Sony Bravia KDL-40V5500 Reviews: Bravia, 40" Screen LCD Full HD 1080p TV

+ Excellent choice when comparing with other brands, Quality shows over cheaper models

- Sound is good, connect to 5.1 system for superior sound

+ The picture is great
Sound is pretty good
Having 4 HDMI connections is perfect for Sky, Blu-ray and xbox and a spare one for my laptop too
Really easy to setup

- The shiny surround is very reflective in the light

+ The power saving option is great as the kids have the TV on for most of the day. It darkens the picture but the kids don’t notice the difference. It’s got loads of ports at the back. I have wired it up to my wireless router so I’m link to the internet and use the AppliCast feature. Using the home network features, I can play music and photographs from my PC up stairs. When I got it set up, the whole family sat around and went through all the old photographs on the massive 40 inch screen – the kids loved it. I’ve even stuck my memory stick in the USB port on the side of the TV and played some movies off it. I now also have a Sony DVD player and I do like the fact that the main features on both devices can be controlled on the same remote controlls.

- The KDL40V5500 has some great features but some of the extras are not as good as they could have been. For example, the Applicast web feature, after I got it set up, I think I’ve only used it a few times before I got bored with it. Linking the TV to the network was easy once I got the ethernet cable, but what Sony don’t tell you in their manual is that once you have connected it to your router, you then have to run a application on your computer so it will share files with your TV. After going through a number of on-line forums, I found out that you have to run Windows Media player 11 on your PC. But then I discovered that the TV was not playing video. After e-mailing Sony support, they said I had to purchase their Sony VAIO media plus. Anyway, after reading more forums, I was directed to some free software by other owners of Sony TVs and now, I am happy to say, I can stream movies on to my TV from my PC. It’s great being able to play home movies straight from my PC that is connected wirelessly to my router. The last annoying aspect of this TV is GUIDE Plus system – this is basically the on screen TV guide and channel information. When you first set it up, it has to down load the information. This took hours, so long in fact, that I stopped it when first setting it up as I wanted to use the TV. Eventually, I did let the TV down load the TV Guide but what I wasn’t aware of was that to keep this feature, you have to keep the TV on stand by. So when I switched the TV off on the TV, the next morning, I noticed all the guide information was gone. It can only up-date the guide information when in ‘stand by’ mode. So I left the TV on stnad by for one night and it didn't get up-dated which means I have run the set up again.

+ Picture quality and general "looks"

- Gathers dust!