Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony Bravia KDL26S5500 26-inch Widescreen HD Ready LCD TV with Freeview and 3 Year Warranty

I'm very pleased with this TV in most respects, but it does have a fault where it freezes overnight and has to be unplugged and then re-connected to get it going again.

Upon enquiring with Sony support, I was told that it's a known fault and given a number to call my local service centre. They found a fault and a fix registered for this model, but didn't know whether it fixed this particular fault. After some backwards and forwards over the 'phone, it was established that the fix is for this known fault.

Then I'm told that as this is a 26inch TV, I have to take it to them rather than them coming to my home to apply the fix - apparently Sony won't pay for callout on 26 inch screens! So, new TV with a known fault, and who has to put themselves out......yes the poor blooming customer.

I wanted a tv for the conservatory, thought a 26" would be too big, and was looking at the 22". However theres only 3" in the case width between them and the 26" actually takes up less space than my old 15" portable.
This tv is the latest model and comes with a 3 year guarantee from Sony when you register it. John Lewis want £499 for the same tv, (ok they give a 5 yr guarentee- but if its going to go wrong its gonna be in the first year).So the Amazon price is amazing value. Picture and sound are superb, the tv itself looks great, very stylish.At this price its a no brainer, why would you buy it anywhere else?

I was very pleased with this TV except that if left on standby for more than a few hours (e.g. overnight) the remote did not operate and neither did the on/off button on the side of the TV. The only way to get it to work again was to unplug the TV and then plug it in again. The remote and buttons then worked perfectly putting the TV into standby and re-activating it again as expected. I sent the TV back to Amazon, a process which they make as painless as possible, but the replacement had the same fault.
Unplugging the TV every day is not an acceptable long-term solution! The low standby current was an important factor in selecting this TV.
I have written to Sony to see if there is a fix, if I do not hear I will have to return the second TV and buy something else.

After a lot of searching I found this is a know fault with Bravia TVs in some regions. The temporary fix is to turn off system update - menu>settings>set-up>digital setup.

Having previously purchased a similar 26" TV from Sony (at almost twice the price some 3 years ago!) I have to say this model is not quite up to the same spec. The picture quality is more than adequate but the (relatively) low contrast ratio takes some of the edge away in the visual department. Maybe I'll have to play around with the settings a bit more but I should have thought the default settings would have been sufficient with only minor tweaks. Sound quality on the other hand is very good indeed and means you needn't use an auxiliary sound system.

One drawback I find is the apparent lack of 'input control', i.e. switching between attached devices (e.g. DVD player, VCR or SAT). The only one which switches the display is the device linked to AV2 (one of the two SCART sockets). This means that you have to manually switch inputs if I want to watch a DVD or satellite program. A minor inconvenience perhaps but a bit of an irritation after a while. In fairness, I haven't attempted to connect any HDMI devices as yet so maybe there's automatic switching on these other input connections.

All in all, a nice TV for the money (at Amazon prices at least).

The TV had a silly fault - it locked up over night and in the morning it wouldn't respond to the remote control or physical power button on the set. It had to be unplugged from the mains and then plugged back in before it would work. I've seen a few other reviews on Amazon describing the same issue. Amazon accepted it back without trouble.

Instead I got a Samsung LE32B450, so here's a quick comparison of Sony KDL26S5500 vs Samsung LE32B450:

Sony KDL26S5500: Excellent build quality (aside from the above fault) and nice sound. Picture is OK, but not brilliant - Lord of the Rings looked a bit yellow, although I didn't spend a lot of time playing with colour settings. Blacks aren't that black - I think it has relatively low contrast. No visible motion blur.

Samsung LE32450: Picture is excellent - it beats the Sony hands down. There's a little motion blur on the screen if you look closely. Sound is OK but not as nice as the Sony - I use the HIFI output instead. Build quality is questionable - the whole back panel bends and creaks when you plug SCART cables in. I think it has slightly worse reception than the Sony (I'm using an indoor aerial, so not the ideal setup).