The bad: The Sony Bravia KDL-NX720 shows some blossoming artifacts and crushes detail in shadows, and its picture deteriorates more noticeably than usual when seen from off-angle. The look of its menu and Internet services interface is poor, and Sony does not include 3D glasses. Its three dimensional image is poor, with significant crosstalk, flicker when dejudder is switched off, and extreme intolerance to head tilt.
The bottom collection: Albeit expensive and plagued by issues in 3D, the beautifully styled Sony Bravia KDL-NX720 has better display quality than most other edge-lit LED-based LCD TVs.
Review:
There is a lot to like about the Sony Bravia KDL-NX720 series. Sony's most affordable TV with that lovely Monolithic styling, it still costs a mint but will reward investors with the best 2D images we've seen on any LCD with a good edge-lit LED backlight. And despite lacking an app shop and Vudu, Sony's Internet selection is chock-a-block with movie from sources both mainstream and otherwise. As long while you don't care about its picture quality in 3D, the Sony Bravia KDL-NX720 series competes well against the best edge-lit LED TVs available on the market.
Series information: We... Expand full review
There's a lot to like concerning the Sony Bravia KDL-NX720 series. Sony's least expensive TV with that beautiful Monolithic styling, it still costs a mint but will reward investors with the best 2D images we've seen on any LCD with a good edge-lit LED backlight. And despite lacking an app shop and Vudu, Sony's Internet selection is chock-a-block with movie from sources both mainstream and otherwise. As long while you don't care about its picture quality in 3D, the Sony Bravia KDL-NX720 series competes well against the best edge-lit LED TVs available on the market.
Series information: We performed a hands-on evaluation of the actual 55-inch Sony Bravia KDL-NX720, but this review also applies towards the other screen sizes in the series. All sizes have identical specs and based on the manufacturer should provide very similar picture quality.
Design:
The Sony Bravia KDL-NX720 is merely beautiful. It looks basically the same as the XBR-HX929, regarding which we crowed: "the best-looking TV this year apart from Samsung's thin-bezel UND6400 and UND8000/7000 models. " The Sony Bravia KDL-NX720, using its thinner panel and bezel, is even nicer-looking than the HX929 within our book.
When seen from the front it earns the business's Monolithic moniker: the panel is a featureless black slab when switched off, thanks to its one-piece face and darkened glass. We also love the low-profile swivel stand using its thin metal base, although it feels a bit wobblier compared to some TVs during swivels.
We're big fans of Sony's later on TV remotes, although the Sony Bravia KDL-NX720's clicker is a step down in the flush-button, backlit wand of the HX929. Its concave surface and strategic button placement guided our thumb naturally towards the big cursor button, which is ringed by six keys (although four would do--Guide and Synch Menu is going to be underused on most setups). The biggest change is the prominent red Netflix button, and we love having immediate access to Watch Instantly. Other dedicated keys of note consist of those for Qriocity, Internet Video, 3D, I-Manual (for the superb built-in manual), and TrackID.
Submenus with regard to Options and Favorites/History, as well as those dedicated control keys, help a little, and we appreciate that the numerous "small fry" niche video services are shunted right into a submenu. Overall, however, we feel the company could have done a far greater job of organizing the TV's numerous features and choices.
Unlike the significantly more expensive HX929 with its full-array LEDs, the actual Sony Bravia KDL-NX720 uses an edge-lit LED scheme. Its local dimming does let it brighten or dim certain areas of the screen individually, a feature Sony calls Dynamic Edge. Check out the comparison of LED backlights for more, and the Performance section below for specifics of how it looks for action.
Sony doesn't include 3D glasses using the Sony Bravia KDL-NX720, but at least it doesn't require purchase of the separate emitter to handle 3D. We do wish Sony's more recent, lighter 2011 glasses used Bluetooth and not IR tranny technology for syncing. They are rechargeable, however, and replenish very quickly.
This model offers built-in Wi-Fi, saving you the price of a USB dongle or other wireless alternative.
Less important but nonetheless mildly noteworthy are a few extras designed around a sensor that may respond to viewers in the room. The Presence Sensor automatically turns it off if it fails to detect a viewer within the room (see the EX720 review for details); the Position Control is believed to automatically optimize picture and sound by detecting viewer placement; and the Distance Alert disables the picture and emits a warning sound if your child approaches the screen. Aside from noting that the actual latter somehow differentiated children from adult viewers, we didn't test these features.
There are plenty of online choices for just about everybody, and Sony is among the leaders in our assessment. Unfortunately, as we noted of the company's Blu-ray gamers, Sony's standardized interface for most of the major movie services, like Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon Instant, is worse generally than those services' default interfaces, in part due in order to relatively small thumbnail images. On the other hand, getting the same basic interface for each makes them relatively simple to learn.
We did a full writeup from the new Gracenote music identification service already, so we'll just range from the conclusion here: "Despite its hiccups and occasional failures, we really liked a chance to identify music quickly and conveniently with the push of the button. " There are also separate Video and Music searches powered by Gracenote that permit you to look up information on each, but don't yet result in additional content.
The appeal of the numerous niche movie services (Sports Illustrated, The Minisode Network, Blip. tv, Design. com, Howcast. com, video podcasts, and so on) is heightened somewhat by a chance to search across all of them. Unfortunately, that search doesn't include the mainstream services like Netflix, Amazon Instant, or YouTube, and it is a pain to use with the TV remote.
Sony has additionally recently added a 3D video-streaming service to its on the internet portfolio, although at the moment it's mainly short clips and also the occasional old World Cup 2010 soccer match.
In contrast to LG, Samsung, and Panasonic, Sony doesn't have an "app store" because of its TVs. The Yahoo widget service is where you'll discover Twitter and Facebook, along with numerous even less useful items to have occupy your TV screen.
And, yes, the Sony Bravia KDL-NX720 includes a Web browser, although it's even slower and more annoying to make use of than the ones on Samsung and LG TVs. After a couple of minutes of frustrated waiting for it to load the Sony Style webpage, we feel comfortable saying that it should be prevented entirely.
