Sony KDL-46EX620

If you want to save money on an HDTV, it's okay to lag a generation or so behind this year's models. While we wait for 2012 sets to hit stores, plenty of solid 2011 models are still available, and in anticipation of those new sets, their prices are getting lower and lower. The Sony KDL-46EX620 is one such HDTV. It will eventually be replaced by the Wi-Fi-equipped KDL-46EX640, but until then, it's a good-quality, inexpensive ($809.99 direct)?46-inch LED-backlit HDTV with a nice selection of online features.

Design
Plain and unassuming, the KDL-46EX620?measures a modest, not particularly thin 28.1 by 37.3 by 1.7 inches (HWD) and weighs 39.2 pounds. The bezel is flat, black, and slightly glossy, and besides a power light and the Sony logo, there are no markings on the front face of the set. The right side of the HDTV hides physical controls that let you turn the set on and off, change the channel (if using the tuner), adjust the volume, change the source, and enter the menu system. The left side of the HDTV holds an HDMI input, two USB ports, a VGA input, and a 3.5-mm audio output. The back houses the other three HDMI inputs, component and composite video inputs, optical audio output, an Ethernet port, and an F-type connector for cable or antenna.

The 8.5-inch remote is rectangular, black, and mostly flat. Its buttons are separated into Power, Input, and Playback at the top, a navigation pad surrounded by menu controls in the middle, and a number pad and Volume and Channel buttons near the bottom. The rectangular buttons in the playback and number pad areas are hard to differentiate without looking at them, but the navigation pad is large enough to use blindly. The remote isn't backlit.

Like all other connected Sony HDTVs, the 46EX620 uses Sony's attractive and intuitive XrossMediaBar (XMB) interface to arrange its various apps and services. Activities like watching TV, viewing streaming video services, listening to streaming music services, and changing settings are arranged in columns that are hidden under different icons in a horizontal bar on the bottom of the screen. The active column is shown on the right side of the screen, letting the user continue to watch the active source while navigating the menus.

Features and Performance
The 46EX620 connects to the Internet via its Ethernet port or with Sony's optional $80 UWA-BR100 Wi-Fi USB adapter. Once connected, you can access Netflix, Hulu Plus, and a wide selection of other streaming media services. A Web browser is also available on the HDTV, but inputting information with the remote is time-consuming. The HDTV also supports Skype video chat with the optional $150 CMU-BR100 webcam.

We test HDTVs using DisplayMate test patterns and a chromameter, after performing basic brightness and contrast calibrations. The 46EX620 has loads of options for tweaking your picture and making it more energy efficient, including a light sensor that adjusts the brightness of the screen based on the room lighting and several automatic black level, white level, contrast and edge adjustment features. For testing, we turned all of those measures off to determine the most effective peaks and lows of the screen's brightness and color. According to our tests, the 46EX620 gets sufficiently bright, but its black levels are a bit weak. At peak, the HDTV puts out 208.02 cd/m² brightness, but with a dark screen it puts out 0.08 cd/m²?for a contrast ratio of 2,600:1 with the auto-darkening/brightening features disabled. This is disappointing on paper, but not much worse than the Editors' Choice Sony KD-46EX720 ($1,599.99, 4 stars), the 46EX620's bigger, 3D-capable brother, which produced a contrast ratio of 3,897:1 and showed a black level of 0.07 cd/m² in our tests. Color temperature was excellent, with red and green remarkably close to ideal and blue running slightly warm.

Despite its mediocre black levels and contrast ratio, the 46EX620 puts out a good picture. To test, I loaded the Priest Blu-ray disc and watched some starkly lit scenes. The HDTV showed some shadow detail, but finer elements like fabric texture and objects in darkness were completely swallowed by black. Highlights fared much better, with the bright and bleak scenes showing plenty of detail across the desolate sands of the movie.

The LED-backlit 46EX620 showed solid energy efficiency in our tests. With all eco-friendly features turned off, the HDTV consumed an average of 78 watts. With the Eco feature set to Low, the picture remained very watchable while the screen consumed an average of 66 watts. Activating the other eco-friendly features like the light sensor made the screen dim unacceptably, and it doesn't quite hit the levels of the Panasonic TC-L42D30 ($1,049.99, 3.5 stars), which consumes only 36 watts, but it's still respectable.

The Sony KDL-46EX620 is a good performer with nice features, and since it's being replaced with a new Wi-Fi-equipped, yet otherwise very similar, model in the coming months, it's a great deal. The black levels and contrast ratio aren't the best we've seen, but the?46EX620 delivers on?price and features.

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