Sony Bravia KDL32EX703U 32-inch Widescreen Full HD 1080p 100Hz LED TV with Freeview HD

Kevin Tibbetts

at 4:52 am

Review by Kevin Tibbetts for Sony Bravia KDL32EX703U 32-inch Widescreen Full HD 1080p 100Hz LED TV with Freeview HD
Rating: (5 / 5)
This is about to be replaced by the EX 713 hence the recent price drops. Get it while you can. I spent ages trying to find a TV that was good enough on standard definition and excellent on HD. This really is excellent, I find it better than the equivalent Panasonics. Perhaps not as stylish as some of the Samsung TVs but set it to cinematic mode and the pictures are excellent. Especially in the high quality channels like BBC and ITV in standard definition. I use it on HD via freeview with no issues and the user interface is good. With Sky SD it just depends on the source programming. The TV is not the limitation. It takes a while to get the best setting but try it in cinematic and high contrast. It is not the cheapest TV but the quality is good. It strikes me that most TVs are good on HD but there is not enough HD content available yet. So this TV may cost more than most but as mentioned, it is good at Standard Definition and great at HD. It has some added features too and the sound is better than most and acceptable rather than great. A quality product and good value now at about £600.

Discobolus

at 6:26 am

Review by Discobolus for Sony Bravia KDL32EX703U 32-inch Widescreen Full HD 1080p 100Hz LED TV with Freeview HD
Rating: (4 / 5)
The picture is great and at last is comparable to my old Trinitron on standard definition. In most respects the TV is superb except some aspects of its usability could be much better. In particular the remote control is poorly designed. There are two concentric rings of buttons. The outer ring is for the various menus while the inner ring is for the up/down/left/right, with a central OK button. These are too close together. In an effort to reduce the apparent number of buttons, and so make the remote look less intimidating, Sony has reduced ease of use. The mute button, which you want to hit quickly when the phone rings, is also too small. The electronic manual is commendably concise but tends to use terms like XMB and BD without explaining what they are. For some reason there is a on/standby control on both sides of the remote control. The difference, if any, is not explained. There is a useless feature called Favourites, or at least to me. What I would want a favourites feature to do is to eliminate the number of junk channels on the electronic programme guide. On my five-year-old Humax digital video recorder, I can go down the list of channels and tick all the ones that I want to delete from the list of programmes in one go. On this TV you have to go through each of about 50 TV and radio channels individually to remove them. OK, you only have to do it once when setting-up, but it is tedious. The network feature and the optional additional wireless dongle provide little useful content, unless you like a postage-stamp-sized YouTube. Entering text to search with the remote control is slow. BBC i-Player is not yet available (but a Sony dealer said late August, other people say later). However I can just plug in an HDMI cable to my laptop which is linked to my wireless router and get good full screen pictures from i-Player and other web-sites. This seems a more flexible solution and allows me to use a full keyboard. I would have thought Sony would have been pushing media PC devices with this sort of functionality instead. These are only niggles on an otherwise superb TV. However it is surprising that I can find these when doubtless teams of engineers have worked on this. Perhaps they never just sat down and used it. Anyway, it is a great TV and at now its price is the same as the 503 was, it is a better buy. At some point I will probably buy home cinema speakers and then wonder how I managed with the small built-in speakers.

P. Baines

at 7:54 am

Review by P. Baines for Sony Bravia KDL32EX703U 32-inch Widescreen Full HD 1080p 100Hz LED TV with Freeview HD
Rating: (4 / 5)
i paid a lot of money for what is an expensive tv for a 32″, sure this is small, light, looks good, solid build, but seems to fall short in what this was built for !! good quality picture, if you run a bluray through this it is simply sublime !! would be hard to beat, but use the built in freeview HD, and some channels are extremely poor quality even at 576i, if its a poorly recorded programme then this tv will show it up, and some what, but on the other hand the HD channels are excellent, i was also a bit baffled with this motionflow 100hz system, though this was one of the main reasons i purchased this, does it work ? hhhmmmmm cannot see much difference, my 3 year old phillips 50hz tv showed less blurring on terrestrial tv. my ps3 works a treat through this as well, of all the gripes im still unsure whether using a tv aerial is to cause, as im currently using an ixos rf lead and a top quality digital aerial which is supposed to be suitable, maybe this set really needs a sky or virgin hd box to make it better, only time will tell i suppose, in the meantime i will continue to alter settings to see if i can get any better, and update any reviews forthwith. UPDATE 05/06/2010 ….having tried this set now for approx 2 months, and changing various settings along the way, i have managed to improve the quality of tv broadcast, not vastly, but enough to think hang on a minute not that bad after all, but there is still the problems with poorly recorded tv programmes i.e. cbeebies ( which my kids adore ) itv3 itv2 and a few others but to mention, are like viewing through a fish tank !!!!, yet film 4, sky news, and a few others are excellent, yet they all appear at 576i, barring the hd channels which are 1080i and are superb. the motionflow is best left at standard, as switching to high simply distorts the images more, especially in fast moving scenes. wi-fi ready it is but unless your willing to pay in excess of £75 for the sony dongle, then best left alone as the content is rubbish apart from you tube, most of the viewing content is foreign !! i have tried various wifi dongles and none work, you have to use a sony uwa series as this has the built in processor for the tv !!, but you still have the option for wired option using a LAN lead from the computer to the rear of the tv