Sony Grand WEGA 50" Rear Projection TV

Sony KDS-50A2020 Great Buy

Strengths: Excellent colors & contrast. Sleek finish. Lots of connection options. More than decent display of Standard Definition programs.

Weaknesses: Bulb take time to warm up. Needs bulb replacement after about 2-3 years.

Summary: I have had this TV for about 2 weeks now and I love it. I was a little disappointed at first because the bulb would take about 10-20 seconds to warm up (before you could see any picture). But once it came on, it was beauty personified. Now I have learned to live with that small inconvenience. HD on this TV just looks awesome. When coupled with the Blu-Ray player that I also bought alongwith the TV, the movie watching experience is at a completely new level. I would never again go back to watching regular DVDs (even though they look great as well when using the upconversion on the Blu-ray player). The colors and tone look so very natural compared to the 32" Olevia LCD TV that I had before I bought this TV. It also does a good job of displaying standard definition broadcast through cable. I have not connected or tested it using the antenna. I have also not used the speakers on the TV for sound, so can't comment about that either. I use a Onkyo receiver and speakers for that. Overall, I am very satisfied with my purchase.

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Excellent TV

Strengths: Good Picture quality

Weaknesses: Poor audio quality

Summary: Overall very satisfied with Sony Grand WEGA 50 inch Rear Projection TV (KDS-50A2020). Very easy to setup. The default setting were good. Got it connected and up and running in 20 minutes.

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Great TV

Strengths: NA

Weaknesses: NA

Summary: I have been researching TVs for quite a while and had decided on this one a while ago. The deal at Circuit City got me to jump on it and I am glad i did. Very easy to set up. Picture quality is great and it feels like you are at the theater when watching a movie. I was surprised how how good the speakers sound. I have a Bose 321 so I didn't care about the speakers but i actually like them.

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Get one while you can!!

Strengths: Amazing picture quality, solid Sony build, amazing value

Weaknesses: Documentation not very thorough; more "real world" solutions found online in help forums

Summary: Had been holding out on jumping onto the HDTV bandwagon for a while, largely because once I decide I want/need something I can't rest and research/shop incessantly until I'm convinced I've found the perfect item. This was no different. Once I'd heard that Sony was discontinuing rear-projection television I knew it was time to act.

RPTV has been largely forgotten since flat screens hit the market. Everyone remembers the big bulky box projectors from the 80's that looked terrible. They've come quite a long way since then, and many if not most of the professional reviewers out there consider the better RPTV's to be better than most flat screen plasma/lcd's. Granted, they lack the "sexy" form factor that flat screens have, but if you don't need to mount your TV on the wall (I didn't) you can definitely get much better value for your money than with a flat panel. It's really unfortunate that the demand for flat screens has resulted in Sony and other major manufacturers to stop production of RPTV.

This model is the second-to-last one produced by Sony (the last one is the -A3000 series.) Make sure you differentiate between these models, which feature Sony's SXRD technology (in a nutshell, their version of DLP) which is superior to the LCD projection series.

What can I say? Picture quality is amazing. Deep deep blacks out of the box, even better with a little tweaking. Can't comment on audiio as I push mine through my surrund-sound system. Looks great and holds up well to my 2 year-old's regular touching/smearing/tapping. Would have cost more than twice as much for a similar sized flat panel.

Negatives: User manual is thorough about describing the features, but it doesn't really tell you how to use them. This is pretty typical in most electronic items.

I'm a happy customer. These and the A3000 series are increasingly difficult to find as I believe Sony stopped production in 12/07. Research, see for yourself, and jump on one when you find one. You won't be sorry.

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Awesome Picture!

Strengths: Awesome Sony Quality

Weaknesses: None at this time...

Summary: We purchased this TV right before the holidays and couldn't have asked for a better picture. The HD channels we currently get off the air are remarkable, even without upgrading to digital. For the price, you can't go wrong with this 50" HDTV. Powered by Sony's Wega Engine, this is sure to last us for years and years, only minor maintenance required to change the bulb in the next 2 - 3 years.

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