Sony Bravia XBR KDL-52XBR6 52-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV
From Sony
Price: Too low to display
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com
12 new or used available from $2,133.00
Average customer review: 
Customer Reviews
Made the right choice
When I brought this unit home, my wife wasn’t too thrilled my spending money on a LCD TV as supposed to something else more practical. But after spending some time watching it, she did comment that she can see the details in movies clearly even without glasses. I guess that’s the whole point of getting this TV. Like others have commented, the image quality is superb. However, I noticed that the screen isn’t 100% black when nothing is displayed on the screen. Then again, I’m not planning to sit in front of the TV to watch a blank screen. The built in speaker was average at best. Fine for watching news & TV shows, but a surround sound setup is a must to get the full movie experience. Since I already have the PS3, operating the similar menu layout was a breeze. The only other model I seriously considered was the Samsung 52″ ToC 860. That’s a fine unit too, but I’ve always had good experience with Sony TVs, so I went with what’s familiar. The new Sony XBR7 series with the 240Hz feature wasn’t significant enough to justify spending an extrat $2K. Of course, the new XBR8 55″ model is out of my price range. Besides, experts like the Samsung 55″ better. Bottom line, it’s hard to find a better TV in this price range.
XBR6 - TV - or computer monitor?
I recall that years ago an episode of The Jetsons had an image of George reading the newspaper on a wall sized video monitor. The image has stuck with me despite my feeling that it wouldn’t ever happen; there’s something about sitting in a relaxing chair and reading the paper that goes unmatched with reading the paper on a computer monitor. But the primary difference is actually the chair. Who has a comfy reading chair in front of their computer?
Sony’s HDTV’s have, in the last few years, crossed over from being only worthy as a television monitor to having qualities comparable to the best computer monitors. Their XBR2 series, which I just replaced, allowed for some crossover activities, but I was never particularly pleased with using that TV for computing activities.
So now here we have a 52″ HDTV/Computer monitor, and while I realize that none of you are actually thinking of buying this to be your primary computer screen, quite a number of you will, I suspect, eventually use it as such as time passes and you realize what you have.
Let’s start by talking about Amazon’s delivery service. Delivery came four days after my order, so that part worked well. But there was only one guy driving the delivery van. Have you ever seen one person try to carry a fully boxed 52″ TV? Not sure what the delivery company was thinking, but it was clear I wasn’t going to get “white glove” service. With my help, we brought in the TV and uncrated it in the middle of the foyer to be certain that it had no cosmetic damage. Friends later helped move it into place.
After an hour or so of rewiring (as now I can use the HDMI output of my cable box and Bluray player), attaching the external over-the-air rabbit ears (and if you’ve never seen OTA HDTV, it’s a must — not only a better picture but also more subchannel options than you get from your cable box), and setting it up for HDMI inputs from a digital camera, hooking it up to the wireless network via an Ethernet cable to an Apple Airport, and using its digital output to run a line to the sound processor, we were good to go. The TV works flawlessly. We had no difficulties with the setup process. The interface is similar to the one for Sony’s Bluray players, so there’s some benefit to staying within a brand family here.
Overall, as others have already described, the picture is magnificent. After comparing it in the store to the 55XBR8, I can’t say that I miss the slight advantage that the XBR8 has in picture quality. For the difference in price (about $4k), the XBR6 will be fine. Going from a CRT based HDTV to an LCD panel does have its differences. The only downside I’ve seen is that analog-based shows on older DVD’s have a tendency to show some compression-related artifact that I never noticed on the CRT. Analog broadcasts are fair - Star Trek:TNG, for example, looks like it was filmed entirely through gauze. Standard DVDs look wonderful, particularly with the Bluray player, and all the HD sources are perfect, and so crisp in 1080p as to be three-dimensional in quality.
Hooking up a digital camera through an HDMI output (such as available on the Canon 50D), leads to the ability to have family slide shows in a comfortable spot (the living room, where we used to pull out the slide projector) instead of surrounding the computer monitor. And the images look wonderful - we’re not quite where we used to be. I still think projected Kodachromes have advantages over the digital reproduction at this size, but we’re getting awfully close.
The interesting thing is that the XBR6 has a VGA input that is really usable. Hooking a computer up will allow you to use this as a 52″ computer monitor. That means that the TV becomes a wireless internet hub even without the Ethernet input. Get your mail, look at pictures, play music (yes, there’s a separate audio computer input), and read the newspaper now that some newspapers allow you to access the exact image of the newspaper as it appeared in print. And it all looks just as good (well, better, really) as it does on a dedicated computer monitor.
So it’s now a reasonable reality that you can purchase a computer, a BlueTooth keyboard and mouse, hook it into the back of the TV, and then use the TV as a dedicated entertainment hub when tied into the home theater sound processing equipment. Sure, you could have done that a few years ago, but it wouldn’t have looked this good or worked well enough to lead to your actually using the equipment this way. Now it’s all here - and as a bonus you get a stunning TV.
Best Picture…Looks Great Even Off…Great Price !!!
We had looked at two models…this XBR 52 series 6 and the Samsung (newest one out…I think the 850 series). We are typically SONY people and love the picture…this model even looks great sitting on the wall when it is off. The Samsung is much thinner but who cares if it’s hung on a wall. The price we paid couldn’t be beat ANYWHERE !!! Always a great thing to buy this time of year and especially when sales are down for these types of items…stores offer amazing deals. We wound up buying it at Circuit City for $2,399 and it came with a free Sony Blue Ray player, the model BDP S350 which is fine since we have never had Blue Ray before…probably a lot better and more expensive models out there but this one lists for around $300 and they sell it in CC for $269…anyway, it was included for free…and, also included was the Blue Ray disc of the Will Smith movie “Hancock”. Now, that alone would have been a great deal…we also had a 10% off coupon for TV’s $999 and up and applied this…shipping add $54.99 and just tax on that…all this for $2,350 including the tax…how can you beat that??? They did try selling me a warranty but I am not one who believes in those things (and besides, who knows how much longer CC will be around in business). I still have 3 more weeks if CC lowers the price again as they give you a 30 day price guarantee even against themselves. If you back out the Blue Ray player, it’s like I got the TV for $1,900…not too bad. Buy this TV wherever you get a great deal but just get it…it is THAT GOOD !!!
Tags: Sony Bravia XBR KDL-52XBR6 52-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV