We’ve been doing some rather expensive high-end stuff this month, especially in TVs, and that includes a new plasma model by Hitachi that we covered just last week. The others are stalwarts of the LCD realm, and no prizes for guessing the names: Samsung and Sony.
So now the time has come to play god, incite a war and reap the benefits. (That’s world history for you.) We're about to pitch the Hitachi P50X01AU, the Sony Bravia KLV-46X350A, and the Samsung LA46F81B. No tickets or fees required; anyone reading this is already ringside...
Sony Bravia KLV-46X350A
Rs 2,49,990
This monster, reviewed individually here, is one heck of a panel, with the great processing Sony's famous for. It’s a 46-inch full-HD LCD, which means 1920 x 1080 pixels. 2200:1 is the native contrast ratio. Brightness is 550 cd/m2.
The design is classy all right. There's a glass rim as border, with touch panel buttons that light up. These things differentiate the unit from lower models even before the TV is turned on. Featurewise there is everything the LCD market has to offer: 24p mode, 100Hz frame doubling etc. 3 HDMIs, and other team members of components etc.
Once switched on, there's no raw deal here. The color was spectacular, really very vibrant and lifelike. Even the detail aspect was more than satisfactory, it surprised with minimal amounts of jaggies and artifacts. In motion you may see a little negativity, but that’s if you look really hard. ‘Clouding’ (variance in black level) is there though, and overall the price itself is way above the fair value level.
