince him), I wanted to strike whilst the iron was hot, so to speak. John Lewis offer a five year guarantee too, which you normally have to pay up to £300 for. We paid £1250 for the TV and cabinet. Afterwards I did find it for £1099 from www.empiredirect.co.uk, but only with a 1 year guarantee. I’ve just done the same search and found the price has dropped by £200 – I’ve been done!

•• My thoughts ••
I do like my TV, but I wonder if it was really worth the price I paid. Reading other opinions about widescreen TVs for £400 makes me a little jealous. We are certainly not making the most of it by still watching videos and getting an analogue signal, but on the other hand, we have future proofed the TV as much as possible, so we can make the most of digital television as soon as we want to. Apart from making the cabinet a lot easier to put together and enclosed, I can’t think of any other suggested improvements, so I guess it is a good television. I certainly can’t imagine anyone stealing the set as it weighs 82 kg including the cabinet! It does look great though, and most importantly, I can now see the TV from the PC.

 

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