Customer Reviews
Very Pleased 
2008-06-07
No complaints whatsoever - great product - delivery was superb and on time as promised.
Awesome! 2008-06-05
This was the best online purchase I have ever made, and I purchase a lot of products online. The shipping was FREE and it was FAST (arrived in 3days). We saved almost $1000 compared to Best Buy and RC Willey, and the delivery was faster than purchasing local. The new Sony is absolutely fantastic.
Love the TV. 2008-06-04
My husband is thrilled with his new TV.
Arrived in the time as promised and works great with no problems to date. We bought a mount to hang it on the wall and it looks good. I love the no glare screen so at any angle you do not see any lights reflected in it. Less complaining from my husband when I sew while watching TV.
Easy to hook up to our surround sound and receiver.
Delivery company was very friendly and helpful.
All that, but compatibility problems and service disaster 
2008-06-03
Yes, this TV provided a great picture and a fine set of features, while it worked. I won't dispute or repeat all the praises it has so earned.
Compatibility problems. This TV has a new version of HDCP on its digital (HDMI) inputs. My cable box has a DVI output with an older version of HDCP. The TV's manual says to connect DVI outputs using a DVI to HDMI adapter. When I do that, I get a great picture for a minute or so, then a blank screen with a message from the TV: "the connected device uses an incompatible version of HDCP. Use a component video connection instead." Which is just plain crap. Sony is major player in the cartel that is forcing HDMI and HDCP on us; they have a duty to make their new stuff backward compatible with prior versions of their mess. I had a similar problem with the output from one of my PCs.
Service disaster. After two months my TV started spraying groups of horizontal lines around the screen. It gets worse over an hour or so, to the point where the entire screen is trashed. The warranty provides for in-home service. But Sony has this set up as a cutout operation - they just gave me the phone numbers of three independent repair shops and said to call them and make my own appointment. They said that's all there were near me - three. One was going out of town for two weeks. The second would not do in-home repair, never mind the warranty - they send moving men types to fetch it back to their shop. The third one took a week to come look at it. Ten more days to get the board Sony told them would fix the problem and get it to my house and installed. But this "repair" had no effect on the problem at all. So they went back to the shop and have another talk with Sony. Now another part is on order. Today is June 3. Estimated delivery of the repair part is July 31.
Sony has this set up with a middleman to isolate themselves from pressure and accountability for performance of warranty repairs. But it isn't going to work for them this time. They'll be getting plenty of pressure. Directly from me to their management. And to my State Consumer Protection department. And, since they are making new ones right now in Mexico with the parts that could be used to fix mine instead, I'll need to find one or more Federal agencies. If they are making new ones instead of fixing defective ones they already sold, well, they can just give me one those new ones. Or they should be turned back at the border until Sony behaves in an honest manner.
The part they need to replace now is the entire display panel. And I've been told that they are in short supply because of a huge number of failures. So save yourself the hassle. If you want a TV that will look great for more than a couple of months, or that you can count on decent warranty service for, buy something else. Not this Sony.
Caught on fire 
2008-05-28
I bought this product online and initially loved it. After a week and a half of being mounted on my wall, the unit started buzzing and then black smoke started coming out of the top right corner of the tv. I turned it off and realized it had temporarily set on fire. I am lucky I caught it because my small children may have not caught it and my house could have caught fire. It took SONY a week to send someone out and he said he could not fix it. SONY took another week to call me back and wanted to send another person out for a second opinion. I told them to go pound salt. After arguing on several occasions they sent me a refurbished television. This of course was not what I bought. They no longer make this model in the factory. They would upgrade me to a newer model for a mere $1000.00 more. The refurbished TV was delivered after another 2 weeks,AMAZON delivered in 3 days originally. TV is on the wall again, after I HAD TO REPAY FOR INSTALLIZATION BECAUSE SONY WOULD NOT PAY TO FIX THEIR MISTAKE. I am happy with the picture again but will never buy another SONY product. Due to outsourcing, I was talking to representitives in another country that spoke broken english at best. I called SONY several times and they would rarely respond back to me in a reasonable fashion. I bought a faulty TV from SONY, it took over 6 weeks to have it repaced with a refurbished TV.
High Qualiy product from Sony, it's been a while since.. 2008-07-12
Love this TV. Excellent HDTV video quality. Very good Standard picture (not many TVs of this size can do that). Initial TV configuration is not very straight forward, but once figured - picture is amazing. I wish all Sony products to be like that.
Satisfied! 2008-06-27
After dealing with a "less-than-reputable" dealer online for the Sony XBR, I decided to go with Amazon's source for my 52" Sony XBR4. I got a very fair price and excellent delivery service. Communication about the status was excellent and they delivered the TV in a timely manner. The TV is just breathtaking. I purchased a 50" Sony plasma TV years ago and am amazed by the technological improvements in picture quality in just a couple of years. The picture quality and detail are so sharp that it almost looks 3D up on that large 52" screen. Again, I have no regrets going with the Sony knowhow.
Verticle line of dead pixel 
2008-06-23
I have had this unit for about 3 months now, loved it so far, great pictures, easy to use. 480i pictures actually looks better on this TV than any other televisions I have seen. Yesterday however, I noticed a strip of vertical line on the dead center of the TV that spans from the top to the bottom. It has to be a few pixels wide because I can see it from 25 feet away. So, I called the customer service number listed on the menu, they are going to send an authorized repair person to get it checked out. I am happy with the service, but not happy with the investment choice I made. I paid twice as much for this TV thinking I will not have to go through these product defects.
I will update this post after the authorized personal from Sony looks at it on July 1st.
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Got a call from the Sony authorized dealer, they are ordering the LCD panel, will arrive in about two weeks.
Great Expectations! 2008-06-19
I recently made my biggest purchase ever from Amazon---a sony XBR4 lcd. I was worried that it may be damaged in shipment, but FED EX did a great job! There wasn't a scratch on the box.
The TV is amazing and lives up to it's high CR rating. I bought an lcd because our room has plenty of windows and lcd's do better in well lit rooms.
The HD picture is awesome thru Direct TV satelite. As you can surmise,I have been well pleased with this purchase.
Great Performer - I LOVE this TV 2008-06-17
I shopped around for over a year before I made my decision to buy the Sony. It was always more expensive than the other televisions in the 52 inch size range, but to my eye it always looked the best. I have had this set since March 2008, simply becuase I wanted to give ample time before leaving any sort of review.
In short, this television is hands down the best I could have bought for the money spent. Since there are a myriad of options to tweak the picture, I found some extremely helpful calibration tips at [...] that make the blacks very deep, and the colors vibrant. I currently use this television with my PS3 connected via HDMI, my TWCable HD DVR STB connected via component and optical cable, and my XBOX 360 connected via component and optical cables. The SD programming from the cable box looks ok, but it really shines with the HD content, especially Discovery HD, which broadcasts exclusively in 1080p. Blu-Ray, of course, looks amazing, although I must say that I opt to leave the 120hz Motion Flow option off when watching movies as it detracts from the graininess that, IMHO, gives film its soul. On the other hand, it works wonders for nature programs (EHEM, Planet Earth). Given the amount of reviews already here, I'm not going to go into detail as to why I love this television so much and just say that I agree with all the kudos that this set has garnered from all the other owners.
The only real issue I had with this set was with dead pixels early on. About five weeks after purchase (Fry's Electronics, in-store pick up), I noticed a little cluster of dead pixels in the lower left corner of the panel. This was nothing serious as it wasn't in the direct viewing area of the screen, but I was still perturbed simply because I spent so much on the set. After a call to Sony customer service they directed me to 3 different Sony certified repair shops, one of which I called and explained my situation. They sent a repair man out to look at it that week and he verified that it was a bad panel. He called Sony from my living room, verified the problem, and had a new panel ordered within ten minutes. Unfortunately the 52 inch panels were on back order (because apparently dead pixels are a common issue from the Sharp plant because of faulty adhesive between the panel cover and the liquid crystal)so it took almost a month for my panel to come in. Once it arrived the repair shop called and scheduled a day to come and replace my tv. The gentlemen were extremely professional and the work only took about 40 minutes. This was almost three weeks ago, and my television looks absolutely gorgeous. I admit that I was bugged with this whole situation, but given the way it was taken care of I can let it go.
All in all, I know three other people who own this very same tv, and we are all in agreeance that it blows all other LCD televisions of this size out of the water. In fact, I loved this TV so much that I bought the KDL-32XBR6 for the bedroom. Great product from a company who knows quality. I am extremely happy with my purchase and would, even given the issue with pixels, recommend this set to anyone looking to upgrade from a CRT or simply go to a bigger LCD.
Oh, and on a side note. This set looks much better when mounted on a wall. I kept mine on the included base for a few months, but then decided to hang it since a) my little 19 month old kept touching the panel, and b) it's a little wobbly when the securing strap (provided) isn't used. I found a great deal on a wall-mounting kit at [...] (where I also bought all my HDMI cables) and it works great. Just FYI.
