Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony KDL46Z4500 - 46-inch Widescreen 1080P Full HD 200Htz LCD TV with Freeview and 3 Year Warranty

This is a great piece of equipment. The picture quality, especially when showing Blu-Ray films, is excellent: sharp, clear and bright. Watching films feeaturing bright sunshine or other lights you almost have to look away at times. There is also a theatre mode that reduces the full-on brightness and gives a picture more like that in a cinema.

The sound quality will probably not be enough for audiophiles bent on a surround sound home theatre set, but the integrated speakers (left, right and subwoofer) are very good indeed. There are various virtual surround sound modes where tricks with timing are used to simulate sound coming from the side, or indeed the rear (although this latter is less convincing if your sofa is very close to the back wall). Again, with Blu-Ray films, if you select the HD soundtrack such as DTS HD Master Audio or TrueHD, you will be surprised at just how good the internal speakers can sound.

Set up and operation are fairly simple and intuitive. I just found it a bit slow and awkward to sort channels. The BRAVIA link is useful if you have other Sony products, particularly a Blu-Ray player. The remote control is nicely ergonomic and comprehensive, with a backlight feature for viewing films in darkened rooms. I also found a nice touch in that the Sony logo is a lamp which fades in and out when the TV is turned on and off.

The 200HZ Motionflow feature is good to have for sports and action movies, although I have yet to notice a big difference between the maximum motionflow setting and the standard immediately beneath it.

All in all a very impressive TV. Wholeheartedly recommended

An avid fan of home cinema and What Hifi reader. Spent ages choosing a new tv, reading reviews and blogs etc and i LOVE this one. The picture is just awesome. 200hz screen is brillinat for sports or fast moving pictures with NO hint of blurring. The sound from the speakers is far better than other screens at this price. The USB input to display photo's etc is great and the xbar set up is so easy. The remote is intuitive and is back lit for when watching movies in the dark. My PS3 looks fantastic on it as does any DVD or any HD content icluding SKY HD whichs looks superb. I could go on forever, it is a great set. Use the THX set up disc from any Star Wars DVD to tweek the settings and you'll have a superb TV.

I bought the Sony 46-Z-4500 to replace a 32" CRT Sony IDTV and I must say it is very good. This is my fourth Sony TV.

What I really like is the quality of picture. Using the built-in digital tuner is quite a lot better than through a Humax PVR which interestingly was better than the using the previous TV's internal tuner. Motion flow really seems to work with fast moving scenes too as there doesn't seem to be any of those horrible digital artefacts. For such a large screen it is surprising how good a low resolution image can be made to look. As you can imagine, viewing full 1080p/24 Blueray disk source is fantastic. The colour balance and contrast are superb.

Sound quality through the internal speakers is acceptable for general day to day viewing although not as good as the previous 32" CRT TV. For films the scale of the sound isn't great, so I'm waiting the arrival of a new surround sound amp to hook up to some existing 5.1 speakers.

There are two options for Electronic Programme Guide (EPG). One has picture in picture (PIP), but a large part of the screen has an advert and is generally really cluttered. The other standard Sony look which is my family's preference doesn't have PIP.

I have my TV connected to the home network and have viewed photos and tried listening to music served from a Vista laptop. Photos are very good. As the sound quality for the TV is nothing to shout about, until I get surround sound up and running there is no point is listening to music through it. There is a USB socket on the side too and that works equally well for photos and music. There is no option to view video over the network.

I'm really pleased with the purchase and have already recommended it to friends and colleagues.

My rating is:

Picture quality: 5/5
Sound quality: 3/5
Features: 4/5

Overall: 4/5

I'd been looking for a new tv for quite a while and finally settled on this one. I'm not disapointed eithier. The picture blew us away and thats only running at 576p (not got a blueray player yet). Sound is very good as well for a tv. Very easy to setup and the freeview tuner is better than any set top box I've had.

If you want/need a new tv you won't go wrong with this one, would highly recomend it.

I have had several Sony television sets in the past and this one is the best yet. I am not technically minded but so far as I am concerned the picture is every bit as good as most of the professional reviewers said, and I would not wish for anything better, especially on high definition. The sound is quite reasonable although obviously not up to hi fi audio standard.

The initial installation proved very easy and it was accomplished without any problem and without professional help. It is a very heavy set and requires two strong men to lift it into position.

Perhaps I may conclude with a word of praise for Amazon. Not only was the quoted price the cheapest available anywhere, but it as delivered free on the agreed day with a careful two man delivery.