Sony Bravia KDL-46XBR9

Pros: Very nice picture. Minimalist design.

Cons: Functions don't work.
Something wrong at least once a month.
Cost if not on sale.

Summary: The picture really is as good and as true as you get without jumping up to $10,000 TV's or buying an entire movie theater. However, do NOT pay full price for this TV. You are simply paying for functions that work half the time, or you cannot use wthout paying extra for, and the Sony name, which is starting to be worth about a dime to me.

December 25, we plugged everything in and ran set up exactly as Sony's manual reads. Nothing varied from setup of a TV to basic cable service. Ran all the coax exactly as the manual read. Despite this, the TVGuideOn Feature would not work. NOONE, not Best Buy floor staff, managers, geek squad, Comcast cable, or even Sony knew why not. Sony would only repeat their pre-written script in broken English. After the TV decided to randomly shut off on us a week later, we traded it in for another. This time we hooked it up the same. Same problem. So I did a software update through the internet connection. The TVGuide On feature appeared to work immediately. However, 48 hours after I'd disconnected the internet line (since I'm not investing in an expensive wireless bridge if the TV is just getting returned), there was no more TVGuide On. No where does the manual specify the internet has to be plugged in for TVGuideOn to work. In fact, the feature will supposedly work from simply a digital antenna...

Anyway, to this point, we've decided to keep the TV and blame the TVGuideOn feature on our Comcast cable. We did the trial run of Netflix, but prefer Redbox $1 movies vs. the $10/month Netflix fee. Most of their on-demand selections are not high def anyway, and look like crap on such a large screen. The other internet video stuff is even worse looking being that it's even lower quality video. The music is cool, but I can do that from my computer, and technically, I could do video as well with the right cable (yet another reason not to pay full price).

Throughout the whole process, the TV has been doing odd things and having odd delays every once in awhile. Then today the picture went out. No warning. Just POOF! I have sound and signal, but no picture. My 20 year old standard TV still has picture in the basement, but my retail $3,000 TV does not, so it's not the cable signal. I'm afraid I've had it with this thing. Sony is losing ground fast. I should've gone with the Samsung, LG, or Sharp. My friends have those brands and haven't had one problem in the same amount of time or longer.