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Sony offers this television in one other screen size: the 42-inch KDF-E42A10. The company's step-up KDF-EA20 lineup includes two larger sets: the 55-inch KDF-E55A20 and the 60-inch KDF-E60A20. While they include a few features these models lack, such as picture-in-picture and 1,366x768 LCD panels, they also drop a few features, such as the side component-video input and the PC input.
Overall, the Sony KDF-E50A10 offers very good picture quality for the money. Its strengths include a sharp 720p image and deep black levels for an LCD, but inaccurate color decoding and other minor gripes keep it from earning a higher rating.
Out of the box, the set exhibited some of the worst color decoding, namely red push, we've seen in a while. Fortunately, this can be fixed in the service menu, but with a TV in this price range, we doubt that many buyers will pay the $400 or so it costs for professional calibration. As with all LCD-based RPTVs, white-field uniformity across the screen was relatively poor compared to that of DLP; we saw faint blue and red blotches appearing in bright white material in some sections of the screen. We also noticed the tell-tale screen-door effect of visible pixels when we sat closer than about eight feet.
DVDs looked better after our somewhat unsuccessful ISF-style calibration. Fortunately, the preset color temperature of Warm II is reasonably accurate, tracking at about 7,500 Kelvin across the grayscale. We were able to improve that dramatically from the middle to the top of the scale, but the bottom end was distinctly minus blue (see the Geek box for more).
As we mentioned in Features, there are a couple of picture-affecting tweaks that can really harm image quality, but happily, you can turn them off. Let's start with Live Color, which makes the already atrocious color decoding even worse. The Clear White feature looked as though it simply made the grayscale bluer as you went up the scale from off to high; we recommend you set both of these features to off. We noted that among the four available choices for Gamma, the Low setting produced the most accurate gamma curve. The Black Corrector feature also affects gamma, and the Low setting again seemed to yield the best results.
After setup, we were left with an impressive picture. The Sony KDF-E50A10's black-level performance is its strongest suit, although it's still not as good as that of last year's 720p DLP RPTVs, such as Samsung's HLP-5085W and Mitsubishi's WD-52525. The opening scenes of the Alien DVD revealed clean blacks with very little low-level noise, which not long ago was a major issue with LCD-based displays. The Superbit version of the Vertical Limit DVD looked good, with strong color saturation and plenty of detail. With the CineMotion setting engaged, the television did a good job of eliminating artifacts in film-based material.
The Sony KDF-E50A10 did a solid job of displaying most of the resolution of a 720p resolution test pattern from our Sencore VP403 signal generator into the HDMI input, which is something many RPTVs have had trouble with. HD material from our DirecTV HD satellite feed looked good. Colors were deeply saturated, skin tones were rendered naturally, and detail was also commendable.
| TEST | RESULT | SCORE |
| Before color temp (20/80) | 7,600/7,300K | *Average* |
| After color temp (20/80) | 5,125/6,425K | *Poor* |
| Before grayscale variation | ± 786K | Average |
| After grayscale variation | ± 608K | *Poor* |
| Overscan | 2.5% | Good |
| Color decoder error: red | +15% (0%) | Poor |
| Color decoder error: green | -5% (-5%) | Good |
| DC restoration | No patterns stable | Poor |
| 2:3 pull-down, 24fps | Y | Good |
| Defeatable edge enhancement | Y | Good |
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