Sony Bravia KDL-32EX500 Review

    I have not reviewed HDTV's long ago as i feel that they might a bit expensive for the consumers but the KDL-EX500 is both the least expensive and the most impressive for the money. It lacks the thin chassis of its LED-based TV's, along with the eye-catching Monolithic design of the company's flagship models. It even lacks an Ethernet port for Internet extras, along with many of the more-advanced picture controls found on competing models in this price range. What it doesn't lack, however, is solid picture quality for an LCD.Among mainstream LCD TVs, the Sony KDL-EX500 is a very good value.

    Appearing basically identical to the LED-based Sony KDL-EX700 from the front, the EX500 deploys glossy black on three sides of its frame and brushed dark gray along the bottom. Seen in profile, it's about 2 inches thicker than the EX700, for what that's worth. Though we like the EX500's subtle two-tone look and the way it eschews the all-black look seen on some competitors, to our eye it lacks that extra dash of panache found on.

    I also liked the EX500's remote control, albeit not quite as much as the slicker clicker that ships with step-ups like the KDL-NX800. The step-down remote loses those nice, flush plastic keys in favor of the standard raised rubber variety, backlighting goes missing, and you can't command other gear via infrared.
Sony's EX500 menu system is also markedly less slick than the XMB-inspired affair on step-up models, but it gets the job done well enough and conveniently makes lots of options visible at once to minimize scrolling.


     The EX500 does have the ability to stream videos via a USB connection, although, sans an Ethernet port, it can't stream from a home network via DLNA like the Samsung LNB630 series can. Sony's matte screen is also a plus in bright rooms, cutting down on reflections better than glossy versions. Sony divides its picture presets into seven "scenes," like Cinema, Graphics, and Sports, each of which, aside from "Auto," is adjustable. If you select the default General scene, you can choose from three more presets, called Vivid, Standard, and Custom, that are independent per input. The result should be plenty of memory slots for even inveterate tweakers. Said tweakers are sure to miss, however, the range of advanced controls found on the competing LCDs of Samsung and LG.

     Sony's Eco menu offers the usual power-saving options, which limit maximum light output and allow the picture to be turned off completely, bringing power use down to just 23 watts. It's missing the presence sensor found on the EX700, however, and onscreen product support is limited to a page with contact and version info.

    The image quality of the KDL-EX500 series was impressive overall for an LCD, with superior uniformity and similar black level and color performance compared with edge-lit LED-based varieties. The accuracy of its color, particularly grayscale, was a strength, whereas video processing and slightly lighter blacks were a slight weakness compared with some competing non-LED models. I also appreciated the matte screen in brighter environments. 

     As I expected, Sony's most accurate preset was the Cinema scene setting. It produced a relatively linear grayscale that was somewhat blue, particularly in darker areas; reasonable light output (50 ftl); and a 2.3 average gamma, which is very good compared with our 2.2 target.I opted to use Custom instead Cinema, mainly because only Custom allowed access to the Advanced picture menu. The white-balance controls therein helped us tame the blueness and improve gamma somewhat, and delivered an even more linear grayscale throughout the brightness range to our 40 ftl max, with the exception of very dark areas.

    Color saturation on the EX500, however, fell short of most of the others, and those faces seemed a bit pale, whereas other colors lacked a bit of punch and life.I doubt the difference would be obvious outside of a side-by-side comparison, however.Primary colors were relatively accurate, if not quite at the level of the LNC630, and red in particular veered somewhat toward blue. Like other LCDs in our lineup, the EX500 also displayed that characteristic blue cast in black and near-black areas.

     The Sony KDL-EX500 doesn't allow much tweaking of dejudder processing, supplying only Off, Standard, and High options for its MotionFlow control.With MotionFlow turned off, the EX500 failed to correctly process 1080p/24 sources according to our standard test using the helicopter flyover from Chapter 7 of "I Am Legend." The cadence of film was evident, but so was some smoothing despite the indication of "Off." Compared with sets that handled this scene better, like the Samsung LNC630 and the Vizio, the pan over the aircraft carrier's deck looked a bit too buttery and not quite choppy enough.

     With MotionFlow controls engaged, the EX500 turned in a score of between 500 and 600 lines in my motion resolution tests--respectable for a 120Hz set but not as good as the Samsungs. As usual turning it off reduced the score to between 300 and 400, and again, as usual, detecting the difference in blurring between the two settings was nearly impossible with normal program material, as opposed to test patterns.

     My Rating: 3.9/5