I bought this TV from Amazon to replace my two year old Samsung, whose power supply failed for the second time. The price for the TV plus the three year extended warranty was less than Costco sells just the TV for. My Samsung (LNT4661) had a matte finish screen and the matte screen on this Sony is a bit shinier than the Samsung's. If your viewing room is near bright windows, you will likely see a subdued reflection on the screen, but nothing like the gloss-screen Sonys we saw a couple of years ago. The first thing I noticed during setup was that the Sony is 10 lbs. lighter than my old Samsung. The second thing I noticed was that while there are a ton of HDMI connectors, the Sony is a bit short on S-Video and composite video connectors. I ended up having to use the side connectors you'd usually save for a videocam, etc. The position of the connections is excellent - they're placed on the rear panel near the left corner, so you don't have to crawl behind the set to hook things up. A major shortcoming of the set is the lack of a rotatable base as the Samsungs have. We overcame that one by placing an old kitchen-table placemat under the base and we can now easily turn the set when necessary by just sliding in on the placemat.
The HD picture with over-the-air stations is superb as was the Samsung. A big surprise was the SD picture from our DirecTV receiver which is noticeably better on the Sony than the Samsung. Setup was simple, but not quick as the firmware still scans through the analog channels when looking for signals. The scanning operation took maybe 15 minutes in all. Switching between channels is slower than the Samsung, but switching between inputs is much faster. Menus are better organized and easier to use.
The feature that sets the backlight brilliance based on ambient light works fine, but when watching a football game at night we usually want the brilliance turned up a bit compared to our preference while watching a regular program. Changing the backlight level is not difficult, but it would have been nice to have a single button on the remote for that function as the Samsung had.
I can't say enough good things about Amazon's shipping (and FREE at that!). I know that many have had problems with the Eagle or CEVA shipping, but I suspect that problem is highly localized. The tracking info provided at the Amazon site was accurate and we received a phone call from the delivery man early in the morning saying he'd be here the same afternoon (and that was a day earlier than the estimate). He showed up in the middle of the time period given, and was quite a pleasant fellow. While they're not responsible for helping get the set in place, I asked if he'd help me remove it from the box so I could check out the screen for any damage. Since he had already pulled it out of the box for that, he happily helped me set it in place on the base. This is my third TV purchase from Amazon over the past 8 years or so and can't imagine why I'd ever buy one anywhere else in the future.Get more detail about Sony BRAVIA V-Series KDL-46V5100 46-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV, Black.
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