*UPDATE* May 19, 2011
I've had this TV for over a month now, and just wanted to provide an update:
Picture: CUSTOM SETTINGS! Out-of-the-box, the picture isn't the best quality. There is some graininess, a noticeable soap opera effect and some blockiness with moving pictures. EVERY owner should calibrate the settings to their liking. Also, it's very important to turn off the ECO sensor -- your TV will be much, much brighter. I followed the custom settings on flatpanelshd.com, where the reviewer tweaked the settings for best picture output, down to advanced settings like B-Gain and R-Gain. From there I messed around with the other settings until I found a picture I'm very happy with.
Comparison: Two of my friends bought a 55-inch LG LW5600 and I've spent a good time watching their TVs. The LG uses passive 3D so the glasses are super cheap and comfortable -- I hate to say it, but the 3D on that TV probably looks better overall. They also brag about an 8 million to 1 contrast ratio whereas the Sony EX720 is 2 million to 1. What that means is the LG has a brighter range of vivid colors. BUT after tweaking my settings, I was able to get comparable color results AND the picture on the Sony is noticeably clearer -- you couldn't get a soap opera effect on the LG if you tried. The MotionFlow 240 actually seems to make a difference as I can see wrinkles on The Most Interesting Man in the World's face that I couldn't see on the LG. Plus the LG had a lot of choppiness when watching sports, it might have been the cable or the TV's 120hz processor.
Still a five-star rating for a clearer picture than the LG and enhanced picture with tweaked settings. Original review below.
*From April*
Picture: Very good. Granted I was watching a 37-inch LCD that was almost six years old, so even watching a crayon drawing on wax paper would be an upgrade. But I watched ESPN HD, Avatar HD in HBO and a bunch of other random things. There was no noticeable clouding (blobs of light on the screen) at all. I was pleasantly surprised that there really wasn't a soap opera effect on the movies and shows I watched.
More Picture: It's true that this isn't a "true" 240hz TV. It's marketed as a MotionFlow 240hz, which basically means that it's 120hz but has some sort of technology that Sony made up to "bring the frame rate up to 240hz." That being said, I probably wouldn't be able to notice the difference between 120 and 240hz anyway. I do wish the picture was a little bit brighter, but it's super easy to adjust the settings. Also, the black levels weren't as black as I'd like. When watching a show with a lot of black screen, it still looks a little gray compared to the black frame lining the TV.
Sound: GREAT. You know how sometimes you're watching a DVD or a TV show and the music and background noises are super loud and the voices and dialogue are super quiet, and then you have to turn up the volume to hear the dialogue, but then quickly turn it back down because some booming music scares the crap out of you? Not so with this TV. Apparently it's got some technology that detects dialog and will automatically soften the background sound and amplify the voices. Plus, when you change the sound setting to "S-Force Front Surround," there really is a noticeable difference in the quality, the sound does seem to echo more under this setting.
3D: Suh-weeeeet! Ok, there are definite cross-talk issues -- which is a term I learned by reading a bunch of reviews. You will see double images at certain points, but EVERY TV review I read suffers from this issue because it's a new technology. My DirecTV offered four 3D channels, one was a nature show channel that rotates shows about dinosaurs, ocean life, and space stuff. I spent four hours straight watching this channel and now know a bunch of random facts about dinosaurs, ocean life and space stuff. I invited three people over and the four of us watched this channel for hours. There were parts of the ocean documentary where schools of fish looked like they were a few feet out of the screen. And a freaking Brontosaurus totally peered into my living room -- I wanted to pet him. Even on large landscape pans, the depth perception was amazing.
Remote: Effin' BRILLIANT. I don't know why, but instantaneous response from the remote made me pretty damn happy. I had Time Warner Cable TV before, and it would do some crap where you'd be pressing the remote buttons and nothing would happen, and then like 15 seconds later everything you pushed would happen at once. DirecTV is better but would still lag sometimes. But this TV and it's default remote are like sweet lovers that orgasm at the same time. There is no lag time and the interface screen is ridiculously simple to use and navigate -- even for not-really-super-techy-guys.
Interface and Settings: Awesome. Navigating the settings is intuitive and simple -- it looks a lot like the PS3 interface. Everything's is laid out in Layman's terms and spelled out so clearly that even A GIRL would have no problems using it. There's even little features like naming the different display inputs AND ADDING AN ICON TO THEM?? So now when I change Display modes between DVD, DirecTV and Xbox, it very coolly displays those titles on the screen, AND HAS THE ICON I PICKED NEXT TO THEM! W00T! And changing the settings is cake. You can go directly into many of the main settings (like display, sound, etc) directly from the show you're watching instead of going into the menu.
Wireless and Internet Apps: This does NOT come in with built-in WiFi, but I plugged it directly into my router with a network cable. Done dada. I was getting good connection speeds with Youtube, Qriocity and Hulu. My only complaint is that it probably takes a little getting used to spell anything out -- kind of a weird alphanumeric style that you'd get when you spell something out using a numeric phone keypad. Sony BRAVIA KDL55EX720 55-Inch 1080p 3D LED HDTV, Black - 1080p - Led - Hdtv - 3d'
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