Sony KDL-40HX803 review

It’s a shame that the 3D suffers so much, as in 2D mode this 40HX803 is a considerably better television. To get the best picture we had to manually adjust the contrast, brightness, colour and hue settings. We also turned down the sharpness, as it introduced too much noise into the picture; be careful, as the image can get very soft if you take it too far the other way.

Colours are vivid and bright, with the TV showing off its full potential in the opening snake-fight scene in Casino Royale. The myriad colours of the crowd’s clothes were reproduced faithfully without being too overblown. There’s a little less detail in some parts of the image than on other TV’s we’ve tested. In particular as the dust blows up in front of Bond the screen doesn’t capture all the detail and looks a little muddy.

Black levels and contrast were excellent. Watching the opening fight sequence in Casino Royal we were impressed with the dark blacks and bright whites. For an edge-lit television it’s an impressive feat.

If you find the action a little jerky, Sony has its Motion Flow option that creates extra smoothing frames. We’d avoid the Smooth setting, which turns films into fast-paced cartoonish versions, but Clear and Clear Plus seem to do a reasonable job.

For regular TV, there’s both Freeview HD and analogue tuners built-in. HD channels look superb, and the 40HX803 does a good job of cleaning up poor-quality low-bitrate channels, such as the 24-hour news stations. There are still some artefacts and the image can look a little too sharp when you examine it closely, but from normal viewing distances it’s very good.

Sony has done a brilliant job with the internet and network functions of this TV. There’s a wired Ethernet port to connect the TV to the internet. If you’d prefer wireless, there’s an optional dongle available that plugs into a USB port on the side of set.

Once online you can access some internet services, including YouTube and Picasa. However, it’s the on-demand section that really stands out with BBC iPlayer, Demand Five and LoveFilm the stick-out services. A DLNA client means that the TV will pick up video, picture and music from any compatible server, such as a Windows 7 PC running Windows Media Player. We managed to get the TV to play our Xvid files flawlessly, as well as browsing through our photo albums.

As with other Sony TV’s we’ve seen recently, the Bravia KDL-40HX803 uses the XMB menu system as seen on the PlayStation 3. It’s incredibly easy to navigate, as well as being smooth and responsive. It’s just about the best menu system that we’ve seen, putting the wide range of features within easy reach.

Audio is acceptable, rather than astounding. We found dialogue to be clear and easy to hear, but sound effects didn’t have a lot of bass to them. Even at full volume there wasn’t any distortion or cabinet vibration. If you want better audio, there’s a optical S/PDIF on the rear, so that you can plug this TV into a home cinema amp.

All-in it’s fair to say that the Bravia KDL-40HX803 is an excellent TV. Its image quality is brilliant, although the 3D side lets the side down a little, making this an expensive choice for a 2D only set. If you just care about getting the best image quality, the Panasonic Viera TX-P42G20B is hard to beat and it’s cheaper. If you want everything that the Bravia KDL-40HX803’s internet portal can offer and occasional 3D movies, it’s a decent choice.