Lyris Lite | Sony BRAVIA KDL-32V2000 Review

This review is now outdated. Since I'm now a hardware reviewer for DVD Times, a cleaned-up and revised version of this review is available at that site.

The following review is left here for completeness only.

the TV

USA & Canada visitors: this is the European equivalent to your KDL-V32XBR2 model. Your model has one extra Component video input.

Introduction

If you came here from the AV Forums, you'll probably have heard me rant about all this before so you can skip it. For the uninitiated however, a quick history lesson.

Over the Summer of 2005, Sony announced at the 11th hour that all of their LCD TVs would now carry the name "BRAVIA". A few models that had already been produced made it out of the door in Canada with the old name "WEGA", but the launch was slightly delayed so the new name could be readied.

As a big fan of the LCD WEGA TVs (and after getting stung buying a lesser HDTV and coming back to Sony), I eagerly watched these new TVs and was happy with the opinions on them. Sony of Europe then announced the specs for their versions of the new TVs. Although the cheaper entry-level series had features such as a Brightness Sensor and PC input, these were not present on the mid-range models I was interested in.

Seeing as I'd only just bought a Sony LCD TV less than a year ago, I cancelled my pre-order and waited for Sony to release the V-Series BRAVIA TVs in Europe properly.

In February 2006, this new model, the KDL-32V2000 was announced, marking what I believe is the true European launch of the BRAVIA V-Series.

First Looks

I'm not going to talk too much about style in this review because I don't think it's a very good reason to buy a TV. Nevertheless, this TV looks great as soon as you take it out the box. Looks-wise, it's a little cheaper than last years botched models. The felt cover on the speaker grille is now gone and replaced with a simpler "plastic with holes in it" design. Everything else remains largely unchanged. The TV still has the incredibly nice looking black and silver design.

What have you done to the remote?

Remote controls

I don't know why, but Sony seem to have re-designed the remote. It's not terrible and gets the job done, but it's still a step down in just about every way. On the left in the above picture, you can see the new remote. On the right shows the remotes Sony included with most of the LCD WEGA line (the one shown is from 2004). The one that came with the first BRAVIA TVs was much the same. That's gone now though - instead we have the fatter silver thing. Don't get me wrong, it's not terrible, I just don't see why they redesigned it when the European remote was so great before. The new buttons take a little longer to push (but that will probably improve with use) and the control pad doesn't seem to react quite as quickly.

The new remote also loses some functionality which I'll miss. The old ones had "Picture mode" assigned to the red button. Pressing it would cycle through the various picture modes - Vivid, Standard, Custom. On the new BRAVIA to acheive the same effect, a three-button sequence is needed. It's a piece of cake to memorise, but even still Sony - you had a real winner. Put it back for the next models!

You can actually use the old remotes on the new TV - but obviously, the missing functionality still won't work and curiously, the code for the aspect ratio button seems to have been changed - so don't count on this solution if you really hate the new remote.

Next page >>

On the next page, I detail the picture tweaks at your disposal on the KDL-32V2000.