Sony KV27V42 Standard Televisions

Sony KV27V42 Standard Televisions 

DESCRIPTION

27" Television

USER REVIEWS

Showing 41-50 of 54  
[Sep 10, 2000]
Aaron Johnson
Casual Listener

Strength:

Wonderful Picture, lots of inputs, decent sound

Weakness:

Heavy, needs anamorphic capability

I really love this TV. Blows my old 19" Zenith away.
The picture is beautiful after having been put through the Video Essentials calibration. I expected to have to do this when I bought the TV, and havn't for a second had second thoughts about returning it. As far as I am concerned Sony makes the best TV's and recievers out there.

Soon I will be getting a Sony 845 reciever to hook up the SVHS input, and we'll see what this puppy can do!

Similar Products Used:

Many

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
4
[Sep 23, 2000]
Jason
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

Price/Performance ratio is good. Previous experience with Sony TVs have been good.

Weakness:

Loud noise when turned on. Remote is not very good.

Purchased this for the following reasons:
1. Budget of $450.00.
2. Great picture for price.
3. Decent sound.
4. S-video input.
5. Could not justify the large price/size difference for a 20" Wega (plus the wegs is ugly)

Originally purchased from Crutchfield. Do yourself a favor and do NOT order TVs from Crutchfield. When I received it, the entire plastic casing was broken and I refused to accept the shipment. There was a long ordeal to get my money back from Crutchfield, but I won't get into it here. Hopefully they have fixed that process.

So my wife and I went to Circuit City, asked to look at this TV alongside any other 27". There was a nice JVC but it was much more expensive, and it did not look as good to us. So we own it. All we do is watch cable and VHS movies (DVD to come soon, but alas...). Hopefully DVDs will kick much butt on this TV, but we shall see.

I am overall satisfied with this purchase. I would recommend this product to anyone looking, but I would also recommend to save up a couple hundred more dollars and get something a little bit better and bigger...all in all a good 27" TV for the price.

Similar Products Used:

Compared to Some JVC 27" TV and Sony 20" Wega

OVERALL
RATING
3
VALUE
RATING
4
[Jun 05, 2001]
Jon Pool

Strength:

Sony ?

Weakness:

Convergence. Unless you like viewing images that are more than 1 CM off in color convergence, Stay away.

I unfortunatley did not do my homework before buying this television. I have owned the set for 22 months. I has one CRT replaced due to a convergence problem. It took three weeks to fix from an authorized Sony service center. When I got the unit back it seemed fine. But like all good things....The tube went bad again to "incapable of covergence calibration."

I would not suggest this TV to anyone...BAD BAD BAD!

OVERALL
RATING
1
VALUE
RATING
1
[Nov 25, 2000]
Eric L
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

Great Picture/Colors (after patient video adjustments ***note: I also have Digital Cable) Flattened Screen, S-Video input

Weakness:

none really for the price, except the remote is box-shaped (not so comfortable to hold, but who cares?)

This TV is great for under $400. Out of the box, the colors on the 3 PRE-SET modes of picture were all un-satisfactory (VIVID mode was too bright and annoying, MOVIE mode not too impressive either). However, after adjusting the VIDID's settings (picture, brightness, color settings), I got a great picture with incredible color. I really didn't want to spend more than $400 if I could get a quality 27" tube; I feel the money I spend monthly for Digital Cable makes up considerably on the picture quality for a tube $500-800. The features that I may be missing are not important, I'd rather go for a great picture, and sacrifce PIP (which I'd rarely use), I have a S-video splitter for more inputs. When I make my first million I'll put this in my bathroom and go for a plasma/HD TV, but until then, I have NOTHING to complain about. If you can get this for $400 or less, BUY IT instead of Panasonic, JVC, Zenith, etc which might be a little cheaper...it's worth it!

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
5
[Mar 12, 2001]
Jason
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

It's a Sony! Trinitron tube.

Weakness:

Objectionable geometry distortion, less than perfect picture quality out of the box.

I should have read all these reviews before I bought one of these. I understand that all TVs need to be calibrated since they arrive from the factory out of adjustment, but I'm an average user. I'm not really willing to pay someone $100+ to come over and adjust my set. I think TVs should look reasonable out of the box (after I tweak the contrast, brightness, color, etc.). If you're a videophile, that's different.

I have Tivo. when you access a show's information, there's a blue bar that appears accross the top of the screen. Well, on this Sony it was curved up a good quarter inch ONLY ON THE LEFT SIDE!! Really annoying. It showed up in letterbox too only in the upper left corner of the display. I played around with the service menu adjustments just to see if I could get it to iron out, and it just stayed there. If you read the rest of these posts, you'll see I'm far from the only one who's seen this issue.

So, if you're not picky about possible flaws in the geometry and you're a Sony fan, go for it. Otherwise, get a Toshiba like I did. It's not a Trinitron, but it looks far better out of the box and without the gross distortion in geometry!

Similar Products Used:

Toshiba 27A40

OVERALL
RATING
3
VALUE
RATING
3
[Jun 08, 2000]
Darren
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

Flat screen, good picture, good on-screen menu.

Weakness:

Color bleeding, sound is sometimes low.

I bought this model because of the price, and because every other piece of equip. I own is Sony. I am enjoying the set so far, except the sound can be annoying when playing video tapes, and the picture seems dark.
I like the on-screen menu and remote. The picture quality is good, especially when seeing things like fire, or outside scenes.
Haven't tried the s-video let.

Similar Products Used:

Old NEC 20"

OVERALL
RATING
4
VALUE
RATING
4
[Apr 03, 2000]
Darrell
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

Decent Picture

Weakness:

Build Quality, Price

Just bought the TV at a local Electronics Place. When I got it home hooked up my Pioneer DVD 302D and no picture!! I started Sixth Sense I had Audio but everytime the picture went black the Tv would lose the signal from the DVD! Called Sony after an hour on hold Low and Behold the Svideo jack on the TV is Bad. What crap this is! Never again!!

Similar Products Used:

RCA, Panasonic

OVERALL
RATING
1
VALUE
RATING
1
[Oct 25, 2000]
David
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

very natural looking colors, easy to callibrate

Weakness:

could use an extra svideo or component input

After doing a lot of research on the internet and visiting all the local electronics stores, I ended up buying a factory-refurbished KV-27V42 from a Sony factory outlet store. I am very happy with the set's performance. Screen geometry with the vertically flat picture is very good (though not perfect). Colors are extremely well-calibrated out of the box. Picture is not quite as vivid as some other brands (nor are blacks quite as dark), but colors are very consistent and detail is excellent. There is a "vivid" display mode that can be selected, but I've found that after some time viewing the set I actually prefer a more subdued picture.

If you only have $350 to spend and cannot get a similar deal from an outlet, I would give the Toshiba 27A40 high marks. Picture is more curved than with Sony, but geometry is quite good, as is color calibration. For more $ you can't go wrong with the V series (such as the KV-27V42), or for even more $$ the F series (wega).

Similar Products Used:

JVC AV-27150, Sony KV-27S42, Panasonic CT-27D10, Toshiba 27A40

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
4
[Feb 07, 2000]
marc
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

good picture quality, relatively flat screen, good black level

Weakness:

price

i wanted the 20" wega but for 30 dollars more (430 as opposed to 400) i decided to go with the kv27v42. i wanted an s-video input badly because i got the sony dvp-s330 dvd player for christmas. the picture quality is good though not a vibrant as a panasonic i looked at. this one seemed a bit dull in comparison but i like the flatness of the tube and the name. for these reasons i bought the set which i didn't need, really. i can't say that i can see a huge difference between this and my kv20s30 which is a 1998 sony 20" stereo tv i still have. if anyone is interested in purchasing it, then e-mail me. overall, a good set.

Similar Products Used:

other sony tv's

OVERALL
RATING
4
VALUE
RATING
4
[Apr 25, 2000]
Vern
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

Overall picture quality, flatter screen, color quality.

Weakness:

Inputs, remote, price?

I think if I had read these reviews I might have been afraid to purchase the Sony, but it would have been my loss. I have only had mine for a couple months now but I'm thrilled to death with it. I looked at a very wide range of tv's in the 27"-32" range and I couldn't find a single one that beat this on a quality-performance/price ratio. That's not saying it's perfect but I'm very happy with it and have had none of the problems mentioned. Maybe I just got lucky :-) I use a high end Sony VCR, a Toshiba 1200 DVD player, satellite, and cable as sources and all of them display beautifully with the Sony. I did have a lot of trouble adjusting some of the settings for use with different settings and I still find that I like different settings for different sources, but I can always get a great picture with any quality source. The display quality from my DVD is amazing, especially the brilliant color which is where I think the Sony really excels. Sound is ok, but I wouldn't even know how to assess t.v. sound when I'm used to listening to sound through my audio system costing 1000's of dollars. To me, if you are buying a t.v. like this it's to go in a home theater system, and the quality of the television's sound is pretty irrelevant. The only things I am somewhat disappointed with...I would like to see 2 S video inputs, something common on larger models, and I would like to see component inputs. All the inputs that are provided work well, but I would recommend high quality cable. Even the relatively low quality composite input that I use for my VCR showed a significant improvement when I went from ordinary patch cable to a Monster Interlink 400. The remote is ok, but I still find it somewhat confusing to use compared to others that I have and I pretty much just scrapped using it in favor of my universal remote. But these really are very minor points in my opinion. My recommendation is to at least not buy another t.v. without looking at this one. Just make sure the dealer has a good source and that you are given the chance to adjust the t.v. settings. When I shopped I found that the t.v.'s in stores were generally just taken out of a box and put on the shelf with no adjustments, and the source is usually pretty bad. Anyway, I'm not particularly biased towards any manufacturer as I think quality control is very poor as many here have mentioned, but I'm extremely happy with this t.v. and have no regrets using it in a very high end home theater setup.

Similar Products Used:

RCA, JVC, Toshiba, Panasonic

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
4
Showing 41-50 of 54  

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