How sad for those of us who actually consider picture quality ahead of styling that, with its XBR10, Sony has decided to follow Samsung in deploying side-lit LED backlighting. Visit an electronics store with a robust selection of LCD TVs and look at this year's 7-, 8-, or 9-series LED backlit models from Samsung next to Sony's now two-year old XBR8 that uses locally-dimmed LED backlighting. There's no comparison. Sony's XBR8 line (called X4500 overseas) still retains the best-looking picture of any LCD television, hands down.
Here's the folly of Sony's decision to bring the XBR10 to market outside of Asia (where lemmings still dutifully buy electronics for status over end-user experience): people willing to spend US$4000+ want to know they are getting the best image available, while people who are dazzled by slick, thin styling can find what they want for half the price from Samsung. As long as Sony continues to make their XBR8 sets available, perhaps we should read it as an admission that their newer fare is still not as good.
“An engineer explained to us that hundreds of ear impressions were gathered in the name of research, and while each one obviously boasted its own unique shape and size, one single characteristic remained uniform across the board: the entrance into the ear canal is not a perfect circle, it's an oval.”
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How sad for those of us who actually consider picture quality ahead of styling that, with its XBR10, Sony has decided to follow Samsung in deploying side-lit LED backlighting. Visit an electronics store with a robust selection of LCD TVs and look at this year's 7-, 8-, or 9-series LED backlit models from Samsung next to Sony's now two-year old XBR8 that uses locally-dimmed LED backlighting. There's no comparison. Sony's XBR8 line (called X4500 overseas) still retains the best-looking picture of any LCD television, hands down.
Here's the folly of Sony's decision to bring the XBR10 to market outside of Asia (where lemmings still dutifully buy electronics for status over end-user experience): people willing to spend US$4000+ want to know they are getting the best image available, while people who are dazzled by slick, thin styling can find what they want for half the price from Samsung. As long as Sony continues to make their XBR8 sets available, perhaps we should read it as an admission that their newer fare is still not as good.