Sony KDS-55A3000 Projection TV

HD is the future,there is no denying that fact.While the world is still waiting for battle of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD to end,you don’t have to wait for getting a HDTV! HDTVs have become cheaper and offer excellent value for money.Sony has big reputation in making quality television sets and have set a benchmark in that field.Sony KDS-55A3000 is a massive 55″ Projection TV belonging to A3000 series which has been continuously changing for the better.

Sony KDS-55A3000 specifications:

• 55″ Rear Projection TV
• HDMI,S-Video,Composite
• Dimensions : 49.6″ x 15.6″ x 36.2″
• 1920 x 1080 resolution
• 1080p (Full HD)
• 2.5 ms response time

Design

The appearance of the TV is not as elegant as some of the other Sony TVs.The speakers are enclosed in a black grill and the projector has been given a silver coating to bring out the contrast between the colors.The dimensions of the TV are very much standard but the TV is a bit bulky as compared to other projection TVs.The plastic used to make the cabinet is of high quality and feels good when touched.

Interface and Features

The remote control is not one the best.Sony has changed the layout when compared to other models and the change has not been for the better.Also the menu system on the television is not as intuitive as one would expect it to be.Its a bit hard to find all the advanced settings and memorize them so as to find them quickly in future.

Manual settings might be a bit hard to find but by no means you can say that they are not present! The TV has a whole lot of settings you can play around with.You can select from 4 picture modes namely Vivid,Standard,Cinema and Custom.Advanced settings like Noise Reduction can be used to wipe out the noise in the picture which works pretty efficiently.Some other advanced settings include Motion Enhancer,Black collector,Color temperature etc.You can get the best by mixing and matching the settings and see the results yourself.

Connectivity and Performance

The TV has three HDMI ports , a S-Video , two video component , RF input , RGB input are the major connectivity options that are provided on the TV which are standard but good enough to support all the devices that you might possess.

The color reproduction on the TV is accurate.White balance setting can be tweaked from the menu to achieve close to perfect results. The black-level performance is amazing.Images are very clear and you can hardly notice the noise in them.The MPEG Noise reduction feature is useless as it crops the video which mars the viewing experience.Sony Motion Enhancer smoothens out the video without artifacts.The contrast of the TV is good.The contrast could have been better.Overall the performance is very good for a TV in its price range.

Pros:

• Excellent color reproduction
• Noise Reduction feature
• Good connectivity options
• Ample manual controls

Cons:

• Menu navigation not great
• Bulky
• MPEG Noise Reduction useless

The Sony KDS-55A3000 is a great buy for the price tag that is sports.The menu navigation and the remote control could have been better.The image clarity is very good as expected from Sony televisions.There are no significant downfalls of this TV and is a great buy if you are planning to buy a HDTV and have a similar budget of around 2000$.