Sony Bravia L-Series KDL-32L4000 32-Inch 720p LCD HDTV Review!

Let’s talk about the Sony Bravia L-Series KDL-32L4000 32-Inch 720p LCD HDTV.

Picture quality is very good to my eyes. The blacks are black, not washed out as on, say, a Westinghouse lvm37-w3. Sound from the built-in speakers is good, but nothing to compare with external amplified speakers. The built-in ATSC tuner does a great job.

Setting up the channel list was easy and took only a couple of minutes, but I do wish there were an obvious way to skip analog channels during setup. I don’t have cable and didn’t want to include any analog channels in the channel list. Since they were automatically identified, I had to manually hide them once channel setup was complete.

Of course, it will be easy to skip analog over-the-air channels after February 2009

I wanted to set up a laptop with a TV tuner, for use as a DVR. It was easy to connect to the Sony. I’m using a MacBook, so for the video connection I used a Mini-DVI to DVI adapter connected to a DVI-D to HDMI cable. For audio I used a 3.5mm male to 2 RCA-type male audio y-cable. With the cables connected and the TV turned on, the MacBook recognized the display and automatically configured it to 1280×720 resolution, without so much as popping up a preference pane.

The owner’s manual warns not to connect a PC to the HDMI ports, and to use the RGB IN port instead; I’m not sure why, or whether this is specific to PCs with VGA video-out ports. Given the MacBook’s Mini-DVI video port, I guessed the warning didn’t apply to it.

Pros:

• Very good picture quality
• Good ATSC tuner
• Plays well with computers

Cons:

• No obvious way to skip analog over-the-air channels during channel setup