Sony BRAVIA V Series KDL 40V5100 40 Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV

Sony BRAVIA V Series KDL 40V5100 40 Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV

40″ screen (measured diagonally) * widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio * high-gloss black finish * built-in digital (ATSC) tuner for over-the-air TV broadcasts (antenna required) * built-in QAM cable TV tuner receives unscrambled programs without a set-top box (cable service required) * 1920 x 1080 pixels * 2 component video (one is selectable component/composite) *

User Ratings and Reviews

1 Star The Sony V5100 Series is a Heartbreaker!
I bought the 40V5100 on April 2nd at Best Buy to replace my broken 42 inch Toshiba HD projection TV. The main reason I chose a Sony was for its non-glare screen. After a few days of calibrating the unit, the picture was very good and I must say that during the day, my projection TV would be washed out by the sunlight, but the Sony looked fabulous.

So I was a happy camper until I first noticed the dimming problem during movie credits. Well, I could live with that until I couldn’t see a thing when watching the Jurassic Park: Lost World scene when the T-Rex pushes the bus over the cliff. I started freaking out and began searching for dark movie scenes elsewhere. Sure enough, night scenes from Harry Potter, X-Files, CSI, or any sci-fi movie became black.

I switched the TV set-up mode from Home Environment to Retail thinking that would solve my problem. No such luck and I noticed that in the Retail Mode the TV settings would always return to “Vivid Max-Set” no matter what changes were made. I searched the internet and saw numerous complaints about this same issue.

Sony broke my heart, but the good news is that Best Buy is exchanging the set under its 30-day return policy and replacing it with the brand new Samsung LN40B630. It’s the non-glare screen version of the popular B650 model. I’m getting it in a few days and I will comment on that model after I’ve had it for a while.

4 Stars Overall a great TV
Update: You can now download the firmware update for this TV at the link below. It will fix the auto-dimming problem. I would now give it 5 stars: http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-download.pl?mdl=KDL40V5100&upd_id=4573&os_id=25

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I have owned this TV for about two weeks now and think it is great. The picture is very sharp. The colors are great. The blacks and whites look fabulous. The stand it comes with is very sturdy and there are more than enough inputs for my needs. The TV itself also looks very elegant.

I was going to buy this 2009 TV or the 2008 Sony KDL-40Z4100 (a higher end model from the previous year), whichever came down in price first. The two TVs are very comparable in features. The main difference for me was price but also important were the contrast ratios. This TV has a contrast ratio of 50:000 to 1 while the KDL-40Z4100 has a contrast ratio of 30:000 to 1. As a further comparison, the 2008 version of this TV, the KDL-40V4100, has a 25:000 to 1 contrast ratio. That big jump in contrast ratio pushed me towards this TV over last year’s Z series.

I have read the reviews describing the auto-dimming but honestly I don’t think it is that big of a deal. We watch mostly TV (Lost, 24, The Office, sports, etc.) as opposed to movies and after two weeks of use, today was the very first day I noticed the auto-dimming. It happened for about 2 seconds and was a strange dimming. My wife still has not noticed it even though we have both been on the lookout for it to see how bad it is.

While I agree that I cannot see how this is a feature Sony would want to include without being able to turn off, to me, it was pretty minor and I would still happily buy the same TV again. I suppose that there are shows or movies where this happens more frequently but after two weeks, I still don’t see it often. I took off a half star for this.

The other half star taken off comes from what seems like a long time for the TV to start. Once you turn it on it seems like it takes around 20 seconds to get started and display a picture. It isn’t a huge deal and once the TV is on it doesn’t affect anything. However, compared to my old CRT which turned on in a couple of seconds it seems long.

My hope is that Sony comes out with some sort of firmware update that allows you to turn this auto-dimming “feature” off as many customers are unhappy with it. That is pure speculation though as I haven’t heard any hints of this happening.

1 Star A Very Bad TV from Sony
Beware Brothers and Sisters of this TV.

Just, like the previous poster, my TWO Sony TVs had the darkening problem. I exchanged the first. I’d be watching Charlie Rose and the screen would go Dark for three seconds then return to normal. Happens about 15 times an hour.

I contacted Sony. Incredibly Sony said the darkening was normal. The representative then let on that Sony was aware of this “non-problem” and that there was no fix available. Oh, Sony said to fix the problem up grade to an XBR model.

I always thought Sony was a reputable Company. Here they are, knowingly, selling bad TVs. Kinda makes one think, what else are they doing?

I’m going to return the TV and tell the sales people about this major problem.

Disappointed in Connecticut

5 Stars Excellent TV
Update May 3, 2009:

My original review of the TV was negative due to a problem of dimming during dark scenes. But few days ago Sony released a software patch to correct the problem and it worked for me. Now, the auto dimming can be turned off by setting the “Adv. Contrast Enhancer” to Off. Also, even when it’s turned On, it doesn’t behave like it did pre- patch, it now dims gradually rather than abruptly and it doesn’t dim as much as it did before. Thank you very much Sony, I’m updating my rating to 5-star.

I’m very happy with the TV now that the auto dim is fixed. If you own the TV and having problems with the dimming, go to the support section of Sony’s site to download the patch and the instructions on how to apply it. You will need a USB thumb drive formatted in FAT32, but if you don’t have it, Sony will mail you one if you call their customer support.

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Original review:

Date: April 8, 2009

Rating: 2 stars

When I purchased this TV few days ago, there were no reviews here since it’s just been recently released into the market. I, however, looked at the reviews of the previous model (KDL-40V4100) and didn’t find any serious complaints so I went ahead and purchased this TV. I regret my purchase and will explain why.

This is my third LCD TV — the others are early generations LCDs from Sharp and Sony and they are still working great, but they are no match for the picture quality of this new Sony. There are a lot of good things about this TV and I would have given it 5 stars if not for one serious flaw.

The TV dims during dark scenes. And sadly it doesn’t do it gradually, it happens abruptly 6 seconds after the start of a dark scene and it returns to normal lighting abruptly about 0.35 seconds after end of a dark scene. It seems to happen regardless of the source of input (I tested it with composite, and HDMI) and it happens on broadcast channels and cable and regardless of the “picture mode” and other video settings. There is no way to disable it. If you’re watching a movie with lots of dark scenes, it’s going to be a very annoying experience.

Take this example, while watching a documentary on first gulf war, there was a lot of night vision camera scenes and the TV keeps dimming during the lengthy dark scenes and when it does that, you can barely make out any details even with Gamma set at max. The dimmer kicking in and out is annoying by itself, much less the picture quality when it dims.

I contacted Sony support and they seemed clueless and recommended I initiate a repair request. I did an internet search only to discover many Bravia models suffer this problem. I initially thought I had a defective unit, but now I think it was intentionally designed like this.

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