Sony LED Bravia KDL-55XBR8 Reviewed: Best LCD TV Ever

The new Bravia R8 with a contrast ratio of 1000 000:1 has been voted as the Best LCD TV ever

"In case you haven't gotten enough of amazing TVs you can't possibly afford in this awesome economy today, Cnet has reviewed the 55-inch, plasma-killin' tri-color LED-backlit Bravia XBR8 we saw a couple months ago. Spoiler: Sony's setup didn't lie-it's the best LCD TV ever, falling just short of the best HDTV ever, nearly matching Pioneer's PDP-111FD (Cnet's best flat-panel period) in blacks, color accuracy and bright-room picture quality."

[elshimiablo]

yea thats right 1 MILLION :1

[DaddyDC650]

You actually think that contrast ratio number is true? It's not anywhere near that. It's called marketing my friend.

[FailStation3]

Droids have believed far dumber things. 4D, anyone?

[n4gzz]

well, whatever. I am perfectly happy with my kdl 40 v4100. I have 26" vizio and 23" Olivia too which looks so crap against my kdl.

I wonder what's the retail of this 1 MILLION contrast TV.

Edit : Just goggled it. 7k for the TV. May be I will pick this up with PS4 or xbox3.

[JsonHenry]

Meh. Just wait it out. The price will drop like a rock once OLED TVs start hitting the shelves.

[whateva]

I'm looking for a 46" 1080P LCD for about $1200 that TV made me feel bad

[UltimateIdiot911]

Don't worry, I'm sure it gave many of our wallets a heart attack.
I'm looking forward to Black Friday, I have a gut feeling that this year there will be good hdtv deals.

[CrazyOrange]

gimme 1

[Sir_Ken_Kutaragi]

;)

[theEnemy]

wow.

And LCD TV that can beat the Kuro ? nice..

[jtucker78]

You don't hear that sentence very often!

[Death]

Read the article. The XBR8 isn't as good as the Plasma Pioneer. It's almost as good. While this is still a great compliment, it costs twice as much as the benchmark Pioneer.

-Death

[Death]

When I went out to buy a 40" XBR5 last year, I ended up leaving with a 46" 71 Series Sammy instead. It cost much less and the quality was on par with Sony's best LCD at the time. Fast forward to today and the 55" XBR8 costs $7000 compared with Sammy's 55" 950 series which is $4500. The benchmark Pioneer being compared to in this article retails for $5000 but can be found for much less since it is a closeout model.

I've always been a big fan of Sony's tv's, but they have a tendency to price themselves to the point they aren't competitive.

-Death

[Mariodotjpg]

Does it come in black?

[DaddyDC650]

"The black levels are NEAR-Kuro deep"
"The only taint is that when bright areas are next to dark ones, it lightens up the bars a bit, so Pioneer wins here"
"Its few weak points: Image quality fades when you look at it from an off angle, the previously mentioned blooming with high contrast images, and the dejuddering can produce some artifacts, especially with a standard-def picture. Oh, and it's $7000"

Better than the Pioneer Elite? No!

[likeaboss302]

You can't come to a fanboy gamer site and expect them to be display experts. Heck I bet more then half the people on this site leave there display on the factory default. Those in the know go to the avsforum.com for real tech talk on LCD and Plasma sets. The Sony looks to be a great set but the Kuro is the established benchmark for true videophiles. People need to seriously take their PS3 fanboy glasses off because in TV land Sony is good but not always the best.

[deeznuts]

Don't forget about motion blur as well.

[thewhoopimen]

If you read the article, the reviewer clearly states in the review that the Sony LCD is actually 0.01 cd/m darker than the Kuro in an all black screen, but due to the uneven lighting on subtitles in movies, the overall black quality is still slightly better on the Kuro. However, if you take sunlight into the equation the Sony LCD TV wins hands down.

[Killjoy3000]

All of Sony is quality, everybody knows that.

[Mikey Mike]

1000000:1 Contrast Ratio is kind of misleading. Companies used different ways to measure it, and besides movies are filmed at a 500:1 ration, TV signals 1000:1, and video games display 1:10000. It is a marketing ploy.

[likeaboss302]

Thanks but no thanks on that overpriced TV. I'd take the 55A950 Samsung over the 55XBR8 any day of the week.

[likeaboss302]

I can understand why some people disagree but the Sony sets aren't all that. I've been lucky to own about 15 different LCD sets now. My current one is a 52A650 Samsung and it's been a great set. I had a 46XBR4 and it was crap for gaming as dark colors would smear. With that said the XBR8 looks to be a nice set but it's not $3k better then the 55A950. If price was no object I'd take a XBR8 but lets be honest price in today's economy is huge.

[Killjoy3000]

Errmm, sure you can have that. I'll take the Bravia. Class and quality of that TV beats everything. Sony is the leading competitor in HDTV sets. Why do you think that they're the ones making this revolutionary new OLED screen? Because they know more about that stuff than anyone.

OLED= 1,000,000,000:1 contrast.

Spin it.

[likeaboss302]

Look up my post history on www.avsforum.com. You'll see I have a good bit of experience with different sets. Here is a list of a few of them I've owned over the last three years.

2005 to present

Westinghouse 37-W3
Westinghouse 47-W1
Sharp 46D62
Sharp 46D92
Samsung 4661
Toshiba 46LX177
Sony 40XBR3
Sony 46XBR4
Philips 427403
Panasonic 50PZ85U
Samsung 52A650

With that said Sony/Samsung make the LCD panels together under SLCD corp. Look that up. No spin there. They both make a good TV just the Sony is overpriced. Oh and don't go throwing dynamic contrast ratios as they mean nothing since their is no set standard. OLED is promising tech but not ready for primetime. Samsung actually has a larger OLED set in the works as well.

Regardless the XBR8 looks to be a nice set. However, I think most buyers would prefer the better price/performance ratio. Heck if cost meant nothing the Neogeo would have been king in the 16bit era. lol

[Killjoy3000]

That didn't answere my spin proposition. We're on this site, not avsforum.com. You know that Sony is the best at tv's, so just swallow your stupid pride and admit it.

I'm not trying to insult you or anything, but I need some valid points here.

[likeaboss302]

I have 27" Sony Wega CRT and it is a great set for it's day. However, my experiences with the Sony 40XBR3 and 46XBR4 were pretty bad. I went through a bunch of replacement sets. The 40XBR3 had terrible clouding and the 46XBR4 had dark color smear during motion which made it looks like a old 25ms LCD.

See this post I started about the 46XBR4. I have a lot of experience with the product.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs...

That said Sony may very well have the "best" LCD at the moment but that changes. Earlier this year my 52A650 was the "best" LCD according to CNET. It changes every product cycle. I wouldn't call Sony the flat out best TV maker based on my experiences with different brands. Each one has their "issues".

[Killjoy3000]

Well, the TV your talking about may take over Sony's helm of the best LCD TV, but when Sony releases OLED, they will change the way watch TV. Anyways, I'm not an expert on TVs nearly as much as I am a video game enthusiast.

[u got owned]

My brother just got the Sony Bravia KDL 40Z4100B and that LCD is too good to be true, the image quality is beyond this world. Its a little expensive but its worth the money.

[DaddyDC650]

5 disagrees regarding how I stated that the contrast ratio is marketing bull? I guess you ignorant Sony fanboys will believe anything that Sony states. Pathetic.

[stennexxx]

I have a Sony 40" XBr4 LCD and it is awesome. Its better you go out and see for yourself.

[DaddyDC650]

There is no HDTV that can actually output a contrast ratio of 1000 000:1. The actual numbers are in the hundreds. Check out Cnet's reviews and you can also ask professional HDTV calibrators if you think I'm full of it.

[PimpHandStrong]

and it rules

i got a nice deal on it...2400 bucks

~~sips coffee
with news of Sony having the best LCD TV ever just think how games like WipeoutHD or Batman on blueray will look! Nothing but the best from Sony

like always

[killalot100]

i have a sony KDL-46W4100 and wow its the best tv i ever owned. i had a sammy but it was starting to fade on me its just my luck. i hope this set doesnt fade on me because i plan on having it for a long time. this tv was voted second to the kuro as the best tv to game one. i got this tv over a sammy because it looked better screen wise and frame wise. the way i see it there will always be a better tv then what u got sooner or later. in my opinion sony and samsung are the best in lcd and pioneer is the best in plasma.

[FailStation3]

Perhaps Sony should just stick to making TVs....

[etownone]

My hat goes off to Sony for innovation and producing the latest high tech hardware available. This LCD just shows how great Sony is at developing hardware.

As for the PS3, the Cell is as owerful as a super computer, and the blu-ray and blu-tooth are great too... BUT it just seems like they picked the wrong GPU for such a powerful gaming console. I can only imagine if the ps3 had a much better GPU, it would have been in a league of it's own.

[achira]

the bravia tvs are the best in the world, period.

[thewhoopimen]

That's stretching it a bit there. neither the kuro nor the bravia are the best TVs in the world. They are the best screens money can buy in the $5000-8000 range currently.

[shovelbum]

I have been looking to upgrade my 3 year old 42" panny plasma, which I love btw, to a larger size so I can relocate it to bedroom. This may be the one in a long line of possibilities I wavered against buying. I love the plasma but maybe it's time to convert to the darkside. They look amazing in the stores and there is a 42" in local blockbuster and the Blu movies look fantastic on it.

[cjp4eva]

I have a 52" Samsung 7 series sittin in my bedroom so im pretty happy with it :).