5 Stars Excellent!
After exhaustive review, I watched and waited until the price came down. I have not been disappointed with cost or quality. It integrates perfectly with all my other equipment and the picture is beautiful.

5 Stars No clouds, remote is fine, great picture, no problems (so far)
Bought this 2 weeks ago. Because satellite isn’t installed yet, we’re using rabbit ears (yes, they still make them, much to my surprise) for another 3 weeks.

Picture is great when it’s tuned to a nearby station; it seems to pick up stations awfully well, but no HD with the rabbit ears, yet.

Using a Sony DVP NS77H, connected via HDMI (yes, you need to buy your cable; Mine cost $12 thru Amazon), we get a phenomenal picture.

I’ve squinted and stared and crossed my eyes, but can’t see the gray clouding that bothers some people.

The remote is just fine; you don’t have to page through all inputs to find the one you want: just read the manual and on page 32 you will find out how to label inputs, and skip ones you don’t use.

I bought it locally for $1399. Might have saved a few more bucks if I’d ordered it online, but we wanted it for the NFL playoff games this past weekend.

We’re very happy with the purchase!

5 Stars What a Picture!
I knew that Sony made great products, but this one takes the cake. The picture is so good, I thought that football was actually being playing in my den. The clarity is as sharp as I can imagine. Our friends that have had an LCD TV with HD for over a year could not believe the picture of this television. I could not be more pleased.

5 Stars Sony quality at a Samsung price–limited aspect ratio is the only catch (but there’s a fix)
With the latest price drop this Sony has finally come into a competitive range with the Samsungs, Sharps, Panasonics, and Toshibas. Moreover, with Amazon’s 18-month interest-free financing, it’s close to being a screaming value. Even so, when I saw the claim for some other Sony models that they could run the whole show with a single remote switch and one press of the button, I tried to change my order to a Sony V3000 or W3000. I was too late, but now that I’ve got this set, I’m happy to use a separate DVD switch.

The picture is perfect with the exception of an unfortunate decision by Sony to make “normal” aspect ratio unavailable on this model when viewing 720p, 1080i or 1080p sources. What this means is that if you’re watching a “full-screen” DVD (adapted for the conventional television screen) rather than a “wide-screen” DVD, your choices are limited to “full” screen (the image is “stretched” and consequently distorted to fill the screen) and “zoom” screen (a portion of the image is enlarged to fill the screen). Either way, Tom Cruise’s body dimensions make him resemble John Candy or Chris Farley. But the only solution to viewing a letterboxed 4:3 DVD image (”full screen” DVD) on this 16:9 screen with minimal to no distortion is to make the setting at the level of the Sony DVD player, using the player’s remote. Were it not for that possibility, I’m afraid I would have exchanged this set for one in the V or W series.

As for color, contrast, brightness, etc. settings, there are but three–Standard (looks “right on” to me), Vivid (heightened contrast and brightness, perhaps occasionally useful), Custom (higher temperature setting, more warmth to the flesh tones). Each seems tuned to perfection, and together they provide all the flexibility you need to handle any visual source. I don’t plan to touch a thing in the way of further adjustments to the color or picture. I tested the audio with an Oscar Peterson CD–killer acoustic bass, sizzling ride cymbals, resonating piano sonorities. You’d have to be a gadget compulsive-obsessive personality to hook it up to a separate external amp and “theater system,” at least in a “live” room like mine. The set’s own surround sound is impressive, but I suspect I’ll settle for the plain stereo setting once the novelty has worn off. I don’t see how at the present moment you could get a better deal on an HD LCD set.

No doubt some consumers will immediately suspect a reason for the price decrease–the set’s not selling because of some defect or it’s been superannuated by a Sony model designed to put upstart Samsung back in its place. Not only did this particular Sony look as good if not better to me than the neighboring sets at Best Buy, Circuit City, and Sears, but the brand still inspires confidence and trust (just ask a knowledgeable sales person which brand they prefer).

Besides comparing this Sony to other brands, I compared the picture to other Sony’s–32″ and 46″, a 720p Sony, the V3000 Sony, and the S and W series. It was enough to convince me that many consumers are willing to spend hundreds more on nothing but specs and/or cabinetry–a vaunted contrast ratio, faster motion detector, or glitzier frame. Is the “Theater-Synch” feature worth the extra 200 bucks? Maybe so, if you’re using a complicated external audio set-up. Still, I checked all the consumer reviews on Amazon as well as Cnet. Not a single one even mentions the “One Touch” feature, and a couple said the “Media Bar” on the 3000 was too much of a time-consuming nuisance to bother with. In fact, the Cnet consumer ratings clearly prefer the 40V2500 over the 40V3000. (It’s also one of the few HDTV sets that actually swivels.) As for the much discussed black contrast ratio, it’s basically pointless when you’re talking about differences in the mere thousands. If high numbers get your vote, take a look at the new Sony XEL-1 (at Sonystyle), which offers a black contrast ratio of 1000000:1 (yes, that’s one million to one), for under $2500. As a final convincer to go with the v2500, I made a quick check of Amazon’s warehouse deals. Unlike the 3000 V and W series, there were no returns of this model.

But now that Sony has an affordable model in this size, why not simply trust the evidence of your eyes, forget the research, and desist from spec comparisons? I expect that 18 months from now I will be no less satisfied with this purchase. If not, paying more for a big screen at this time certainly makes no sense.

4 Stars good set, however
This is my first Flat-panel tv. Having worked at Bestbuy and been in the industry for a while, I felt as if I had made an educated decision. I bought this set last summer for $1800, on sale from $22. The set has been on sale ever since dropping down to $1500 at times, which made me wonder. I am beginning to see the “Ghosting” on black scenes. The right vertical edge seems to be brighter than the whole set. It might be getting worse over time. This seems to change depending on the viewing angle, which is also not that hot. Overall the picture is very good. The tv does not have very good upscaling chip, so the user will have to get good components. I shopped around a bit and tried out different upscaling dvd players, and eventually settled on my xbox 360. Might go for the Oppo soon. The set has A LOT of options for MPEG noise reduction, contrastm backlight, etc., most of which dont seem to do anything, however, If you have the time, you could prob dial it in proper. These 1080P tvs are ahead of their time. Match the native resolution of the tv to the equipment you use. 1080P for BLU-RAY, HD DVD, Xbox 360, or PS3. Otherwise buy a 1080i set. The tv wont struggle as much trying to upconvert lower resolution material; dvd, Hi-def programming, etc. Sharp and Samsung are great sets as well. Hold out for the new sets with quicker response times and the new Frames-per-second (24 from 60) tvs. Overall all, I think the Sony set is a good deal for the current price, AND the service plans are WAY cheaper through Sony.com. Might go for a sharp next time. Sony kind of let me down on this one.