Vibrations that make you want to KILL (Sony KDL-20S2030U)

Member Name: littlexen

Product:	Sony KDL-20S2030U
Date:	17/11/07 (356 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: excellent picture quality, HD ready, 1 - chip video processor, digital TV tuner

Disadvantages: vibration caused by the speakers, poor response time when used as a PC monitor

When it came to purchasing a new television for our bedroom I was excluded from the actual decision making process, my husband instead deciding that he would ‘surprise’ me which left me in something of a state of dread that our credit card would take a pounding and he would arrive home with a 72” widescreen. I was fairly confident that he would choose a Sony I just prayed that it wasn’t some huge monster. My fears proved unfounded when he returned home carrying, on his own the 20” widescreen Sony KDL20S2030, a LCD television from the Bravia range. The total cost only £389.99 from Dixons.

The decision to purchase the KDL20S2030 my husband reliably informs me was because it didn’t require a stand, would sit on the computer table in the corner of our bedroom and could double up as a computer monitor which we were at the time desperately in need of replacing.

Once it was home I was left with the task of clearing away our old computer monitor, setting the KDL20S2030 into place and then making sure that the computer continued to work and that all of the television channels were programmed in. Getting down to business wasn’t too much trouble at all as the entire unit weighs only 7.3kg and has a stand built into the base which leaves it standing securely so there is no movement in the screen. With most Bravia models, the unit is a matt black and has a strong plastic casing, the exact dimensions being 50cm wide, 41cm high and 21cm deep. The visible screen dimensions are 35cm high by 47cm wide.

As we have a larger Bravia in our living room tuning in the channels required little reference to the instruction manual which is of a high quality with everything set out in a plain English step by step guide. Once the power and external aerial was attached I selected the automatic tuning option and both the analogue and digital channels were detected and stored within 5 minutes. We have a DVD player in our bedroom neither do we use any of our consoles in there but if we did, the KDL20S2030 has 2 SCART sockets to enable this. The PC input socket was clearly marked and required no need for a video graphics adapter. From unpacking to watching the television took 20 minutes.

The KDL20S2030 uses 3 liquid crystal display panels with the image being produced and projected through each of these panels. Each panel has a designated colour of red, green and blue that turn the pixels on and off to increase the clarity and contrast of pictures on the flat, plastic display at the front of the display. In terms of interlaced lines used by the television to make up the picture display there are 576 lines horizontally, and 1080 vertically. Being HD ready the picture quality is just stunning with the range of colours out of this world. The images are razor sharp and the level of detail, despite the smaller display perfect. The range of colours in my mind as soon as I realized it was another Bravia was never in doubt but it actually exceeded my expectations and I have to say I prefer watching television on the 20” screen more than the 50” we have in our living room as the levels of image distortion are reduced to negligible levels. With our 50” Bravia the levels of distortion were quite high until we purchased a HD digital box but this is not required with the KDL20S2030.

Using the screen as a monitor is brilliant and a hundred times better than our previous screen, the only problem being when my husband decided he wants to play quite quick action games as the responsiveness/refreshment time of the screen is considerably slower than a specialist computer monitor.

The KDL20S2030 has two 5w speakers positioned just below the screen and these are in my opinion a little too powerful for a television so small. Whilst there is nothing wrong with the sound quality or indeed the clarity of sound produced, even on very low settings it can be too loud and there is a touch of vibration that can be detected when watching some shows. The levels of vibration obviously increases the louder the television is and to combat this we had to pack the small gaps between the base of the stand and our computer desk with cotton wool. This reduced the problem but hasn’t completely eradicated it. For the first few weeks this really did get on my nerves but now after a month I seem to have learnt to ignore it.

In the first few weeks of owning the KDL20S2030 I honestly could have thrown it through the bedroom window due to the vibration of the stand caused by the speakers but have now learnt to live with and love it. I have no problems recommending the KDL20S2030 as a good quality small screened LCD television because of the exceptional picture quality but would not advise anyone to buy it for use as a computer monitor as seeing the look of frustration on my husbands face when trying to play games leads me to believe that there are better PC solutions out there.

Summary: A small Sony television

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