Sony Bravia KDL-46X2000 review

The KDL-46X2000 is the flagship model of Sony's Bravia LCD TV range and its price reflects this -- expect to pay around £3,500 for the privilege of owning such an impressive piece of design.

One of this TV's main selling points is that its 46-inch screen has a 'full HD' 1,920x1,080 resolution. Not only does this mean that 1080i hi-def material (ie the output from a Sky HD box) can be matched to the screen pixel-for-pixel, giving a particularly sharp and detailed picture, but also that it will properly display 1080p material. 1080p is the highest quality form of hi-def soon to be available in the UK -- although you'll need a Blu-ray or HD-DVD player to get it.

Design
With its huge 46-inch screen, the Sony makes for a rather imposing sight -- it's not the sort of thing you can imagine melting into the background of the average living room. Still, it's an attractive, stylish piece of design, bearing the transparent glass-look-a-like plastic frame that has become a trademark of high-end Sony screens in recent years. By a trick of the light, literally, the power indicator LED appears to shine from the middle of the see-through plastic -- it all looks incredibly impressive.

Build quality is excellent, which is really nothing less than you'd expect from Sony -- the set feels rock-solid when placed on the supplied desk stand. Our one criticism would be the fact the that said stand is fixed, and won't swivel. With the likes of Hitachi adding a motorised swivel stand to its cheaper, heavier 50-inch plasma TV, Sony could really give consumers something more interesting here.

One noteworthy design feature is the bezel. The included silver one can be removed and replaced by one of four optional coloured bezels -- red, blue, white and black. A nice idea, but somewhat spoiled by the fact that each one costs an extra £150.

There's a fine selection of inputs on offer here. For hi-def purposes, there are two HDMIs and two component videos, plus a VGA socket that could be used with an Xbox 360 or PC -- so altogether you can hook up five bits of hi-def equipment simultaneously. Standard-definition sources are also well catered for, thanks to a trio of RGB-capable Scart inputs and single S-Video and composite connections. Next to the rear connectors is a Common Interface card slot, which can be used to upgrade the digital Freeview service to TopUp TV.

Lastly, the remote control is well designed and a vast improvement over past Sony models. All in all, there's very little not to like on the design side of things.

Features
The KDL-46X2000 has its own picture-processing technology known as Bravia Engine EX, exclusive to this model. Basically this works to scale standard-definition images up to 1,920x1,080, reduce picture noise and boost colour -- all the usual technical wizardry we've come to expect in any expensive flat-screen TV. Also in the TV's locker are a couple of technologies we've already seen on the cheaper models in Sony's Bravia range: Wide Colour Gamut (WCG) and Super Patterned Vertical Alignment (SPVA). WCG increases the backlight's luminosity in order to create richer, brighter colours and SPVA helps to create a wider viewing angle.