Sony Bravia KDL-V40XBR1

Earlier this year, Sony changed the name of its high-end LCD TVs from Wega to Bravia and launched a marketing campaign touting the line as "The world's first television designed for men and women." While it remains to be seen how the sleek, 40-inch Sony Bravia KDL-V40XBR1 ($3,499) scores with the ladies, it delivers a knockout in terms of LCD picture quality. No, it still can't outperform the best similarly sized plasmas on the market, and yes, like most Sonys, this 40-inch flat-panel LCD has a premium price tag and costs quite a bit more than competing plasmas.

But if you have your heart set on an LCD or just really like the look of this Sony--or the name Bravia--it might be worth the price. Thankfully, there's not a trace of pink on the Sony KDL-V40XBR1. Silver trim and a slim silver strip along the front dress up the usual black border around the screen. Three tiny indicator lights reside below the right side of the screen next to the IR receiver, but they aren't really noticeable when you're watching the TV. Power, channel, volume, source-select, and menu buttons sit on the right side of the panel. Overall, this is one of the most distinctive-looking TVs we've reviewed.

A silver pedestal comes standard with the TV, though the decor-conscious could certainly mount the 40-by-27-by-5-inch, 75-pound TV on a wall. Sony makes an optional wall-mount bracket (SU-PW2) for just this purpose. The remote isn't backlit and doesn't include individual input-selection buttons, but we found it comfortable enough to hold. Sony has replaced the usual menu controls with its Wega Gate interface.

The remote has a Wega Gate button instead of the more familiar Menu, but otherwise the menu system is essentially the same as any other manufacturer's: logical and intuitively laid out. The major exception is the control for CineMotion (Sony's name for 2:3 pull-down), which resides in the Setup menu rather than the Picture menu. A native resolution of 1,366x768 gives the Sony KDL-V40XBR1 enough pixels to deliver all the detail of 720p HDTV. As usual, the panel scales all incoming signals, from VHS to HDTV, to fit the available pixels. A lone NTSC tuner serves up standard-definition TV, while a single ATSC tuner delivers over-the-air HDTV. The QAM tuner and the set's Digital Cable Ready compatibility let you watch digital and HD cable without an external cable box.