Sony Bravia 46HX820 LED HDTV

23.09.2011

Initial setup for the TV is nice and thorough, covering not the regular options (language, viewing environment, country, date/time, and channel scanning), but speaker optimization, wireless or wired network setup, and automatic downloading of firmware updates.

Sony's user interface is slick and easy to use. The onscreen menus look good: Transitions are smooth and easy to navigate, and they don't obstruct your current content. The menus are a bit too numerous (why are there three menus for Internet content?), but they are generally easy to get around in. Pressing the Options button on your remote brings up a different menu, depending on the content you're currently viewing: If you're looking at a Web page, the menu lets you choose favorites or enter a URL; if you're watching a YouTube video, it allows rating or favoriting the video; if you're watching 3D media you can adjust the 3D settings.

If you want to adjust picture and audio settings, press the dedicated Home button on your remote. In the Home menu you'll find all sorts of settings: Preferences, Sound, Picture/Display, Product Support, Network, Channels & Inputs, and an i-Manual (Interactive Manual). In the Sound menu you can adjust audio and turn off keytones and startup sounds; and in the Picture/Display menu you can adjust backlight, brightness, color, hue, temperature, and sharpness, as well as advanced settings such as gamma and white balance. The i-Manual is an excellent addition-- easy to navigate, very thorough, and easy to understand.

Testing

The Bravia 46HX820 performed very well in our jury testing. One reviewer commented that our 720p Wheel of Fortune clip appeared to have fewer artifacts than we usually see in that clip. The set also did a nice job in our DVD upconversion tests of Phantom of the Opera, which other impressive sets haven't handled so well. And the 46HX820 performed well in our horizontal and diagonal panning tests, though the picture on the screen looked a little too bright in our still-life image comparison test.